LSE: Public lectures and events
1,444 episodes - English - Latest episode: 5 days ago - ★★★★ - 256 ratingsThe London School of Economics and Political Science public events podcast series is a platform for thought, ideas and lively debate where you can hear from some of the world's leading thinkers. Listen to more than 200 new episodes every year.
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Episodes
The future-proof career: strategies for thriving at every stage
April 23, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 83.7 MBContributor(s): Isabel Berwick, Dr Grace Lordan | Dr Grace Lordan discusses hybrid work, workplace equality, and today’s evolving workplace with the host of Financial Times’ Working It podcast, Isabel Berwick at the launch of her new book, The Future-Proof Career.
Approximation is the new optimal
April 15, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 89.5 MBContributor(s): Professor Michal Feldman | The internet has become a huge computational platform for many heterogeneous, complex markets. These complex markets require the design of fast algorithms that take into account the economic, game theoretic, and computational considerations in a unified way. In this talk, Michal Feldman will discuss some of the challenges and opportunities that arise in this domain, through the lens of approximation.
What it means to be human in a world changed by AI
March 27, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 82.1 MBContributor(s): Madhumita Murgia | On the surface a British poet, an UberEats courier in Pittsburgh, an Indian doctor, and a Chinese activist in exile have nothing in common. But they are in fact linked by a profound common experience—unexpected encounters with artificial intelligence.
The search for democracy in the world's largest democracy
March 26, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 70.4 MBContributor(s): Priyanka Kotamraju, Professor Tarun Khaitan, Professor Christophe Jaffrelot, Professor Alpa Shah | In her latest book, The Incarcerations. Professor Alpa Shah finds a shocking case of cyber warfare - hacked emails, mobile phones and implantation of electronic evidence used to make the arrests of the 16 human rights defenders (the BK-16). Delving into the lives of the BK-16, The Incarcerations shows how the case is a bellwether for the collapse of democracy and why these events...
From probabilities to decisions
March 25, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 55.1 MBContributor(s): Professor Anna Mahtani | In deciding whether to carry out a particular healthcare policy for example, the process for reaching a decision will almost certainly involve a calculation of credences. Drawing from the Philosophy of Language, Anna Mahtani argues that objects of credence are "opaque". It matters then how the relevant object is described or designated.
The trading game
March 21, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 80.2 MBContributor(s): Gary Stevenson, Rebecca Gowland | Whilst studying at LSE, Gary won a competition run by a bank: "The Trading Game". The prize: a golden ticket to a new life, as the youngest trader in the whole city. A place where you could make more money than you'd ever imagined. Where your colleagues are dysfunctional maths geniuses, overfed public schoolboys and borderline psychopaths, yet they start to feel like family. But what happens when winning starts to feel like losing? Would you s...
Who's afraid of gender?
March 20, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 72 MBContributor(s): Professor Judith Butler | Judith Butler confronts the attacks on gender which have become central to right-wing movements today. Global networks have formed "anti-gender ideology movements" dedicated to circulating a fantasy that gender is a dangerous threat to families, local cultures, civilisation – and even "man" himself.
China, war and the civilizational state
March 19, 2024 00:00 - 18 minutes - 25.9 MBContributor(s): Professor Christopher Coker | For the late Professor Christopher Coker the answer lay in the rise of a new political entity, the civilizational state. In an episode of LSE iQ which explored China’s position in the world in the coming century, Professor Coker talked about this, the potential for war between the United States and China and what that might look like. Christopher Coker, was Professor of International Relations at LSE for almost four decades, and co-Director of L...
The politics and philosophy of AI
March 19, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 76.3 MBContributor(s): Dr Kate Vredenburgh, Professor Geoffrey Hinton | As artificial intelligence (AI) moves beyond the realm of science fiction, it is already having a profound impact on our economies, societies and politics. Our panel examine its transformative power and disruptive potential.
Digital cities for humans or for profit?
March 18, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 70.6 MBContributor(s): Professor Myria Georgiou, Dr Matt Mahmoudi, Professor Myria Georgiou, Professor Ayona Datta, Sara Alsherif | Our panel investigates the dynamic workings of technology and power in the city from a transnational and comparative perspective as illustrated in Myria Georgiou’s book, Being Human in Digital Cities. They discuss the the contradictory claims and struggles for the future of digital cities and their humanity.
Recasting the global economy and international institutions: collaboration, competition, and the new growth story
March 14, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 83 MBContributor(s): Rachel Kyte, Professor Lord Stern | As part of the Lionel Robbins Lecture Series, our panel discuss the growth story for the 21st century: building sustainable, resilient, and equitable development.
Look again: the power of noticing what was always there
March 13, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 79.9 MBContributor(s): Professor Tali Sharot, Professor Cass R. Sunstein | The authors tackle a great question: why are we so often oblivious to things around us, from pollution and lying to bias and corruption?
A new growth story: structural transformation; policies and institutions
March 13, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 73.2 MBContributor(s): Professor Cameron Hepburn, Professor Lord Stern | As part of the Lionel Robbins Lecture Series, the second lecture explores structural transformation; policies and institutions.
Building prosperity through social solidarity and economic dynamism
March 12, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 51.1 MBContributor(s): Humza Yousaf MSP | Humza Yousaf MSP, First Minister of Scotland looks at the relative success of European countries comparable to Scotland, which benefit from an (economic) model grounded in the combination of social solidarity and economic dynamism. With the damage of Brexit becoming clear, would an independent Scotland in the EU be well-placed to benefit from an economic model and direction different to Westminster’s?
A world re-drawn; a world in crisis; a moment in history; the agenda for growth and transformation
March 12, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 81.8 MBContributor(s): Professor Emily Shuckburgh, Professor Lord Stern | As part of the Lionel Robbins Lecture Series, our panel discussed the first theme on a world re-drawn; a world in crisis; a moment in history; the agenda for growth and transformation.
Global ocean governance: past, present, and future
March 11, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 74.1 MBContributor(s): Professor Scott Barrett | The ocean is governed by a combination of property rights, established in customary law, cooperative agreements, and under treaty law. Professor Scott Barrett looks at what these institutions have achieved and why.
217 million census records: evidence from linked census data
March 07, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 84.7 MBContributor(s): Professor James Feigenbaum | In this talk, James Feigenbaum shows how the ability to link individuals over time, and between databases, means that new avenues for research have opened up, thus allowing us to track intergenerational mobility, assimilation, discrimination and the returns to education.
Déja vu all over again? Super Tuesday and the race for the presidency
March 06, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 83.5 MBContributor(s): Dr Jason Casellas, Dr Ursula Hackett, Mark Landler, Professor Stephanie Rickard | Jason Casellas is the John G. Winant Visiting Professor in American Government at the University of Oxford affiliated with Balliol College and the Rothermere American Institute. Ursula Hackett is Reader in Politics at Royal Holloway, University of London, and a British Academy Mid-Career Fellow. Mark Landler is the London bureau chief of The New York Times. Stephanie J Rickard is Professor at t...
What's funny about everyday sexism?
March 05, 2024 00:00 - 38 minutes - 30.8 MBContributor(s): Cally Beaton | They discuss how comedy can both perpetuate and conceal sexism, while also having the profound ability to reveal and rise above bias and discrimination.
How can we tackle inequalities through British public policy?
March 05, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 69.2 MBContributor(s): Dr Tania Burchardt, Professor Neil Lee, Professor Mike Savage | Our panel of speakers will cover a range of topics, such as how we can improve the quality of employment, how to implement a levelling up agenda, and how we can tackle wealth inequality in the UK.
Shaping major cities – the challenge of being a mayor
February 29, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 86.6 MBContributor(s): Marvin Rees OBE | What lessons are there about how to represent, lead and shape a city? How difficult is it to balance short-term priorities with long-term vision and strategy? And what does central government need to learn about public policy and city services from the sharp end? Join us as we host Marvin Rees, Mayor of Bristol, to address this and more.
The inequality of wealth: why it matters and how to fix it
February 28, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 83.3 MBContributor(s): Katie Schmuecker, Professor Mike Savage , Liam Byrne MP | Yet, it doesn’t have to be like this. In his new book The Inequality of Wealth: why it matters and how to fix it, former Treasury Minister, Liam Byrne, explains the fast-accelerating inequality of wealth; warns how it threatens our society, economy, and politics; shows where economics got it wrong – and lays out a path back to common sense, with five practical new ways to rebuild an old ideal: the wealth-owning democrac...
Moments of polycrisis: a mayor's perspective
February 27, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 70 MBContributor(s): Kostas Bakoyannis | It has become vital to draw from the local perspective when tackling global issue. The same is true for many organisations and communities, for whom traditional, top-down approaches do not offer the agility and responsiveness that is essential for effective crisis management in our times. Having served local government for 13 years, from a rural to an urban context and from a small town to a region and a big city, Kostas Bakoyannis shares his experience of ...
Are we on the verge of a weight-loss revolution?
February 25, 2024 00:00 - 60.7 MBContributor(s): Sarah Appleton, Nikki Sullivan, Paul Frijters, Helen | Joanna Bale talks to Helen, who found Ozempic ‘life-changing’, Clinical Psychologist Sarah Appleton, and LSE’s Nikki Sullivan & Paul Frijters.
The modern left for progressive governance
February 23, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 78.8 MBContributor(s): Stefanos Kasselakis | In Greece, SYRIZA rose dramatically to lead the fight against euro-zone imposed austerity. Yet, it lost badly in two national elections last year and the left is fragmenting. How can the fortunes of the left be restored? What kind of unity is feasible and desirable on the left? How can the left avoid further defeat?
Transnational anti-gender politics and resistance
February 22, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 104 MBContributor(s): Tooba Syed, Professor Judith Butler | What might feminist, queer and decolonial forms of resistance teach us about diverse forms of 'anti-gender' backlash? How can we generate political solidarity to counter 'anti-gender' mobilisations across different contexts? Our keynote speakers reflect on political, epistemic and ethical interventions and open up for discussion with the audience.
The new China playbook: beyond socialism and capitalism
February 20, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 53.9 MBContributor(s): Dr Keyu Jin | Yet Western economists have long been incorrectly predicting its collapse. Why do they keep getting it wrong? Because, according to Keyu Jin, the Chinese economy that most Westerners picture is an incomplete sketch, based on Western dated assumptions and incomplete information. We need a new understanding of China, one that takes a holistic view of its history and its culture. Professor Jin presents The New China Playbook, a revelatory, clear-eyed, and myth-busti...
The great fear: the politics of performing
February 15, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 64.1 MBContributor(s): Professor Richard Sennett | The Performer explores the relations between performing in art (particularly music), politics and everyday experience. It focuses on the bodily and physical dimensions of performing, rather than on words. Richard Sennett is particularly attuned to the ways in which the rituals of ordinary life are performances. The book draws on history and sociology, and more personally on the author's early career as a professional cellist, as well as on his later...
Transforming rural Southeast Asia
February 14, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 73 MBContributor(s): Professor Tania Murray Li | In Southeast Asia, 30 million more people live and work in rural areas today than they did in 1990. Yet rural people are largely absent from public and academic discourse, out of sight and out of mind. One reason for the neglect is the stubbornly persistent transition narrative which suggests that rural populations are anachronistic: they belong to the past, and sooner or later they will move to cities and join the march of progress. Hence it is not...
Growth through investment: what should the UK's FDI strategy look like?
February 13, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 129 MBContributor(s): Lord Harrington, Professor Nigel Driffield, Professor Riccardo Crescenzi, Laura Citron | The recently published Harrington Review of Foreign Direct Investment offers a set of evidence-based and achievable recommendations for the UK to provide a tailored, responsive and comprehensive offer that meets foreign investors’ expectations and factors in the speed of the modern world. This panel discussion pushes the debate on FDI attraction and retention forward and consider how the H...
The shortcut - how machines became intelligent without thinking in a human way
February 12, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 77.7 MBContributor(s): Professor Nello Cristianini | Instead, the prevailing form of machine intelligence is the direct result of a series of decisions that we have made over the past decades. These were shortcuts aimed at addressing various technical (and business) problems, and that are now behind many of the current concerns about the impact of this technology on society. A major shortcut was taken with the creation of the very first statistical language models, and we will describe how that step...
Empowering the economy
February 12, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 51.3 MBContributor(s): Christian Lindner | The German Finance Minister talks about new realities and strengthening Germany’s competitiveness for the benefit of its economy and its partners.
The revolutionary city
February 08, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 83 MBContributor(s): Professor Mark R Beissinger, Professor Olga Onuch | In his new book, The Revolutionary City, Mark R. Beissinger provides a new understanding of how revolutions happen and what they might look like in the future. He is joined by Olga Onuch who will discuss the book.
The seaside: England's love affair
February 07, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 122 MBContributor(s): Lord Bassam, Sheela Agarwal, Madeleine Bunting | England invented the seaside resort as a place of pleasure and these towns became iconic in the nation's sense of identity for over a century, but for over four decades the rise of package holidays and cheap flights have eroded their economies. This has resulted in a 'salt fringe' of deprivation, low pay, poor health and low educational achievement and the worst social mobility in the country. Despite persistent affection for ma...
The Oceans Treaty as a win for multilateralism: what lies ahead
February 06, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 89.6 MBContributor(s): Dr Michael I Kanu, Philippe Carvalho Raposo, Lowri Mai Griffiths, Dr Robert Blasiak, Dr Siva Thambisetty | On 5 March 2023, state parties at the United Nations agreed the text of a new Treaty to cover biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction, in areas also known as the high seas. The Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) Treaty sets out governance mechanisms for oceans over nearly half the planet’s surface covering marine genetic resources, environmental impact ass...
The perils of Saudi nationalism
February 05, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 71.5 MBContributor(s): Professor Madawi Al-Rasheed | Mainly the pervasive sub-national identities that dominated Arabia or the supra-national Islamic identity that the regime promoted to achieve legitimacy. But since the rise of Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman in 2017, a new populist Saudi nationalism is promoted. This lecture traces the shift in Saudi nation-building from the early days of religious nationalism to the current populist trend. It will explain why only recently constructing a Saudi n...
Recent advances in the understanding of human sociality
February 01, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 124 MBContributor(s): Professor Joseph Heath | Major unanswered questions involve the relationship between biological and sociocultural factors in promoting cooperativeness, as well as the vulnerability of human social systems to stagnation or collapse. We have amassed a great deal of theory regarding these questions, but our scientific knowledge remains fragmented. In recent years, however, a few pieces of the puzzle have begun to be fitted together. In this lecture Joseph Heath discusses two impo...
Limitarianism: the case against extreme wealth
January 31, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 74.2 MBContributor(s): Professor Lea Ypi, Martin Sandbu, Professor Ingrid Robeyns | What we need is a world without decamillionaires – people having more than ten million pounds. That is what the philosopher Ingrid Robeyns from the University of Utrecht argues in her new book, Limitarianism. The Case Against Extreme Wealth. Why would a world without anyone being superrich be better? Because extreme wealth undermines democracy; is incompatible with climate justice; and the money could be used much be...
Why is it worth staying curious about racial capitalism?
January 31, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 56.1 MBContributor(s): Professor Gargi Bhattacharyya | The framing of racial capitalism can become a way to freeze analysis - as if the same circuit of dispossession and violence continues across time and space and, with the desperate implication, for always. In this talk, Gargi Bhattacharyya considers the changing violences of racial capitalism and considers how can we use this language to identify emerging patterns of racialised dispossession, and what might we then do about it.
Empowering citizens with behavioural science
January 30, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 64.4 MBContributor(s): Professor Ralph Hertwig | Nudging promises that minor adjustments in choice architecture can influence decisions without altering incentives. However, nudging has also been criticised, including objections to its soft paternalism and its neglect of agency, autonomy, and the longevity of behaviour change. In response to such criticisms— and the proliferation of highly engineered and manipulative, commercial choice architectures—other behavioural policy approaches have been prop...
Fluke: chance, chaos and why everything we do matters
January 29, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 107 MBContributor(s): Dr Brian Klaas | Brian Klaas explores how our world really works, driven by strange interactions and random events. How much difference does our decision to hit the snooze button make? Did one couple's vacation really change the course of the twentieth century? His new book, Fluke, is a provocative new vision of how our world really works - and why chance determines everything.
It's in the news: we're decarbonising!
January 25, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 79.2 MBContributor(s): Adam Vaughan, Dr James Painter, Fiona Harvey, Roger Harrabin | This event gathers journalists from various backgrounds to discuss the challenges they face in informing and promoting balanced public discussions about decarbonisation, particularly in the context of looming local and general elections. Media coverage of climate change has long centered on alerting the public about, as well as debating and contesting, the dangers of climate change. Today, history has moved on. The...
Solidarity economics: why mutuality and movements matter
January 25, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 76.8 MBContributor(s): Professor Manuel Pastor, T.O. Molefe | Traditional economics is built on the assumption of self-interested individuals seeking to maximize personal gain, but that is far from the whole story. Sharing, caring, and a desire to uphold the collective good are also powerful motives. In a world on fire – facing threats to multiracial democracy, tensions from rising economic inequality, and even the existential threat of climate change, can we build an alternative economics based on ...
Protect, strengthen, prepare - 2024 as a moment of truth for the future of the European continent
January 23, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 87.6 MBContributor(s): Alexander De Croo | Belgium will enter 2024 as the rotating chair of the European Union. As one of the founding fathers of the Union, Belgium presides over the EU for the 13th time. The number might sound unlucky and the challenges ahead are surely daunting. That said, Prime Minister De Croo will talk about the strengths of the Union, its relationship with the United Kingdom, and the ways in which the EU needs to reform to stay in shape.
In conversation with Bisher Khasawneh, Prime Minister of Jordan
January 22, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 63 MBContributor(s): Dr Bisher Khasawneh | Bisher Khasawneh (@BisherKhasawneh) is Prime Minister of The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and Minister of Defence, positions he has held since October 2020. He held the position of Minister of State for Foreign Affairs from 2016 to 2017 and Minister of State for Legal Affairs 2017-2018. He served as King Abdullah II’s Advisor for Communication and Coordination Affairs from April 2019 to August 17, 2020 and as the King’s Adviser for Policies in the Royal Ha...
Why do so many people mistakenly think they are working class? | Extra iQ
January 22, 2024 00:00 - 9 minutes - 17.9 MBContributor(s): Professor Sam Friedman | More than one in four people in the UK, from solidly middle-class backgrounds, mistakenly think of themselves as working-class. Why is this? In this episode of Extra iQ, a shorter style of the LSE iQ podcast, Sue Windebank speaks to Sam Friedman, a sociologist of class and inequality at LSE to find out more. Sam spoke to the podcast in November 2022 for an episode which asked, ‘How does class define us?’ The whole interview was fantastic but we couldn’...
Inflation: new and old perspectives
January 19, 2024 00:00 - 1 hour - 78 MBContributor(s): Professor Iván Werning | Previous inflationary episodes have taught us a lot on what causes inflation and what can be done to reduce it. But the world has changed and previous insights may no longer be valid. Iván Werning will discuss how old insights extended with new frameworks can be used to shed light on the recent surge in inflation.
A lecture by Mia Amor Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados
December 06, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 69.7 MBContributor(s): Mia Amor Mottley, Esther Phillips, Dr Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah | Ms Mottley was elected to the Parliament of Barbados in September 1994 as part of the new Barbados Labour Party Government. Prior to that, she served as one of two Opposition Senators between 1991 and 1994. One of the youngest persons ever to be assigned a ministerial portfolio, Ms. Mottley was appointed Minister of Education, Youth Affairs and Culture from 1994 to 2001. She later served as Attorney General and...
Engaging the global urban agenda: from the south
December 06, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 73.6 MBContributor(s): Professor Susan Parnell | Sue Parnell outlines why a new urban disposition, that breaks with geographies, disciplines, and ideologies might be helpful in building new communities of practice to advance a global urban agenda. Creating solutions to the complex problems of cities, like gender inequality, informality, climate resilience or disease prevention, necessitates global not just national and local analysis and intervention. Some progress has been made, for example in the ...
The economic costs of British planning: unaffordable housing and lost employment and productivity
December 05, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 76.4 MBContributor(s): Lord Wolfson, Professor Paul Cheshire, Dame Kate Barker, Stephen Aldridge | It is 40 years since Paul Cheshire began to investigate the economic effects of our land use planning system and 20 years since Kate Barker published her first review of the impact of planning on housing supply. Their insights have helped us understand what can be done to ensure decent housing for all and boost productivity – but, after three failed attempts at significant planning reform - we are now ...