Swords and Ploughshares [Audio]
Speaker(s): Lord Paddy Ashdown | In this lecture Lord Paddy Ashdown discusses his new book - Swords and Ploughshares: Bringing Peace to the 21st Century. There have been 15 UN-led interventions since 1946, and there are at least 74 wars in progress today. From his perspective as a former Royal Marine officer in the 1960s to the High Representative in Bosnia from 2002-6, Lord Ashdown discusses the successes and failures of peace-keeping operations, questions what lessons have been learned - and w
American Policy Toward Israel: the power and limits of beliefs [Audio]
Speaker(s): Dr Michael Thomas | Most scholars explain America's nearly unconditional support of Israel either as a result of inordinate influence by a small pro-Israel lobby or as the product of strategic choices by presidents. Studies of the Reagan and first Bush administrations demonstrate a more useful way to understand American policy and to predict when it might change. That method involves analysing how policy advocates redefine, institutionally embed, and enforce versions of long-standing
Global Warming and the Political Economy of Cities [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Saskia Sassen | Global warming will fundamentally alter the political economy of cities. A large number of cities will be in the front line of the most massive onslaughts of these changes. What do engineers and architects already know about how we can adjust our built environments? And how can ecological economists help to take us beyond the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change? Saskia Sassen is Centennial Professor at LSE and Professor, Committee on Global Thoug
Sustaining Growth and promoting inclusion in India's Economy and Society [Audio]
Speaker(s): Sir Nicholas Stern | Professor Stuart Corbridge is head of the Development Studies Institute, LSE. Mr Anwar Hasan, is managing director of Tata Ltd.UK. Professor S Parasuraman is Director of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. Professor Sir Nicholas Stern is the IG Patel Professor of Economics & Government and director of the Asia Research Centre at LSE.
Can we still trust TV? [Audio]
Speaker(s): Mark Stephens | Telly has had a torrid 2007. Under fire for fake competitions, phones ins that are scams and documentaries that are 'fakes' public trust has plummeted and the audience relationship sorely tested. Join us as we put TV on Trial.
Cornered in the Centre: aid and development in a rough neighbourhood [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor John Gray | In his lecture Toby Lanzer looks at the challenges of kick starting and managing a humanitarian and development campaign for one of the world's forgotten crises, that of the Central African Republic.
Marking a New Era for Equality and Human Rights in Britain [Audio]
Speaker(s): Baroness Jane Campbell DBE, Francesca Klug OBE; Trevor Phillips | The new Equality and Human Rights Commission has just started its work in Britain. Its goal is to be an 'independent influential champion whose purpose is to reduce inequality, eliminate discrimination, strengthen good relations between people and protect human rights.' Its remit reaches the whole community, seeking to secure equality of respect for all, and it also plans to take 'an active role in helping to achieve c
Migration and Social Transformation [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Stephen Castles | Growing interest in migration research reflects the politicisation of international migration but this could lead to policy-driven research, cut off from critical analysis. Stephen Castles is professor of migration and refugee studies, and director of the international migration institute at the University of Oxford.
The Future of Broadcasting - Public Service in a Digital Age [Audio]
Speaker(s): Ed Richards, Damian Tambini | The countdown to the end of British public service broadcasting has begun. In 2012 analogue is switched off as the digital competition threatens to shatter the status quo. Is this a cultural disaster in the making or an opportunity to create a more open and creative broadcast media?
Children's Media: More Harm than Good? [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Sonia Livingstone | Public policy is scrutinising potential media harms, given rapid expansion of the internet, fears over 'toxic' childhood, and pressing dilemmas for media regulation. But is the media the problem or the solution?
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
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.
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.
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 Prospect of Democratisation in Afghanistan [Audio]
Speaker(s): Dr Rangin Dadfar Spanta | Dr. Rangin Dadfar Spanta is Minister of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan, a position he has held since May 2006. Foreign Minister Spanta earned a Master degree in Political Sciences, Sociology and International Relations and a PhD degree from Aachen University in Political Sciences where he also taught as a professor from 1992 to 2005. In January 2005, Dr. Spanta returned to teach at Kabul University, and later became the advisor on foreign affairs to Presiden
Designing Policies for Growth - 20 January 2009 [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Philippe Aghion | In Tuesday's lecture Professor Aghion will discuss how policies inducing directed technical change can be designed to maximise sustainable growth. Philippe Aghion is Robert C Waggoner Professor of Economics, Harvard University.
The Incompatibility of Science and Religion [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor John Worrall | Richard Dawkins and others claim that science and religion are incompatible. Others argue that on a more sophisticated view there is only the appearance of a clash. Who is right? John Worrall is professor of philosophy of science at LSE.
The Shifting Distribution of World Economic Activity: China and global imbalance [Audio]
Speaker(s): Professor Danny Quah | China has, single-handedly, brought more people out of poverty than the rest of the world combined, and faster than anywhere else has been able to achieve. How can this continue? Danny Quah is professor of economics and head of the Department of Economics at LSE.
