Getting fiscal consolidation right: Lessons from Sweden [Audio]
Speaker(s): Anders Borg | Faced with a record deficit and an accelerating debt, the UK will have to embark on a process of massive fiscal consolidation in order to bring public finances back to sustainability. How is this best done and what lessons can be learned from the Swedish experience of fiscal consolidation in the 1990s? Anders Borg is Minister for Finance in Sweden and has chaired the ECOFIN Council during the 2009 Swedish EU Presidency. He has previously worked as an advisor on monetary
Crisis as Motivation? The Challenges of Sustaining Growth in Southeast Asia [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Richard Doner | Can the dynamic, export-oriented economies of Southeast Asia sustain their growth in light of the global economic crisis? Professor Doner will consider the questions economists typically overlook. Richard Doner is professor of political science at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia
Beyond the "Berlusconi Common Sense". A New Model of Politics for the 21st Century [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Paolo Mancini | Mostly outside Italy, there is a widespread common sense about Berlusconi and his political adventure: he has been able to enter successfully the political arena because of his television empire and because of his unclear links with illegal groups and business. This interpretation is undoubtedly true but it is also a limited one as it is not able to point out all the novelties that Berlusconi may represent. Indeed, the paper argues that the political adventu
Risk, ethics and public sensitivities [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor George Gaskell | In this lunchtime series of lectures, a selection of LSE's academics from across the spectrum of the social sciences explain the latest thinking on how social scientists work to address the critical problems of the day. They survey the leading ideas and contributions made by their discipline, explain the types of problems that are addressed and the tools that are used, and explore the kinds of solutions proposed.
Doldrums to Downing Street? The Conservative Party's long journey from opposition to the brink of of
Speaker(s): Tim Bale | Why did the world's oldest and most successful political party dump Margaret Thatcher only to commit electoral suicide under John Major? Just as importantly, what stopped the Tories getting their act together until David Cameron came along? The answers, Tim Bale shows, are as provocative as the questions.
LSE Literary Festival - Literature and the Academic: Literature as a resource for other disciplines
Speaker(s): Richard Bronk, Professor Margot Finn, Dr Neil Vickers | The session examines how the reading of literature can expand the analytical imagination, provide alternative metaphors and supply vital empirical evidence. Three academics from very different disciplines discuss ways in which literature can be invaluable to the broader research community.
LSE Literary Festival - Sociology as Literature [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Richard Sennett | Richard Sennett's award winning Sociology of Literature explores the role of narrative in social research and in writing sociology.
LSE Literary Festival - Speaking of Love [Audio]
Speaker(s): AS Byatt, Ben Okri, Helen Simpson, Colin Thubron | Four very different writers consider four very different aspects of love: love as enchantment, and love as madness; passion in youth, and compassion in age. They read their favourite passages on love both from their own work, and from the work of others, and, on Valentine's eve, discuss Shakespeare's notion that 'The lunatic, the lover and the poet are of imagination all compact'.
How rich are the baby boomers and how poor are their children? [Audio]
Speaker(s): David Willetts MP | David Willetts will analyse the distribution of income and wealth between different generations in Britain. He will investigate why the baby boomer generation have done particularly well for both income and wealth. He will then look at why the younger generation face much less favourable economic circumstances. Drawing on his new book The Pinch he will firmly place the issue of fairness between the generations on the political agenda.
This Sporting Planet: global sport and global capitalism [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor David Goldblatt | Globalisation has seen sport achieve a hitherto unequalled global cultural significance, but it has also left it in thrall to capitalism. Will economic forces continue to shape sport? David Goldblatt is a writer, broadcaster and teacher. He is author of The Ball is Round: a global history of football.
Does the Electric Car have the Juice? [Audio]
Speaker(s): Len Curran, Andrew Heiron | Fierce price competition, painstaking cost-cutting, and widespread volatility is making life in the auto industry incredibly challenging. How has Renault adapted, and where does it see the auto industry heading? As a fledgling technology (and one of the great hopes for reducing global carbon emissions) can any electric car concept overcome such an inhospitable environment? Renault Group Commercial Director Len Curran and Electric Vehicles chief Andrew Heir
Hamlet Without the Prince of Denmark: how development has disappeared from today's 'development' dis
Speaker(s): Professor Ha-Joon Chang | Ha-Joon Chang is a reader in the political economy of development at Cambridge University. This event is supported by the LSE Annual Fund.
Geopolitics and Imperialism: the British Empire and Halford Mackinder 1890-1940 [Audio]
Speaker(s): Dr John Darwin | It was perhaps no coincidence that Halford Mackinder, the most famous exponent of geopolitical theory, wrote his seminal essay in 1904 when British world power seemed on the verge of a secular crisis. This lecture examines how far the insights contained in Mackinder's four major works explain the geopolitical fortunes of the British world system in its age of blood and iron.
Risk versus responsibility in the regulation of the company [Audio]
Speaker(s): Dr David Kershaw | In this lunchtime series of lectures, a selection of LSE's academics from across the spectrum of the social sciences explain the latest thinking on how social scientists work to address the critical problems of the day. They survey the leading ideas and contributions made by their discipline, explain the types of problems that are addressed and the tools that are used, and explore the kinds of solutions proposed.
Independent Prosecutors and Democratic Accountability [Audio]
Speaker(s): Sir Ken MacDonald QC | Public prosecutors must be free from political influence to command confidence. But if they are not answerable to politicians, how are they accountable to the public for their work?
Phoenix Cities - surviving financial, social and environmental turmoil in Europe and the US [Audio]
Speaker(s): Lord Richard Rogers, Bruce Katz, Professor Anne Power, Julia Unwin | This discussion will debate the issues arising from a new book Phoenix Cities which examines seven cities from very different regions of the EU, comparing them with the US experience. Their dramatic decline, intense recovery efforts and actual progress on the ground underline the significance of public underpinning in times of crisis. Innovative enterprises, new-style city leadership, special neighbourhood programme
Europe as a Global Actor? A Conversation with Javier Solana [Audio]
Speaker(s): Javier Solana | After ten years of serving as EU High Representative for CFSP, Javier Solana reflects on the achievements and challenges ahead for Europe as a global security actor with Professor Mary Kaldor. Javier Solana is a Senior Visiting Professor at the LSE Global Governance. He was formerly the Secretary General of the Council of the EU and EU High Representative for CSFP (October 1999 - December 2009). Prior to that, he was the Secretary General of NATO from 1995 - 1999. He
The Future of Cities in Britain: a pre-election debate [Audio]
Speaker(s): Tessa Jowell, Lord McNally, Bob Neill | This public debate asks the country's leading parties what their policies are on making Britain's towns and cities more liveable and sustainable. What do their parties' manifestos offer on the built environment, urban development and quality of life? How will the inevitable conflicts between reduction in public expenditure and the need to invest in our urban infrastructure be resolved? What role can British cities play in leading the revolution
The Coming Global Monetary (Dis)Order [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Benjamin Cohen | "After the Great Recession, the global monetary system is in turmoil. Can order be restored?"
Awakening Giants, Feet of Clay: assessing the economic rise of China and India [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Pranab Bardhan | Professor Pranab Bardhan will deliver two lectures on the evening of 4 and 5 May. In this first lecture he will give a broad critical overview of the main achievements and failures in the two giant economies.
