Re-Writing the History of the Constitution: from the miraculous to the political [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Carol Berkin | Was the US constitution the work of confident demigods and innovators or the handiwork of anxious political leaders who relied on longstanding Anglo-American political traditions to save a republican in crisis? Carol Berkin is presidential distinguished professor of history at Baruch College and The Graduate Centre, CUNY.
Crises in Democracy: constituency re-districting and gerrymandering in the UK and US [Audio]
Speaker(s): Sam Hirsch, Iain McLean | One person, one vote is a core principle of a democratic system. Electoral districting in the UK and US is far from satisfactory and seriously compromises claims to democracy.Sam Hirsch specialises in election law, voting rights, and re-districting. Iain McLean is director of the Public Policy Unit, Oxford University.
The EU at 27 - taking on a global role [Audio]
Speaker(s): Jim Murphy MP | The Minister for Europe will consider how an enlarged EU can address global challenges and how the Reform Treaty will help the EU to perform more strongly both in Europe and internationally.
The Global Company of 2020- what does the future hold? [Audio]
Speaker(s): Dominic Casserley | Dominic Casserley will discuss the challenges and opportunities facing global companies in 2020. Will they be similar to the multinational of today? If not, how will they differ? Will they have to be large? How will they relate to investors? How will they interact with consumers? How will they manage their talent pools? How will they interact with society more broadly? Drawing on his extensive experience of advising major multi-national organisations across the wo
Sleeping Beauty: Awakening the American Dream [Audio]
Speaker(s): Lord Maurice Saatchi | Americans today may be perplexed and confused about the way America is perceived in the world. They may feel like Josef K in Kafka's 'The Trial': "Someone must have laid false accusations against Josef K because one morning he was arrested without having done anything wrong." Accusations against America have spread into a global phenomenon, crossing boarders, classes, religions, and generations. A Pew Trust research poll in 2005 concluded that anti-Americanism
International Relations in a Post-Hegemonic Age [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Fred Halliday | The academic study of International Relations has, since since its emergence after World War I, sought to combine the development of theoretical frameworks with an engagement, of greater or lesser immediacy, with the changing course of international events. Empire, World War, Cold War and post-1991 US hegemony have all been objects of its concern. Today, oscillating at times uneasily between the enticements of abstraction, and the rush of actuality, the disc
Another European Tradition: traceability of the social and the vindication of Gabriel Tarde [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Bruno Latour | A rival of Durkheim, Gabriel Tarde was right to argue that the subject matter of sociology is not society but connections. The understanding of the social cannot be separated from the study of other associations.Bruno Latour is a philosopher and a sociologist and vice president for research at Sciences Po.
Stelios on Brands, Serial Entrepreneurship, the Environment and Giving Something Back! [Audio]
Speaker(s): Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou | Stelios Haji-Ioannou, LSE alumnus, is founder of the easyGroup companies and has given £2 million to LSE for the Stelios Scholars programme.
Climate Change, Energy and the Way Ahead [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Lord Nicholas Stern | The world must reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 50 per cent by 2050 with rich country cuts of at least 80 per cent. Power and transport must be essentially de-carbonised. How can the world rise to these challenges? Nicholas Stern is IG Patel Chair in Government and Economics at LSE and director of the Asia Research Centre at LSE.
Meeting the new humanitarian challenges of the 21st century [Audio]
Speaker(s): Sir John Holmes, Professor James Putzel | Emergency relief efforts face multiple challenges in the next five years: preserving 'humanitarian space' and staying independent of political/military action in places like Darfur, Iraq and Somalia; increasing effective coordination of the many humanitarian actors in the field; rising to the challenge of ever more natural disasters from the effects of climate change; and coping with the immediate consequences for the poorest of the recent st
Common Wealth: economics for a crowded planet [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Jeffrey D Sachs | Jeffrey Sachs argues the need a new economic paradigmQglobal, inclusive, cooperative, environmentally aware, and science basedQbecause we are running up against the realities of a crowded planet. The alternative is a series of cascading threats to global well-being, all of which are solvable but potentially disastrous if left unattended. Prosperity must be maintained through new strategies for sustainable development that complement market forces, spread s
Telling the Story of a Peace Movement: 50 years of CND campaigning [Audio]
Speaker(s): Aled Fisher, Kate Hudson; Bruce Kent; Walter Wolfgang | To mark CND turning 50 in 2008, the organisation is collaborating with LSE Archives on a touring exhibition, archives project and this roundtable with History Today to tell the story of the movement from the Cold War to Trident and beyond. Aled Fisher is LSESU Environment and Ethics officer. Kate Hudson is chair of CND. Bruce Kent is former chairman and honorary vice-president of CND. Walter Wolfgang is vice president of CND.
Multiculturalism and Secularism [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Tariq Modood | Can multicultural inclusivity extend to religious minorities? Can it do so without conflicting with secularism? Tariq Modood is professor of sociology, politics and public policy at Bristol University.
What is Wrong with Secularism of all Sorts? Priority for Democracy [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Veit Bader | The lecture presents a contextualised criticism of first and second order myths of secularisms and of the conflation of liberal-democratic institutions with secular ones, and argues for the priority of liberal democracy. Veit Bader holds chairs in sociology, and social and political philosophy, both at the Universiteit van Amsterdam.
Secularism and Shared Values [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Richard Norman | The global revival of religion has raised fundamental questions about its role in politics and its claim that it serves as a principle of identity, indispensable to the continuing survival of communities. This series brings together leading thinkers and scholars to encourage discussion and debate on this crucial contemporary theme.
The Two Faces of Asia: bridging the gap between high growth economies and the poor [Audio]
Speaker(s): Rajat M. Nag | Despite impressive growth over the past few decades, the Asia Pacific region is still home to two-thirds of the world's poor. In many Asian countries, the gap between rich and poor is widening and policymakers are faced with extraordinary challenges in closing this gap and spreading the benefits of growth to the most vulnerable in their societies. Rising fuel and food prices have exacerbated these inequities and placed millions more on the edge of poverty. The Managing
The International Criminal Court ten years on: An appraisal [Audio]
Speaker(s): Luis Moreno-Ocampo | The Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) was adopted in Rome on 17 July 1998 by 120 States. The first prosecutor of the ICC, Mr. Luis Moreno-Ocampo, took office on 21 April 2003. His mandate is to investigate and prosecute the most serious crimes, namely genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Economic Agendas in a Global Context: reflections on the role of Korea [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Ha-Joon Chang, Cambridge University | The global economy is going through a turbulent time and it is time for a fundamental re-design of the global economic system. In doing this, Korea has a unique set of assets to provide. It is one of the few countries that have transformed itself from one of the poorest to the one of the industrialized in living memory, so it can understand the concerns that span across a huge spectrum of countries. In this lecture, Ha-Joon Chang will d
In Sickness and In Power [Audio]
Speaker(s): Lord Owen | The course of world history has been critically shaped by the physical and mental illnesses of heads of state, sometimes in the public eye but usually in secrecy. Long fascinated with the inter-relationship between politics and medicine, David Owen uses his deep knowledge of both to undertake a unique study of illness in Heads of Government during the last 100 years. Owen expertly scrutinises such diverse political personalities as Sir Anthony Eden at the time of Suez in
Where Now For the United States After the Election? [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Michael Cox, Jessica Mathews; Bob Singh | The 2008 race for the White House has been the most exciting in recent American history. But will it make much difference to the United States and the rest of the world who wins: Obama or McCain? Michael Cox is a professor of international relations at LSE. Jessica Mathews is president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Rob Singh is a fellow of the RSA and an associate fellow of the Institute for the Study of the Ame
