Green Growth [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Lord Stern | Over the next few years, we have a real chance to set a path towards a low-carbon future. It is the only realistic future for growth and for overcoming world poverty. The global economic downturn is an opportunity to invest in green technology while costs are lower. Nick Stern is IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government at LSE and chairman of LSE's new Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
An Alternative to Statecraft: should diplomacy adapt to a new world environment? [Audio]
Speaker(s): His Excellency Georg Boomgaarden; Dr Mary Martin; Her Excellency Pilar Saborio | The European Union is designing a new external action service as part of the changes to foreign policy proposed under the Lisbon Treaty. This lecture examines the contemporary demands on diplomatic missions. Pilar Saborio is the ambassador of Costa Rica to the UK. Georg Boomgaarden is the ambassador of Germany to the UK. Nick Mabey is chief executive of E3G Third Generation Environmentalism. Mary Martin
The Consolations of Economics [Audio]
Speaker(s): Tim Harford | For six years, Tim Harford has been answering readers' personal problems in the pages of The Financial Times, using the latest economic research to provide advice on dating, etiquette, parenting and even personal hygiene. In a light-hearted but thoughtful lecture, Tim explains what he has learned about whether economics really can bring us personal happiness. Tim Harford is a columnist for the Financial Times, presenter of Radio 4's More or Less, and author of The Under
Bringing the Penal State Back In [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Loïc Wacquant | We need to bring the penal state back to the centre of the sociology of social inequality, public policy, and citizenship. Loïc Wacquant is professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley and Centre de Sociologie Européenne, Paris. Nicola Lacey is a professor of criminal law at LSE.
Keynes and the Crisis of Capitalism [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Lord Skidelsky | Robert Skidelsky is Emeritus Professor of Political Economy at the University of Warwick. His three-volume biography of the economist John Maynard Keynes (1983, 1992, 2000) received numerous prizes, including the Lionel Gelber Prize for International Relations and the Council on Foreign Relations Prize for International Relations. He is the author of The World After Communism (1995) (American edition called The Road from Serfdom). He was made a life peer in
How to be Humanitarian? UN Intervention in Post-Conflict Societies [Audio]
Speaker(s): Lise Grande | This lecture will examine the challenges of humanitarian intervention in post-conflict societies, focusing specifically on the experience of the UN in Southern Sudan. Lise Grande is deputy resident and humanitarian coordinator of the United Nations, Southern Sudan.
Building windmills not walls - Hungary's approach in the economic storm [Audio]
Speaker(s): Gordon Bajnai | Gordon Bajnai has been the Prime Minister of Hungary since 14 April 2009. Prior to this between 2008-2009 he was a Minister in the Ministry for National Development and Economy. Between 2007-2008 he was a Minister for the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development. Prior to this he was CEO of Wallis Rt., an investment company from 2000-2005.
China and Financial Reform [Audio]
Speaker(s): Howard Davies | Howard Davies sits on the International advisory councils of the China banking and securities regulatory commissions. In the fifth lecture of an annual series he reviews the progress of reform in china's financial markets, and the implications for the rest of the world.
Cities and the Environment [Audio]
Speaker(s): Peter Head | By changing patterns of urban behaviour, cities can meet the challenges of climate change. How can advanced technologies help create sustainable cities and self-sufficient urban form?
China - EU Relations in a Changing New World [Audio]
Speaker(s): Ambassador Ma Zhengang | The world today is undergoing tremendous development, changes and adjustments. The international community is facing increasing opportunities and challenges. The present international system and structure are not able to cope with this new situation fully and effectively, and reform is the general demand of the world people at large. Both China and UK are global actors of significant importance. How the two countries should behave in handling the situation? I
The Government of Uncertainty: how to follow the politics of oil [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Tim Mitchell | This lecture explores the politics of oil and how we can seek to understand it, at a time when uncertainty is presenting new challenges to the claims of objective knowledge. Tim Mitchell is professor of Arab studies at Columbia University, New York. Sam Ashenden is managing editor of Economy and Society and senior lecturer in Sociology, Birkbeck College.
The Cocaine Wars: The Mess We're in and How to Get Out of it [Audio]
Speaker(s): Tom Feiling | Tom Feiling analyses the thinking behind drug prohibition and how and why the strategies embarked on to date have failed so spectacularly. His critique draws on research and interviews he conducted with those with first-hand experience of cocaine and the campaign to prohibit cocaine, for his new book The Candy Machine: How Cocaine Took Over the World. He then looks at the advantages and disadvantages of the alternatives to current anti-drugs policies. Finally, he discus
Beijing Inside Out: Caochangdi [Audio]
Speaker(s): Robert Mangurian; Mary-Ann Ray | The speakers examine the problems and possibilities of one of many dynamic new urban villages redefining the city of Beijing. Robert Mangurian and Mary-Ann Ray are both Stirling Lecture Prize-winners and principals of StudioWorks Architects in Caochangdi.
Revolution 1989: what exactly happened? [Audio]
Speaker(s): Victor Sebestyen | How did the mighty Soviet empire collapse so quickly, so completely - and so peacefully? Victor Sebestyen is an author and journalist. This lecture marks the launch of his latest book, Revolution 1989: the fall of the Soviet Empire.
Predictioneer: How to predict the future with game-theory [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Bruce Bueno de Mesquita | Hailed as 'the new Nostradamus', Bruce Bueno de Mesquita has been shaking the world of political science to its foundations with his predictions of world events. His systems based on game theory have an astonishing 90%+ ratio of accuracy and are frequently used to shape US foreign-policy decisions on issues such as the terrorist threat to America to the peace process in Northern Ireland. Considered by many to be the most important foreign-policy an
Torture and Accountability: where does President Obama go from here? [Audio]
Speaker(s): Karen Greenberg; Professor Philippe Sands | Karen Greenberg and Philippe Sands discuss the issues facing the Obama Administration as it grapples with the consequences of President Bush's 'global war on terror', interrogation practises and other detainee issues, including issues of investigation and criminal liability.
A Discussion with Janet Napolitano, US Homeland Security Secretary [Audio]
Speaker(s): Janet Napolitano | Janet Napolitano is the third Secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security. Prior to becoming Secretary, Napolitano was in her second term as Governor of Arizona and was recognized as a national leader on homeland security, border security and immigration. She was the first woman to chair the National Governors Association and was named one of the top five governors in the country by Time Magazine. Napolitano was also the first female Attorney General of Ari
The Long and the Short of It [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor John Kay | It is time for the public to take control of the financial system from the people who have paid themselves so much money to lose so much of ours. John Kay is a visiting professor at LSE and columnist with the Financial Times.
Fiction and Reality: writing novels in a world weirder than anything you could make up [Audio]
Speaker(s): Daniel Johnson; Lionel Shriver | Lionel Shriver in conversation with Daniel Johnson. Daniel Johnson is editor of Standpoint. Lionel Shriver is a novelist. Her seventh novel, We Need to Talk About Kevin, won the Orange prize.
Learning How to Cite Judith Butler [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Robyn Wiegman | This lecture explores the production of critical value and competency in contemporary feminist theory. Robyn Wiegman is Professor of Women's Studies and Literature and former Director of the Women's Studies Program at Duke from 2001-2007. Her publications include American Anatomies: Theorizing Race and Gender (1995), Who Can Speak: Identity and Critical Authority (1995), Feminism Beside Itself (1995), AIDS and the National Body (1997), The Futures of America
