Explore every episode of the podcast Spring 2013 | Public lectures and events | Audio and pdf

Contributor(s): Dr Ben S Bernanke, Olivier Blanchard, Professor Lawrence H. Summers, Axel A. Weber | Five years on, the global economy continues to come to terms with the impact of the financial crisis. This event examines the lessons that both economists and policymakers should learn in order to lessen the chance of future crises. Ben S. Bernanke was sworn in on February 1, 2006, as chairman and a member of the board of governors of the Federal Reserve System. Before his appointment as chairman, Dr. Bernanke was chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, from June 2005 to January 2006. Olivier Blanchard is economic counsellor and director, Research Department at the International Monetary Fund. After obtaining his Ph.D in economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1977, he taught at Harvard University, returning to MIT in 1982, where he has been since where he holds the post of Class of 1941 Professor of Economics. Lawrence H. Summers is President Emeritus of Harvard University. During the past two decades he has served in a series of senior policy positions, including vice president of development economics and chief economist of the World Bank, undersecretary of the Treasury for International Affairs, director of the National Economic Council for the Obama administration from 2009 to 2011, and secretary of the treasury of the United States, from 1999 to 2001. He is currently the Charles W. Eliot University Professor at Harvard University. Axel A. Weber is visiting professor of economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, former president of the Deutsche Bundesbank and current chairman of the board of UBS. Professor Sir Mervyn King is governor of the Bank of England. Before joining the Bank he was professor of economics at the LSE, and a founder of the Financial Markets Group.

Contributor(s): Professor Andrew Abbott | This lecture argues that since excess and overabundance are central phenomena of modern life, we should refound social theory on the concept of "too much of" rather than "too little of." I trace the origin of the scarcity theories that dominate our reasoning, and sketch the outlines of a social theory based on excess. Andrew Abbott is the Gustavus F and Ann M Swift Distinguished Service Professor of Sociology, Chicago University. Abbott's major research interests lie in the sociology of occupations, professions, and work, the sociology of culture and knowledge, and social theory. Abbott also has longstanding interests in methods, heuristics, and the philosophy and practice of sociology.

Contributor(s): Evgeny Morozov | Evgeny Morozov will be presenting his latest book To Save Everything, Click Here, which argues that the proliferation of sensors, big data, and social networks have given policymakers the irresistible temptation to solve problems that, perhaps, should not be solved at all - or only solved via democratic debate, not nifty technological fixes. Evgeny Morozov is the author of The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom (which was the winner of the 2012 Goldsmith Book Prize) and a contributing editor for The New Republic. Previously, he was a visiting scholar at Stanford University, a Scwhartz fellow at the New America Foundation, a Yahoo fellow at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown (where he also taught), and a fellow at the Open Society Foundations (where he also served on the board of the Information Program). Prior to moving to the US, Morozov worked as Director of New Media at Transitions Online, a media development NGO based in Prague. His monthly column on technology comes out in Slate, Corriere della Sera, El Pais, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and several other newspapers. He's also written for The New York Times, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, Times Literary Supplement, London Review of Books and other publications.

Contributor(s): Hilary Lawson, Dr Parashkev Nachev, Dr Jaime Whyte | We have seen a gradual erosion of belief in objective truth, but in a world without truth how are we to understand lies? This second event in the series debates the nature of lies and their importance. Are lies necessarily morally wrong, and what is the relationship between lies, power and individual identity? This lecture is the second of a three-part series entitled Error, Lies and Adventure, the first talk 'Beyond Truth: Error and Adventure' will take place on 4 March. Hilary Lawson is director of the Institute of Art and Ideas and the author of Closure. Parashkev Nachev is senior clinical research associate at the Institute of Neurology, UCL, and honorary clinical lecturer at Imperial College London. Jamie Whyte is a former Times columnist and Cambridge philosopher. Joanna Kavenna is an Orange Award-winning novelist. She has written for the London Review of Books and the Observer.

Contributor(s): Dr Linda Yueh | What drives China's impressive growth and will it continue? Parsing the evidence leads to some surprising conclusions and also points to needed reforms to sustain development in the coming decades. Linda Yueh is director of the China Growth Centre and fellow in economics at St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford. She is also adjunct professor of economics at the London Business School. Linda's new book is entitled China's Growth: The Making of an Economic Superpower.

Contributor(s): Dr Steffen Hertog, Professor Giacomo Luciani, Dr Marc Valeri, Dr Khalid AlMezaini | Although most Arab countries remain authoritarian, many have undergone a restructuring of state-society relations. Lower and middle class interest groups have lost ground, while big business has benefited in terms of its integration into policy-making and the opening-up of economic sectors that used to be state-dominated. Arab businesses have also started taking on aspects of public service provision in health, media and education that used to be the domain of the state, while also becoming increasingly active in philanthropy. This launch for Business Politics in the Middle East (Hurst, 2013), a volume by LSE's Dr Steffen Hertog and edited by Professor Giacomo Luciani and Dr Marc Valeri, will cover the political role of regional capitalists during and after the Arab uprisings, prospects for the emergence of a more independent bourgeoisie, economic reform and new social contracts. Dr Steffen Hertog is Senior Lecture in Comparative Politics in LSE’s Department of Government. Hertog has been researching the comparative political economy of the Gulf and Middle East for more than a decade, working with a number of local and international institutions. Professor Giacomo Luciani is Scientific Director of the Master in International Energy of the Paris School of International Affairs at Sciences-Po and a Princeton University Global Scholar attached to the Woodrow Wilson School and the Department of Near Eastern Studies. He is also a visiting professor at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva and co-director of the Executive Master in Oil and Gas Leadership. Dr Marc Valeri is Lecturer in Political Economy of the Middle East at the University of Exeter. After a Master's Degree in Comparative Politics, with speciality on Arab and Muslim worlds, he received a PhD in 2005 from Sciences Po Paris. His work dealt with nation-building and political legitimacy in the Sultanate of Oman since 1970. Dr Khalid Almezaini is an Assistant Professor at Qatar University and was previously a research fellow in the Kuwait Programme at LSE. He has taught International Relations at Cambridge, Edinburgh and Exeter universities. His research focuses on International Relations of the Middle East and the Gulf in particular.

Contributor(s): Professor Ulrich Beck, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Professor Mary Kaldor | The basic rules of European democracy are being subverted or turned into their opposite, bypassing parliaments, governments and EU institutions. Multilateralism is turning into unilateralism, equality into hegemony, sovereignty into the dependency and recognition into disrespect for the dignity of other nations. Even France, which long dominated European integration, must submit to Berlin’s strictures now that it must fear for its international credit rating. In this event, Ulrich Beck, Daniel Cohn-Bendit and Mary Kaldor discuss the current political crisis and how to reinvent democracy in Europe. Ulrich Beck is professor of Sociology at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany. His recent books include Cosmopolitan Europe (with Edgar Grande) (Polity Press 2007), World at Risk (Polity Press 2009), A God of One’s Own (Polity Press 2010), Twenty Observations on a World in Turmoil (Polity Press 2012), Distant Love (together with Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim) (Polity Press 2013) and German Europe (Polity Press 2013). Daniel Cohn-Bendit is a German politician, active also in France. He is currently co-president of the group European Greens–European Free Alliance in the European Parliament and co-chair of the Spinelli Group, a European parliament intergroup aiming at relaunching the federalist project in Europe. His latest book is For Europe (2012; with Guy Verhofstadt). Mary Kaldor is professor of Global Governance in the Department of International Development at LSE, where she directs the Human Security and Civil Society Research Unit. She has just completed a report on The Bubbling Up of Subterranean Politics in Europe based on research undertaken by seven field teams across Europe.

Contributor(s): Dr Daniel Gros, Professor Charles Goodhart, Professor Michael Haliassos | Dr Daniel Gros is director of Centre for European Policy Studies, Brussels. Professor Charles Goodhart, Emeritus Professor of Banking & Finance; director of Financial Regulation Research Programme, LSE. Professor Michael Haliassos is chair for Macroeconomics and Finance, Goethe University Frankfurt; director, Center for Financial Studies, Frankfurt.

Contributor(s): Professor Ian Goldin | The growing gap between global problems and solutions reflects a crisis in global governance. Professor Ian Goldin will present ideas from his latest book, Divided Nations: Why Global Governance is Failing and What can be done about it? Ian will focus on the financial crisis, the internet, pandemics, migration and climate change to highlight the need for urgent global action and provide proposals as to what is to be done. Professor Ian Goldin is director of the Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford. He was previously vice president and director of policy for the World Bank after serving as advisor to President Mandela and chief executive of the Development Bank of Southern Africa. He has been knighted by the French government and author of 16 books, including Globalization for Development, Exceptional People (On Migration), and his most recent Divided Nations. Born in South Africa, Goldin has a BA (Hons) and a BSc from the University of Cape Town, an MSc from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a Doctorate from the University of Oxford.

Contributor(s): Professor Anne Phillips | In this inaugural lecture, to celebrate her appointment as the Graham Wallas Professor of Political Science, Anne Phillips addresses the status of the human in politics. Is what Hannah Arendt called 'the abstract nakedness of being human' sufficient to establish principles of solidarity or equality? And can we talk of what, as humans, we have in common without thereby dismissing as irrelevancies our gender, sexuality, or 'race'? Anne Phillips is Graham Wallas Professor of Political Science in the Department of Government. She is also currently Director of the LSE Gender Institute. She joined the LSE in 1999 as Professor of Gender Theory, and was Director of the Gender Institute until September 2004. She subsequently moved to a joint appointment between the Gender Institute and Department of Government. She is a leading figure in feminist political theory, and writes on issues of bodies and property, democracy and representation, equality, multiculturalism, and difference. Much of her work can be read as challenging the narrowness of contemporary liberal theory. In 1992, she was co-winner of the American Political Science Association's Victoria Schuck Award for Best Book on Women and Politics published in 1991 (awarded for Engendering Democracy). She was awarded an honorary Doctorate from the University of Aalborg in 1999; was appointed Adjunct Professor in the Political Science Programme of the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 2002-6; and was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2003. In 2008, she received a Special Recognition Award from the Political Studies Association, UK, for her contribution to Political Studies. In 2012, she was awarded the title Graham Wallas Professor of Political Science. Simon Hix is Professor of European and Comparative Politics and Head of the Government Department at LSE.

Contributor(s): Professor Craig Calhoun | In this lecture LSE Director Professor Craig Calhoun, considers the threats, internal and external to global capitalism.

Contributor(s): Professor Cécile Laborde, Professor Tariq Modood, Professor Anne Phillips | Under the combined criticisms of feminism, secularism and nationalism, multiculturalism is repeatedly being pronounced dead. Has it really reached the end of the road and what are the alternatives? Cécile Laborde is professor of political theory at University College London. Tariq Modood is the founding director of the Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship at the University of Bristol. Anne Phillips is director of the Gender Institute and professor of political and gender theory in the LSE Gender Institute.

Contributor(s): Dr Isatou Touray | This talk discusses the efforts made by grassroots Gambian activists and community campaigns, as well as external forces, in building resistance to female genital mutilation in one of the few countries in the world where the practice remains not legally prohibited. Isatou Touray is founder and Executive Director of the Gambia Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children (GAMCOTRAP), an organisation which has campaigned for women’s and girls’ rights since the 1980s, and which has been a leader in the struggle to eliminate Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). In addition to a prolific list of publications, Dr Touray has engaged extensively with other rights organisations in The Gambia and beyond. This has included membership of the Gender Action Team for the Ratification of the African Protocol on Women’s Rights, and the Technical Advisory Body for the Policy for the Advancement of Gambian Women, and acting as Secretary General for the Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices. In recognition of her achievements, sacrifices and service to others, in 2008 Dr Touray was awarded the US Ambassadorial Prize for ‘International Woman of Courage’ and was voted ‘Gambian of the Year’, an honour bestowed previously on only two female nationals. This event is supported by the LSE Annual Fund.

Contributor(s): Professor Ali Ansari | Launching his latest book, The Politics of Nationalism in Modern Iran, Professor Ali Ansari will explore the idea of nationalism in the creation of modern Iran, considering the broader developments in national ideologies that took place following the emergence of the European Enlightenment and showing how these ideas were adopted by a non-European state. Ali Ansari is Professor in Modern History with reference to the Middle East at University of St Andrews, where he is also the founding director of the Institute for Iranian Studies.

Contributor(s): James Dawson, Kate Kingsley, Meg Rosoff | This event celebrates the culmination of the LSE/First Story creative writing competition for key stages 3, 4 and 5 and will include a prize-giving presentation, as well as a reception following the event. Trying new things can be daunting, but also inspiring. In our creative writing trying a new genre or subject, or exploring what new technology has to offer can be liberating. But is it sometimes best to stick to the classics? Find out what has inspired our panel of authors, and join in the discussion. James Dawson, author of dark teen thrillers Hollow Pike and Cruel Summer, grew up in West Yorkshire, writing imaginary episodes of Doctor Who. He later turned his talent to journalism, interviewing luminaries such as Steps and Atomic Kitten before writing a weekly serial in a Brighton newspaper. Until recently, James worked as a teacher, specialising in PSHCE and behaviour. He is most proud of his work surrounding bullying and family diversity. He now writes full time in London and is published by Indigo/Orion. Kate Kingsley is the author of Young, Loaded & Fabulous, a scandalous YA series about mean teens at British boarding school. After growing up between London and New York City, Kate started her writing career at GQ magazine. She has been published in places like The Sunday Times Magazine and the New York Times. This is her first year working with the wonderfully talented First Story students, an experience she is absolutely loving. She currently lives in East London, where she's writing her sixth book. Meg Rosoff was born in Boston, educated at Harvard and St Martin’s College of Art, and worked in New York City for ten years before moving to London permanently in 1989. She worked in publishing, politics, PR and advertising until 2004, when she wrote How I Live Now, which won the Guardian Children’s fiction prize (UK), Michael L Printz prize (US), the Die Zeit children’s book of the year (Germany) and was shortlisted for the Orange first novel award. Her second novel, Just in Case, won the 2007 Carnegie Medal. Meg’s other books include What I Was, The Bride's Farewell and There Is No Dog. This event is linked to LSE's 5th Space for Thought Literary Festival|, taking place from Tuesday 25 February - Saturday 2 March 2013, with the theme 'Branching Out'.

Contributor(s): Michael Ward | LSE London's 2013 Lent term seminar series begins on the 14th of January. Speakers from within and beyond academia will focus on many of the implications of the current economic and political environment for London, covering relevant issues such as the road pricing, UK trends in higher education, census data and localism. Presenters include academics and practitioners from relevant fields. Each seminar is chaired by one of the members of LSE London, while speaker’s presentations, available podcasts and any other related documents are posted here regularly after each session.

Contributor(s): Professor Paul Preston, Dr Daniel Beer, Professor Helen Graham, Professor Dan Stone | A discussion of the atrocities against civilians in the Spanish Civil War, the political consequences in Spain today and the parallels with Nazi and Soviet experiences. Paul Preston is Director of the LSE’s Cañada Blanch Centre and author of numerous books on Spain of which the latest is The Spanish Holocaust. Daniel Beer is Senior Lecturer in Modern European History at Royal Holloway and the author of Renovating Russia: the Human Sciences and the Fate of Liberal Modernity (Cornell, 2008). Helen Graham is Professor of History at Royal Holloway. Her most recent book is The War and its Shadow. Spain’s Civil War in Europe’s Long Twentieth Century (2012). In 2010 she was Visiting Chair in Spanish Culture and Civilisation at the King Juan Carlos Centre, New York University. Dan Stone is Professor of Modern History at Royal Holloway, University of London. His books include Histories of the Holocaust (OUP, 2010); The Oxford Handbook of Postwar European History (OUP, 2012) and The Holocaust, Fascism and Memory (Palgrave, 2013). The Cañada Blanch Centre for Contemporary Spanish Studies is located within the European Institute at the London School of Economics and Political Science and is the focus of a flourishing interest in contemporary Spain in Britain. LSE Works is a series of public lectures, that will showcase some of the latest research by LSE's Research Centres. In each session, LSE academics will present key research findings, demonstrating where appropriate the implications of their studies for public policy. A list of all the LSE Works lectures can be viewed online.

Contributor(s): Professor Peter Hall | This presentation explores the origins and consequences of the contemporary crisis of the Euro from the perspective of a varieties-of-capitalism approach to the political economy. It associates the inadequacies of the governing institutions adopted for the Euro with a set of mythologies that was blind to the presence of distinctive varieties of capitalism in Europe and locates some of the roots of the crisis in the problems associated with combining joining varieties of capitalism in a single currency. The problems encountered by the Euro lie less in the ‘asymmetrical shocks’ anticipated in 1992 and more in the ‘institutional asymmetries’ across political economies. The problems the EU has had in resolving the crisis are also linked to divergent diagnoses of the problem rooted in distinctive philosophies of governance associated again with varieties of capitalism in Europe. Peter A. Hall is Krupp Foundation Professor of European Studies, a faculty associate of the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, and co-director of the Program on Successful Societies for the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. Hall is co-editor of Successful Societies: How Institutions and Culture Affect Health (with M. Lamont), Changing France: The Politics that Markets Make (with B. Palier, P. Culpepper), Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage (with D. Soskice), The Political Power of Economic Ideas: Keynesianism across Nations, Developments in French Politics I and II (with A. Guyomarch, J. Hayward and H. Machin), European Labor in the 1980s and the author of Governing the Economy: The Politics of State Intervention in Britain and France as well as over seventy articles on European politics, public policy-making, and comparative political economy.

Contributor(s): Alexis Tsipras | Alexis Tsipras is President of Syriza-USF (Official Opposition Party, Greece). Professor Kevin Featherstone is director of the Hellenic Observatory at LSE.

Contributor(s): Professor Kishore Mahbubani | 88% of the world’s population lives outside the West and is rising to Western living standards, and sharing Western aspirations. But while the world changes, our way of managing it has not and it must evolve. In this lecture, leading policy thinker Kishore Mahbubani outlines new policies and approaches that will be necessary to govern in an increasingly interconnected and complex environment. This event marks the publication of his new book The Great Convergence: Asia, the West, and the Logic of One World. Kishore Mahbubani is the Dean and Professor in the Practice of Public Policy at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. From 1971-2004 he served in the Singapore Foreign Ministry, where he was Permanent Secretary from 1993-1998, served twice as Singapore’s Ambassador to the UN, and in 2001 and 2002 served as President of the UN Security Council. Professor Mahbubani is the author of Can Asians Think?, Beyond the Age of Innocence: Rebuilding Trust Between America and the World, and The New Asian Hemisphere: the Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East. Foreign Policy and Prospect magazines have listed him as one of the top 100 public intellectuals in the world, and in 2009 The Financial Times included him on their list of Top 50 individuals who would shape the debate on the future of capitalism. In 2010 and 2011 he was selected as one of Foreign Policy’s Top Global Thinkers.

Contributor(s): Professor David Ferris | This lecture will argue that painting, rather than retreat from the transformation of the visual image announced by photography, has now become photography’s most important interpreter. David Ferris is professor of humanities and comparative literature at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Contributor(s): Kate Bell, Duncan Bowie, Howard Reed, Zoe Williams | Seventy years ago the Beveridge Report announced the pursuit of a new settlement, one that would dramatically change the structure of Britain for the better. With this in mind, a new project from Class looks at what Beveridge's analysis of society can teach us about the Giant Evils of today and how can we use this to chart an alternative course for a welfare state - orSocial State - fit for a new settlement in 2015. This event at the London School of Economics will bring together the experts working on Class's Social State project in a panel discussion on the themes and policy suggestions proposed in this series of work. Kate Bell is child poverty coordinator of the Child Poverty Action Group. Duncan Bowie is senior lecturer in Spacial Planning at the University of Westminster. Howard Reed is director of the economic research consultancy Landman Economics. Zoe Williams is a columnist at The Guardian.

Contributor(s): Professor John Breuilly, Dr Faisal Devji, Dr Mark Hewitson | This discussion will mark the launch of The Oxford Handbook of the History of Nationalism edited by Professor John Breuilly. The Oxford Handbook of the History of Nationalism comprises thirty six essays by an international team of leading scholars, providing a global coverage of the history of nationalism in its different aspects—ideas, sentiments, and politics. Every chapter takes the form of an interpretative essay which, by a combination of thematic focus, comparison, and regional perspective, enables the reader to understand nationalism as a distinct and global historical subject. The book covers the emergence of nationalist ideas, sentiments, and cultural movements before the formation of a world of nationstates, as well as nationalist politics before and after the era of the nation-state, with chapters covering Europe, the Middle East, North-East Asia, South Asia, South-East Asia, Sub- Saharan Africa, and the Americas. Essays on everyday national sentiment and race ideas in fascism are accompanied by chapters on nationalist movements opposed to existing nation-states, nationalism and international relations, and the role of external intervention into nationalist disputes within states. In addition, the book looks at the major challenges to nationalism: international socialism, religion, pan-nationalism, and globalization, before a final section considering how historians have approached the subject of nationalism. John Breuilly is professor of nationalism and ethnicity at LSE. Dr Faisal Devji is reader in Indian History, St. Antony's College, University of Oxford. Dr Mark Hewitson is senior lecturer in German History and Politics in the Department of German at University College London.

Contributor(s): Dr Duvvuri Subbarao | This lecture is in honour of Dr Indraprastha Gordhanbhai (IG) Patel who was the ninth director of LSE from 1984 to 1990. Over the five years through 2003-08 leading up to the global financial crisis, India clocked an average annual growth of 8.7 per cent on the back of wide ranging structural and policy reforms and growing integration with the global economy. By the year 2008, India was the fourth largest economy in the world in purchasing power parity terms. For a nation that once believed that the ‘Hindu rate of growth’ was its destiny, this remarkable growth performance became a trigger for setting off aspirations for double-digit growth. Those aspirations have moderated significantly with growth moderating below trend in the post-crisis period owing to the impact of the global downturn as also a host of domestic policy and operational bottlenecks. The post-crisis period has also been characterized by a large fiscal deficit, historically high current account deficit and inflation persisting above the comfort level. Macroeconomic management during this period has had to contend with balancing between stimulating growth and reining in inflation, dealing with the short-term pressures in external sector without compromising long-term sustainability and returning to a path of fiscal responsibility. Dr Subbarao, governor of the Reserve Bank of India will reflect on these challenges from the Reserve Bank perspective and illustrate the dilemmas encountered in making policy choices. Dr Duvvuri Subbarao assumed office as the twenty-second governor of the Reserve Bank of India on 5 September 2008. Prior to this appointment, Dr Subbarao served as finance secretary to the Government of India from April 2007 to September 2008 and as secretary to the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council from March 2005 to March 2007, and was a lead economist in the World Bank (1999 - 2004). Dr Subbarao came into the Reserve Bank just a week before the global financial crisis erupted in full in mid-September 2008. He led the Reserve Bank’s effort to mitigate the impact of the crisis on India and was actively engaged in the G-20 effort to coordinate an international response to the crisis.

Contributor(s): Professor Jeffrey D Sachs | The world has agreed to adopt Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to guide global development after 2015. Professor Jeffrey Sachs will discuss the choice of SDGs and a policy and normative framework to achieve them. Jeffrey D. Sachs is a world-renowned professor of economics, leader in sustainable development, senior UN advisor, bestselling author, and syndicated columnist whose monthly newspaper columns appear in more than 80 countries. He has twice been named among Time magazine's 100 most influential world leaders. He was called by the New York Times, "probably the most important economist in the world," and by Time magazine "the world's best known economist." A recent survey by The Economist magazine ranked Professor Sachs as among the world's three most influential living economists of the past decade. Professor Sachs serves as the director of The Earth Institute, Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development, and professor of health policy and management at Columbia University. He is special advisor to United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon on the Millennium Development Goals, having held the same position under former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan. He is co-founder and chief strategist of Millennium Promise Alliance, and is director of the Millennium Villages Project. He has authored three New York Times bestsellers in the past seven years: The End of Poverty (2005), Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet (2008), and The Price of Civilization (2011).

Contributor(s): Professor A. John Simmons | Modern states claim a wide variety of rights of control over particular geographical territories. These claims, however, are regularly disputed, often leading to violence. This fact makes practically pressing the questions, to be explored in these lectures, of how and to what extent such territorial claims by states can be justified. A. John Simmons (Ph.D., Cornell) is Commonwealth Professor of Philosophy, and professor of Law; editor, Philosophy and Public Affairs; Editorial Board member, Social Theory and Practice. He specialises in political philosophy, ethics, history of moral and political theory, and philosophy of law. This is the second in a series of two lectures by Professor Simmons, the first, States and their Territories: Boundaries of Authority, takes place on Monday 11 March.

Contributor(s): Professor Anne Applebaum | The nations of the region we called “Eastern Europe” were once closely linked, so much so that West Europeans had trouble distinguishing them. But since 1989 they have made different choices and taken different paths. Are there lessons which can be learned from the East European experience of reform? Professor Anne Applebaum is the Philippe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs for the 2012-2013 academic year.

Contributor(s): Hugh Segal | Senator Hugh Segal, Canada's Special Envoy to the Commonwealth, will speak about Commonwealth reform and the role it can play in helping its members strengthen Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law. Senator Hugh Segal was appointed Canada's Special Envoy to the Commonwealth in 2011. This followed upon his service as a member of the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group (2010-2011) which produced 106 recommendations for Commonwealth renewal for the 21st century. Senator Segal is a former Chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and he now chairs the Anti-Terrorism Committee of the Senate. He is a former president of the Institute for Research on Public Policy, chief of staff to a Prime Minister of Canada and Associate Cabinet Secretary in Ontario.

Contributor(s): Professor Etienne Balibar | Etienne Balibar is Anniversary Chair in Modern European Philosophy at Kingston University and emeritus professor of moral and political philosophy at the University of Paris 10 Nanterre.

Contributor(s): Dr Jon Danielsson, Professor Charles Goodhart, Matt King | The first public event of the ESRC Systemic Risk Centre at LSE will debate whether the post crisis reforms of financial regulations will be effective in protecting us from financial excesses, or may perversely destabilise the financial system. The panel of experts will debate the topic and take questions from the audience. Jon Danielsson is the director of the Systemic Risk Centre at LSE. His research interests include financial stability, systemic risk, extreme market movements, market liquidity and financial crisis. He has published his research extensively in both academic journals and the mainstream media, and has presented his work at a number of universities and institutions. Charles Goodhart is emeritus professor of Banking and Finance with the Financial Markets Group at LSE, having previously, 1987-2005, been its deputy director. Until his retirement in 2002, he had been the Norman Sosnow Professor of Banking and Finance at LSE since 1985. Before then, he had worked at the Bank of England for seventeen years as a monetary adviser, becoming a chief adviser in 1980. In 1997 he was appointed one of the outside independent members of the Bank of England's new Monetary Policy Committee until May 2000. Earlier he had taught at Cambridge and LSE. Besides numerous articles, he has written a couple of books on monetary history; a graduate monetary textbook, Money, Information and Uncertainty (2nd Ed. 1989); two collections of papers on monetary policy, Monetary Theory and Practice (1984) and The Central Bank and The Financial System (1995); and a number of books and articles on Financial Stability, on which subject he was adviser to the Governor of the Bank of England, 2002-2004, and numerous other studies relating to financial markets and to monetary policy and history. His latest books include The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision: A History of the Early Years, 1974-1997, (2011), and The Regulatory Response to the Financial Crisis, (2009). Matt King is managing director and global head of Credit Products Strategy at Citi. His team is responsible for forming views and advising clients on the full spectrum of credit, across high grade, high yield, leveraged loan, structured, emerging and municipal bond markets. While the majority of clients are investors, he also deals frequently with issuers and regulators on everything from market direction to valuation to risk management. Matt King is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and has published extensively on credit markets over the past two decades. Some of his most widely referenced pieces include Are the brokers broken? (published two weeks before Lehman’s bankruptcy), Buy the bubbles, sell the bath, and How much debt is too much debt? Prior to joining Citi in 2003, Mr King was head of European Credit Strategy at JPMorgan. He is British, and a graduate of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he read Social & Political Sciences.

Contributor(s): Stuart Basten, Carlos Cavalle, Wolfgang Lutz, Catherine Hakim, John Parker, Eric Kaufmann | This panel explores the impact of declining fertility in western countries and East Asia - especially the social effects which have largely been ignored. The panel will also launch the publication of a new book, Whither the Child: Causes and Consequences of Low Fertility (Paradigm Publishers 2013). Stuart Basten is ESRC Fellow in Demography and Social Policy at Oxford University. Carlos Cavalle is the Director, Social Trends Institute. Wolfgang Lutz is Professor, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). Catherine Hakim is Professor, Centre for Policy Studies. John Parker is the Globalisation Editor, Economist Magazine. Eric Kaufmann is Professor, Birkbeck, University of London.

Contributor(s): Professor A. John Simmons | Modern states claim a wide variety of rights of control over particular geographical territories. These claims, however, are regularly disputed, often leading to violence. This fact makes practically pressing the questions, to be explored in these lectures, of how and to what extent such territorial claims by states can be justified. A. John Simmons (Ph.D., Cornell) is Commonwealth Professor of Philosophy, and professor of Law; editor, Philosophy and Public Affairs; Editorial Board member, Social Theory and Practice. He specialises in political philosophy, ethics, history of moral and political theory, and philosophy of law.

Contributor(s): Professor Roland Dannreuther | When there are shifts in distribution of power in international politics, energy security emerges as a salient concern. Professor Dannreuther will consider the implications of two shifts: first, the flow of energy from east to west (oil and gas) and the increasing links between Asia and energy-producing regions; and secondly, the flow from consumers of energy to producers of energy with the rise of resource nationalism. Professor Dannreuther joined the University of Westminster in September 2009 as head of the Department of Politics and International Relations and Professor of International Relations. He is also an International Fellow at the Department of International Relations, Tbilisi State University, Georgia.

Contributor(s): Professor Clare Hemmings | This paper charts the significance of Emma Goldman's revolutionary thought for a contemporary analysis of sexuality, gender and revolt. Throughout her life (1869-1940) and work Goldman centred sexuality as both key to how capitalism functions (particularly for women) and as a privileged site for political transformation. Connecting sexuality to labour, Goldman's analyses of reproduction, prostitution, homosexuality and free love provide a helpful challenge to contemporary feminist investments in materialist and cultural analyses as opposed, and open up the possibility of an alternative feminist history with sexual materialism at its heart. But in claiming Goldman's thinking for a post-Marxist queer and feminist politics, what do we need to ignore in her thought? What does serious consideration of the sexual (but not gendered) essentialism that grounds Goldman's thought do to a contemporary vision of feminist transformation? Drawing on primary materials and a creative re-reading of archival fragments, I suggest that Goldman's sexual politics allows for a reinvigorated feminist method (as well as politics) with a real connection to others at its heart. Clare Hemmings is Professor of Feminist Theory and has been working at LSE for 13 years. Her primary areas of research interest are feminist theory and sexuality studies, and her main publications in these spheres are Bisexual Spaces (Routledge 2002) and Why Stories Matter (2011), for which she won the 2012 Feminist and Women's Studies Association Book Prize.

Contributor(s): Chris Brown | LSE London's 2013 Lent term seminar series begins on the 14th of January. Speakers from within and beyond academia will focus on many of the implications of the current economic and political environment for London, covering relevant issues such as the road pricing, UK trends in higher education, census data and localism. Presenters include academics and practitioners from relevant fields.

Contributor(s): Enda Kenny | Enda Kenny is Taoiseach (Prime Minister) of Ireland, a position he has held since March 2011. He has been the Leader of Fine Gael since June 2002 and has represented the people of Mayo as a Fine Gael member of Dáil Éireann since 1975. He served as Minister for Tourism and Trade from 1994 - 1997. He was also Vice-President of the European People’s Party from 2006-2012.

Contributor(s): Dr Ama de Graft Aikins, Dr Gora Mboup, Professor Vanessa Watson | Notwithstanding improvements, urban health in Africa remains a particular challenge, with 70 per cent of urban dwellers living in informal settlements, facing multiple disease burdens. How might we move towards healthy African cities? Ama de Graft Aikins is a visiting fellow at LSE Health and senior lecturer at the Regional Institute for Population Studies, University of Ghana. Gora Mboup is a senior demographic and health expert and the chief of the Global Urban Observatory of UN-HABITAT. Vanessa Watson is professor and deputy dean of the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment at the University of Cape Town.

Contributor(s): Louise de Sousa, Elda Moreno, Pragna Patel | The Istanbul Convention is the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence. It is the first legally binding instrument in Europe and in terms of scope the most advanced treaty in the world creating a comprehensive legal framework to prevent violence, to protect victims and to end the impunity of perpetrators. It defines and criminalises various forms of violence against women (including forced marriage, female genital mutilation, stalking, physical and psychological violence and sexual violence). It also foresees the establishment of an international group of independent experts to monitor its implementation at national level. Louise de Sousa is Head of Human Rights and Democracy Department at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Elda Moreno is Head of Gender Equality and Human Dignity Department and Directorate General of Human Rights and Rule of Law at the Council of Europe. Pragna Patel is the founding member of Southall Black Sisters.

Contributor(s): Professor Dr Ahmet Davutoglu | Professor Dr Ahmet Davutoglu is Minister of Foreign Affairs of the 60th Government of the Republic of Turkey, a position he has held since 2009. He was born on February 26th, 1959 in Konya and completed his secondary education at the Istanbul High School. In 1983 he graduated from the Bosphorus University with a double major in Political Science and Economics at the Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences. He completed his MA in the Department of Public Administration and received his PhD from the Department of Political Science and International Relations, Bosporus University. In 1990 he became an Assistant Professor at the International Islamic University of Malaysia where he established and chaired the Political Science Department until 1993. In 1993, he became an Associate Professor. Between 1995 and 1999 he has worked at Marmara University, teaching at the Institute for Middle Eastern Studies, the Institute for Insurance and Banking, at the Doctoral Program on Local Administrations and Political Science Department. Between 1998 and 2002 he was a visiting lecturer at the Military Academy and the War Academy. Following the November 2002 elections he was appointed as Chief Adviser to the Prime Minister and Ambassador at large by the 58th Government of the Republic of Turkey. He continued to serve in the 59th and 60th Governments. He worked at Beykent University in Istanbul as a professor from 1995 to 2004, serving as Head of the Department of International Relations, Member of University Senate and Member of Board of Management while teaching as a visiting scholar at the Marmara University. Professor Davutoglu published several books and articles on foreign policy in Turkish and English. His books and articles have also been translated into several languages including Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Arabic, Persian and Albanian. Professor Sevket Pamuk is LSE Chair in Contemporary Turkish Studies.

Contributor(s): Mark Hoban | Presented by British Government @ LSE and LSE Civil Service and Public Policy Alumni Group.

Contributor(s): Dr Gareth Jones, Juan Sebastian Lama, Gloria Morrison, Dr Austin Zeiderman | This panel event is a student-led initiative, full title 'Urban Controversies: how controversies shape our cities,' with speakers Dr Gareth Jones (Reader, LSE Urban Geography), Juan Sebastian Lama (architect, PUC Chile and MSc City Design student), Gloria Morrison (Campaigning Coordinator, JENGbA) and Dr Austin Zeiderman (LSE Cities Research Fellow), talking about natural and man-made disasters and their aftermath in Columbia, Chile and London.

Contributor(s): Paul Collier | How to Harness Natural Resource Wealth for Accelerated Development.

Contributor(s): Baroness Williams | Shirley Williams is a former Labour cabinet minister and one of the Gang Of Four who left Labour to start the Social Democrats.

Contributor(s): Alain Juppé | At this time of mistrust towards the European Union, Alain Juppé reiterates his strong beliefs and his faith in Europe's future. A plea by a French statesman who has always been committed to the European enterprise. Alain Juppé was President of the political party Union for a Popular Movement from 2002 to 2004. He served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2011 to 2012. He also served as Prime Minister of France from 1995 to 1997 under President Jacques Chirac and the Minister of Defence and Veterans Affairs from 2010 to 2011. He had previously served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1993 to 1995, and as Minister of the Budget and Spokesman for the Government from 1986 to 1988.

Contributor(s): Pablo Fernandez, Carlos Lopez, Miguel Klingenberg | The recent expropriation of Repsol by the Argentine government raises important legal, diplomatic and policy issues that put into question the current system of international investment protection. This seminar invites to debate on this issues from the investor's perspective. Pablo Fernández is Professor of Finance at the IESE Business School, Madrid. Carlos López Jall is the Director of International Organizations and European Affairs of Repsol S.A. Miguel Klingenberg is the Deputy Secretary General of Repsol S.A. Jan Kleinheisterkamp is Senior Lecturer of Law at LSE.

Contributor(s): Hilary Lawson | Philosophers have pursued truth, and many have placed truth at the centre of their account of meaning. But might this be a mistake? Could error be at the heart of language, and adventure, rather than truth, be the matter in hand? In the first of three events on the theme, Hilary Lawson argues for a radical reappraisal of the importance of error. This lecture is the first of a three-part series entitled Error, Lies and Adventure, the second talk 'The Power of Lies' will take place on 21 March. Hilary Lawson is director of the Institute of Art and Ideas, a non-realist philosopher and the author of Closure.

Contributor(s): Dr Hazem Kandil | Cambridge University's Dr Hazem Kandil will help explain why Egypt's popular uprising has so far failed to overthrow the regime through exploring the positions of the main players in the revolt: the military, security, and the various political factions. Kandil's latest book, Soldiers, Spies and Statesmen: Egypt's Road to Revolt, (Verso, 2012) analyses Egypt’s transformation from military regime to police state, on the road to revolution. Hazem Kandil is the Cambridge University Lecturer in Political Sociology and Fellow of St Catharine’s College. His work examines military-security institutions and revolutionary movements. He has published on revolution, warfare, the sociology of intellectuals, and Islamism in various academic journals and periodicals. Kandil has taught political science at the American University of Cairo and social theory at UCLA before settling at the Sociology Department at Cambridge University.

Contributor(s): Baljit Bains | LSE London's 2013 Lent term seminar series begins on the 14th of January. Speakers from within and beyond academia will focus on many of the implications of the current economic and political environment for London, covering relevant issues such as the road pricing, UK trends in higher education, census data and localism. Presenters include academics and practitioners from relevant fields.

Contributor(s): Miranda Glover, Charles Leadbeater, Sam Riviere | Some people have been struck by the aphoristic potential of Twitter. Others see developments in new media as bringing the era of the literature to an end. This panel will explore the way new media impacts on traditional literary and philosophical forms of writing and reading. One question is about the *threat* of new media to classical literacy: fragmentation and overload in new media leading to the withering away of traditional literary, philosophical and poetic forms. Another question is about the *chance* that new media offers for new forms of cultural literacy: where everyone can become a reader and a writer. Miranda Glover is group account director for FMI Group, she specialises in brand positioning, strategic digital comms, film and social media marketing, heading up accounts including LG Mobile, Global and EHQ. She’s previously worked for international agencies with Motorola, Sony PlayStation, Lastminute.com, Unilever and others. She has published three novels with Random House, Meanwhile Street (2009) Soulmates (2007) and Masterpiece (2005), which was shortlisted for the Pendleton May first novel award and translated into seven languages. Charles Leadbeater is a leading authority on innovation and creativity, and author of We:think: the power of mass creativity, which charts the rise of mass, participative approaches to innovation from science and open source software, to computer games and political campaigning. Sam Riviere's poems have appeared in various publications and competitions since 2005. He co-edits the anthology series Stop Sharpening Your Knives and his debut collection 81 Austerities is published by Faber & Faber. He is currently working towards a PhD at the University of East Anglia. He was a recipient of a 2009 Eric Gregory Award. Simon Glendinning is director of the Forum for European Philosophy. This event forms part of LSE's 5th Space for Thought Literary Festival|, taking place from Tuesday 26 February - Saturday 2 March 2013, with the theme 'Branching Out'.

Contributor(s): Ben Galley, Claire Squires, Damon Zucca | New technologies have the potential to revolutionise how publishing works. And the benefits for authors of faster and more accessible opportunities are obvious. But the death of books has long been predicted but has not yet come to pass. This session will look at the prospects for the future of academic and traditional publishing in the digital age. The session will examine the current state of play in digital publishing, how readers’ views are being heard and how the publishing world may change over the next decade. Ben Galley is an author and indie publisher. He will look at will look at what technology offers for both writing and publishing. Claire Squires is director of the Stirling Centre for International Publishing and Communication at the University of Stirling. She researches the history of the book and publishing in the 20th and 21st centuries and is director for Publications and Awards for the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing. Damon Zucca is publisher of Scholarly and Online Reference at Oxford University Press, where he oversees the planning and development of a range of print and digital publishing initiatives, including Oxford Biblical Studies, Oxford Bibliographies, and Oxford Handbooks Online. He has been working in scholarly book publishing for fifteen years as an editor at Garland Publishing, Routledge, and Peter Lang before coming to OUP. Jonathan Derbyshire is culture editor of the New Statesman. His literary journalism has also appeared in a number of newspapers and magazines, including the Financial Times, the Guardian, Literary Review, Prospect and the Times Literary Supplement. This event forms part of LSE's 5th Space for Thought Literary Festival, taking place from Tuesday 26 February - Saturday 2 March 2013, with the theme 'Branching Out'.