LSE: Public lectures and events
1,444 episodes - English - Latest episode: 6 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 Changing Nature of Religion in Today's World | LSE Festival
June 17, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 84.2 MBContributor(s): Erin K. Wilson, Georgette Bennett, John Casson, Dr Mukulika Banerjee | But this has distracted us from asking how religion itself is changing and, in turn, changing understandings of identity, political participation and citizenship for millions of people around the world. In many countries religion is being fused with populist politics and becoming an important component in new nationalisms such as in Russia and India where Orthodox Christian and Hindu Nationalists discourse ...
Russia's War Against Ukraine: war crimes and responsibility for post-war reconstruction | LSE Festival
June 17, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 126 MBContributor(s): | These include reported mass rape, torture, and abductions of children, as well as the destruction of civil infrastructure like schools, hospitals, and residential homes. Efforts are under way by inter-state and non-state organisations, governments, and civil society to document the crimes and the material consequences and costs of the invasion. The panel, including prominent Ukraine policy practitioners and leading academic experts on Ukraine and Russia, discuss whether the...
How is AI Changing the World? | LSE Festival
June 17, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 50.1 MBContributor(s): Professor Michael Wooldridge, Dr Giulia Gentile, Dr Thomas Ferretti, Dr Christine Chow | The sudden rise of ChatGPT has confirmed that artificial intelligence is no longer a technology of the future, but is already shaping our everyday lives – from work and education to policing, transport and even sport.
This is Not America: why black lives in Britain matter | LSE Festival
June 17, 2023 00:00 - 49 minutes - 39.8 MBContributor(s): Tomiwa Owolade | Debate abounds around racism, identity, diversity, immigration and colonial history, and, in the rush to address injustice, Britain has followed the lead of the world's dominant power: America. We judge ourselves by America's standards, absorb its arguments and follow its agenda. But what if we're looking in the wrong place?In This is Not America, Tomiwa Owolade argues that too much of the conversation around race in Britain is viewed through the prism of Amer...
Can People Change the World? Activists, Social Movements, and Utopian Futures | LSE Festival
June 17, 2023 00:00 - 59 minutes - 47.5 MBContributor(s): | More and more individuals and groups are taking action and using their voices to tackle the growing social and economic inequalities. Social movements and activists engage with, challenge, and seek to shape policy processes and wider political transformations to tackle inequalities through forms of mobilisation as well as everyday forms of action and resistance. From racial justice to climate emergency and women’s rights, they are imagining and building more equal, just, an...
Russia: does It believe in anything? | LSE Festival
June 17, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 62.1 MBContributor(s): Professor Vladislav Zubok, Professor Tomila Lankina, Adam Curtis, Grigor Atanesian | Adam Curtis’s BAFTA-nominated BBC series, Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone, documents what it felt like to live through the collapse of communism and democracy, based on preserved and digitised footage from BBC archives and forgotten or never shown scenes from Soviet life and life in post-Soviet states. Adam Curtis and Traumazone producer Grigor Atanesian, in conversation with Professor Vladislav ...
What Would a Fairer Society Look Like? | LSE Festival
June 17, 2023 00:00 - 58 minutes - 46.6 MBContributor(s): Lord Willetts, Swatee Deepak, Dr Ayça Çubukçu, Daniel Chandler | Whilst many are dissatisfied with the status quo, it is surprisingly hard to find a coherent vision of what a better and fairer world would look like. In the Festival’s closing event, leading thinkers put forward their suggestions.
Smashing the Class Ceiling | LSE Festival
June 16, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 55.4 MBContributor(s): Professor Sam Friedman, Professor Lee Elliot Major | A society with high social mobility creates opportunities for people from all backgrounds to excel. The UK is becoming less socially mobile, meaning that, compared to previous generations, the chances of young people starting out today are more tightly tied to their background. Leading experts in this field discuss not only what can be done to level the playing field - but why it’s not being done already and what is needed t...
How to Manage Transition in Turbulent Times | LSE Festival
June 16, 2023 00:00 - 46 minutes - 37.4 MBContributor(s): Dr Katerina Glyniadaki | Drawing examples from her research on migration management, Dr Glyniadaki discusses some steps that organisations for migrants take to prevent crises, as well as some strategies individual migrants employ to tackle transition and overcome relevant challenges.
The Changing Inequalities of Citizenship | LSE Festival
June 15, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 48.8 MBContributor(s): Dr Eleanor Knott, Dr Kristin Surak, Dr Robtel Neajai Pailey | In this session three scholars from across the social sciences explore the varying, complex, and global nature of inequalities produced in and through citizenship in the 21st century. Drawing on their newly released books, our panel discuss new transformations in citizenship and (in)equality, ranging from contestations around dual citizenship for Liberia, to the sale of citizenship by microstates to millionaires, to...
How to Negotiate: the essentials you need to know | LSE Festival
June 15, 2023 00:00 - 19 minutes - 48.3 MBContributor(s): Dr Karin A. King, Dr Aurelie Cnop-Nielsen | Negotiation is one of the most important skills of successful managers in organisations today. In the context of ongoing change in business, economies and society, organisations need to adapt the design of work and the workplace. The ability to use negotiations effectively day to day has become a key skill for managers to support employees and teams through ongoing change. This session looks closely at what it takes to be an effectiv...
In Conversation with Martin Lewis | LSE Festival
June 15, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 61.8 MBContributor(s): Martin Lewis | Ours is an age of rampant inequalities and pervasive financial struggles, where the power of big banks and corporations seems overwhelming to the individual. Whilst you might hope for longer term systemic change, what can you do in the shorter term to improve your financial situation and change your relationship with money?
The Birth Lottery of History | LSE Festival
June 15, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 85.3 MBContributor(s): Professor Nicola Lacey, Professor Robert J. Sampson | Does when you are born shape your life chances? A leading sociologist discusses his ground-breaking study of criminal justice that shows that when you come of age matters as much (and perhaps more than) who you are in determining whether you get arrested.
In Conversation with Sadiq Khan | LSE Festival
June 14, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 49.2 MBContributor(s): Sadiq Khan | For many years, Sadiq wasn't fully aware of the dangers posed by air pollution, nor its connection with climate change. Then, aged 43, he was unexpectedly diagnosed with adult-onset asthma - brought on by the polluted London air he had been breathing for decades. Scandalised, Sadiq underwent a political transformation that would see him become one of the most prominent global politicians fighting (and winning) elections on green issues. Since becoming Mayor of Lon...
Financing Climate Change? Inspiration for Change from African Thinkers | LSE Festival
June 14, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 58.6 MBContributor(s): Dr Luca Taschini, Annet Nakyeyune, Bogolo Kenewendo | We consider the ways in which climate change mitigation will be financed, seeking approaches from key African academics and professionals. We address the environmental and ecological challenges the continent faces and critically evaluate climate capitalism.
How Should We Use AI in Higher Education? | LSE Festival
June 14, 2023 00:00 - 52 minutes - 41.9 MBContributor(s): Dr Jonathan Cardoso-Silva | Generative AI is a field of artificial intelligence that can create new data based on existing data, such as text, images, code and sounds. It can mimic the way humans create new ideas, concepts and designs that are both diverse and novel. It has the potential to transform higher education by enhancing learning outcomes, fostering creativity and enabling authentic assessments. However, it also poses challenges and ethical implications, such as ensur...
The Power of "Good Enough" | LSE Festival
June 14, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 86.2 MBContributor(s): Dr Rachel O'Neill, Adrienne Herbert, Dr Thomas Curran | Over the past 30 years, there has been a substantial increase in the percentage of people who feel they need to be perfect. The pressure we put on ourselves to be perfect and the expectations we feel from others and society-at-large can lead to depression, burnout and other mental illnesses, particularly amongst younger generations.
The Road to Net Zero: how to seize opportunities and manage change | LSE Festival
June 13, 2023 00:00 - 57 minutes - 46.1 MBContributor(s): Dr Anna Valero, Rain Newton-Smith, Chris Skidmore, Dr Liam F Beiser-McGrath | As new ways to power our homes, workplaces and transport are developed there will be opportunities for sustainable, healthier economic growth. But there will also be costs for firms, workers and households. To date, climate action has faced challenges from the people, through protests and failed referenda, but has also been driven by public support and activism. How we can ensure the net zero transit...
Why is Change so Hard? | LSE Festival
June 13, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 68.2 MBContributor(s): Dr Jens Madsen, Laura de Molière, Professor Conor Gearty, Stella Creasy | Prevented by risk or fear; hampered by bureaucracy; stifled by people circumventing interventions; or cancelled out by unintended consequences - the panel will consider the legal, social, political and psychological reasons why change is so hard.
How to Understand Digitalisation and Change Management: a sociotechnical approach | LSE Festival
June 13, 2023 00:00 - 55 minutes - 75.9 MBContributor(s): Dr Emilio Lastra-Gil | People in different organisations may use the same new technology differently and, consequently, change informal organising in distinct ways. Materiality allows social effect if it is constant in the organisation under study. The aim of this session will be to discuss the socio-materiality perpective of ICTs.
How the Workplace is Changing: productivity, inclusion, and beyond | LSE Festival
June 12, 2023 00:00 - 46 minutes - 3.72 MBContributor(s): Dr Jasmine Virhia, Yolanda Blavo | In this session, we cover the changes to the workplace owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, the potential changes we expect to see in the future, and the UTOPIA framework, which we developed for the future of financial and professional services.
Rethinking Retirement: public policies to support life changes | LSE Festival
June 12, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 56.3 MBContributor(s): Susan Scholefield, David Sinclair, Professor Sir Vince Cable | Prior to retiring people rarely consider these questions, and there is little of a public policy framework to help them do so. How much do we understand – or anticipate - the psychological life-change around moving from a full-time executive role to something else? The path to retirement is sometimes direct, sometimes voluntary and rarely what we think it will be. We discuss what research, teaching and ethnography ...
How Can Economists Change Our Lives? | LSE Festival
June 12, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 71.3 MBContributor(s): Dr Linda Yueh, Baroness Shafik, Zanny Minton Beddoes, Professor Richard Davies | Expert economists share stories of what is possible, and what the pitfalls might be, showing how economists and policymakers have changed our lives – to create safer, happier and fairer societies.
The Future of Social Democracy
June 08, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 82.6 MBContributor(s): Professor Adam Przeworski | The contemporary period of crisis has fundamentally altered party-political landscapes in democracies around the world. The rise of the far right, shifting voter preferences, renewed union activism, and new ideas have all contributed to a host of new opportunities and constraints for social democrats and the parties they inhabit -- and untangling this series of challenges will be key for understanding our shared political futures.
Black Ghost of Empire: failed emancipations, reparations, and Maroon ecologies
June 07, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 74.3 MBContributor(s): Professor Kris Manjapra | Manjapra argues that during each of the supposed emancipations from slavery – whether Haiti after the revolution, the British Empire in 1833 or the United States during the Civil War – Black people were dispossessed by the moves meant to free them. Emancipation codified existing racial-colonial hierarchies - rather than obliterating them, with far-reaching consequences for climate colonialism and for environmental justice. For centuries, Black reparat...
Economics, Hayek, and Large Language Models
June 06, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 59 MBContributor(s): Professor Tyler Cowen | For the first time, Large Language Models give us a direct and effective means of conversing with Artificial Intelligence on substantive questions of our choosing, including matters of economics. How do Large Language Models change our conception of how economies work? Are economies better described by words than we thought, or less well described? Given this new power of text, is Michael Polanyi's phenomenon of inarticulable knowledge more or less impo...
Global Governance in an Age of Fracture
June 01, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 131 MBContributor(s): Professor Cornelia Woll, Dr C Raja Mohan, Professor Charles A Kupchan, Dr Selina Ho | Support for traditional international institutions such as the UN and the WTO is weakening in the Global North as well as the Global South. Can these institutions be revived and if so, how? Or is the postwar rules-based order now so fractured that we are likely to get more international and domestic “buy in” starting anew?
Social Capital and Economic Mobility
May 31, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 85.3 MBContributor(s): Professor Raj Chetty | This talk will discuss recent research using data on billions of friendships from Facebook that identifies economic connectedness -- the degree of social interaction between low- and high-income people -- as a key predictor of economic mobility. It will then discuss what factors determine the degree of interaction across class lines and policy implications to increase the forms of social capital most relevant for upward income mobility.
Time to Think
May 26, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 89.9 MBContributor(s): Hannah Barnes, Professor Lucinda Platt | In this event investigative journalist Hannah Barnes speaks about her book: how she came to investigate the Tavistock’s gender service for children, the testimony she received, and her attempts to understand how safeguarding concerns got lost and the service unraveled.
Ontological Polyglossia: the art of communicating in opacity
May 25, 2023 00:00 - 55 minutes - 76.7 MBContributor(s): Professor Charles Stépanoff | In these three cases, we engage in opaque communication that is far from the standard psycholinguistic model of transparent discussion between adults. Yet anthropologists know that these asymmetrical situations can be some of the most emotionally intense in human lives. This willingness to build sociality beyond linguistic humanity (with infants, deceased and non-humans) allows humans to have a future, a past and a rich relationship with their liv...
Patriarchy: where did it all begin?
May 24, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 66.8 MBContributor(s): Bee Rowlatt, Angela Saini | Join us as Angela reveals the true roots of gendered oppression, and the complex history of how male domination became embedded in societies across the globe. Travelling to the world’s earliest known human settlements, and tracing cultural and political histories from the Americas to Asia, she overturns simplistic universal theories to show that what patriarchy is and how far it goes back really depends on where you are. Despite the push back agains...
What We Owe the Future: in conversation with William MacAskill
May 22, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 72.7 MBContributor(s): Dr William MacAskill | Does what we do today determine the happiness or misery of trillions of people in the future? MacAskill proposes that by making wise moral decisions today, we can navigate a multitude of crises – bioengineered pandemics, technological stagnation, climate change, and transformative AI – more fairly for generations to come.
Putting Bourdieu and Marx in Dialogue
May 18, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 120 MBContributor(s): Dr Gabriella Paolucci, Dr Poornima Paidipaty, Professor Bridget Fowler | This book is the first sustained work reflecting on the relations between these two major theorists, and includes contributions from major writers drawing from both scholarly traditions. This new book especially focuses on "the practice of critique" that both thinkers exercised vigilantly throughout their careers. We reflect that ongoing dialogue with the entire body of Marxian critique is a constant in B...
Central Bank Balance Sheet Expansion and Financial Stability: why less can be more
May 17, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 74.2 MBContributor(s): Professor Raghuram Rajan | When the Federal Reserve expanded its balance sheet via large-scale asset purchases (quantitative easing) in recent years, we find an increase in commercial bank deposits with a shortening of their maturity, and also an increase in outstanding bank lines of credit to corporations. However, when it halted the balance-sheet expansion in 2014 and even reversed it during quantitative tightening starting in 2017, there was no commensurate shrinkage of the...
What Would a Fair Society Look Like?
May 15, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 84 MBContributor(s): Polly Toynbee, Professor David Runciman, Professor Margaret Levi, Daniel Chandler | In his new book, Free and Equal: What Would a Fair Society Look Like?, Daniel Chandler argues that the ideas we need are hiding in plain sight, in the work of the twentieth century's greatest political philosopher, John Rawls. Although Rawls revolutionised philosophy — he is routinely compared to figures such as Plato, Hobbes and Mill – his distinctive vision of a fair society has had little im...
Blood and Power
May 11, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 68.5 MBContributor(s): Professor John Foot | But how much does the contemporary period of political upheaval compare to the past? And what does this mean for the left in Italy and beyond? To find out, we're joined by John Foot to discuss his new book Blood and Power: The Rise and Fall of Italian Fascism.
Anti-globalism and the Future of the Liberal World Order
May 09, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 86.8 MBContributor(s): Professor Brian Burgoon, Professor Michael Cox, Professor Sara Hobolt, Professor Peter Trubowitz, Professor Leslie Vinjamuri | In Geopolitics and Democracy, Peter Trubowitz and Brian Burgoon provide a new explanation of why the liberal international order has buckled under the pressures of anti-globalist political forces. They trace the anti-globalist backlash to foreign policy decisions made by Western leaders in the decade after the Cold War’s end. These decisions sought to ...
Shaping a 21st Century Policy Consensus
May 04, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 62.3 MBContributor(s): Professor Leonard Wantchekon, Professor Lord Stern, Professor Diane Coyle, Professor Pranab Bardhan | A generation ago, the so-called Washington Consensus laid out a series of do´s and don’t´s for policymakers around the world, and particularly in emerging and developing countries. The world has changed a great deal since 1989 and so has the collective wisdom on what sound policies look like. Today, goals such as sustainability, equity and cohesion play a much bigger role in o...
The Travelling Salesman Problem
May 03, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 66.6 MBContributor(s): Professor William Cook | The general setting is the following. Complexity theory suggests there are limits to the power of general-purpose computational techniques, in engineering, science and elsewhere. But what are these limits and how widely do they constrain our quest for knowledge? The TSP can play a crucial role in this discussion, demonstrating whether or not focused efforts on a single, possibly unsolvable, model will produce results beyond our expectations. We discuss...
The Dialogical Roots of Deduction
May 02, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 61.1 MBContributor(s): Professor Catarina Dutilh Novaes | Catarina Dutilh Novaes gives a public lecture on her Lakatos Award winning book, The Dialogical Roots of Deduction. Catarina is known for her research on the history and philosophy of logic, philosophy of mathematics, social epistemology, reasoning and cognition, and argumentation theory.
Russian War on Ukraine: the death of a soldier told by his sister
April 27, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 90.4 MBContributor(s): Paul Mason, Dr Luke Cooper, Dr Olesya Khromeychuk | Before February 2022 Ukraine was already at war with Russia. This conflict, which began in February 2014 as Russia responded militarily to the "Revolution of Dignity", had already cost thousands of Ukrainian lives by the time of the second Russian invasion. One of them was Olesya Khromeychuk's brother Volodymyr, who died from shrapnel on the frontline in eastern Ukraine. Her book, "The death of a soldier told by his sister", ...
Should Monarchy Be Abolished?
April 26, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 68.4 MBContributor(s): Dr Cleve Scott, Geoffrey Robertson, Dr Bob Morris | What can we learn from recent constitutional changes in the Caribbean? And what are the lessons from Britain’s own Republican experiment?
What is it like to be an animal?
April 19, 2023 00:00 - 30 minutes - 41.9 MBContributor(s): Dr Jonathan Birch, Professor Kristin Andrews, Dr Rosalind Arden | Since this episode was recorded the UK Animal Welfare Act 2022 has become law. This extends animal welfare protections to animals such as octopuses, lobsters and crabs - a direct result of the findings of LSE academic Dr Jonathan Birch – featured in this episode - that animals are sentient. They have the capacity to experience pain, distress or harm.For this episode, James Rattee travels to the local park to fin...
A Complex Relationship: religiosity and science in a historical perspective
March 30, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 70.9 MBContributor(s): Dr Mara Pasquamaria Squicciarini | Dr Mara Pasquamaria Squicciarini (@mara_squi) is based in the Department of Economics at Bocconi University and is currently a visiting academic at Harvard. Her research interests include economic history, economic growth and development, and applied macroeconomics. Patrick Wallis is Professor of Economic History at LSE. His research explores the economic, social and medical history of Britain from the 16th to 18th century.
Critical Minerals, Geopolitics, and the Risks for Achieving Net-Zero Transition
March 29, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 206 MBContributor(s): Professor Sophia Kalantzakos, Daniel Litvin, Rob Patalano, Eric Buisson | Transitioning to net-zero emissions requires a large-scale economic transition to renewable energy. Scaling up the manufacturing of the technologies, including solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and electric vehicles will result in significant demand for and dependency on the supply of a range of minerals for the foreseeable future. These ‘transition-critical minerals’, including metals, minerals and...
Digital Platforms and the Future of Political Solidarity
March 28, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 80.1 MBContributor(s): Dr Alison Winch, Dr James Muldoon, Miranda Hall, Professor Jeremy Gilbert, Professor Myria Georgiou | But are the digital platforms we have today, and the business models that drive them, good for political life? And even if they are good for some dimensions of politics, for example mobilization, do they work as well for building solidarity and for forming long-term campaigns of progressive political change? What weight should we give to the fears of polarization online versus...
Supply Matters
March 27, 2023 00:00 - 56 minutes - 45.6 MBContributor(s): Dr Andrew Bailey | Andrew Bailey is Governor of the Bank of England, a position he has held since March 2020. Andrew served as Chief Executive Officer of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) from 1 July 2016 until taking up the role of Governor. As CEO of the FCA, Andrew Bailey was also a member of the Prudential Regulation Committee, the Financial Policy Committee, and the Board of the Financial Conduct Authority. Andrew previously held the role of Deputy Governor, Prudentia...
The Rise and Fall of the EAST
March 27, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 74.2 MBContributor(s): Professor Yasheng Huang | Drawing on new data, he will explore the policy implications of this historical pattern for China at a time of mounting strategic and economic rivalry with the United States.
How can we make homes more affordable?
March 27, 2023 00:00 - 31 minutes - 44.1 MBContributor(s): Ralitsa Angelova, Oliver Bulleid, Christian Hilber, Kath Scanlon | We’ll hear how planning restrictions established in the 1700s are still preventing development on some of London’s most valuable land. Experts will set out why we can’t afford to not build on the greenbelts that circle some of our major cities. And an Executive Director will explain how his organisation is building homes that will be truly affordable in perpetuity. Sue Windebank talks to: Ralitsa (Rali) Angelov...
Of Boys and Men: new challenges for gender equality
March 23, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 67.8 MBContributor(s): Dr Richard V Reeves, Dr Abigail McKnight | Boys in OECD countries are 50% more likely than girls to fail at all three key school subjects: maths, literacy, and science. Meanwhile, suicide is the biggest killer of men under the age of 45 in the UK. Profound economic and social changes of recent decades have left many men at a disadvantage in these areas. Many previous attempts to treat this condition have made the same fatal mistake - of viewing the problems of men as a problem...