The Africa Programme was designed to promote greater understanding of the extent to which the recent past in Africa has a particular importance, and relevance for contemporary domestic politics and economies, inter-state relations, and the continent's relationship with the wider world.

Launched in 2010, with the ‘Africa in the World’ roundtable, the programme was divided into regional initiatives which corresponded not to pure geography but functional economic regions: the Magreb (the North Africa Initiative), Southern Africa, and Central & West Africa.

An important feature of the programme was support and encouragement of research and scholarship by African scholars, for example the Africa research fellowship hosted at IDEAS.

Highlight included the programme’s unique ‘Witness Seminars’ with politicians and diplomats who were part of UK-African history. They included ‘The UK and the Road to Settlement in Rhodesia’ and ‘UK Policy Towards South Africa’.

The work of the Africa Programme continues at the LSE Africa Centre.

The East Asia programme studied the relationships between the three countries in the region (China, Japan and Korea) and between the region and the main outside powers.

This included the ‘Beyond the Korean War’ grant awarded to the programme by the Academy of Korea Studies, an international and interdisciplinary collaboration to consolidate contemporary scholarship of Korean War history.

Other partners in the region included Peking University in Beijing, with whom the programme developed the ‘Double’ MSc Degree in International Affairs.

The programme also hosted the Chevening Fellowship, organised jointly by the LSE, the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, the Embassy of the UK in Beijing, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Peoples Republic of China, bringing Chinese diplomats from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) to IDEAS as Visiting Fellows.

The LSE IDEAS Southeast Asia International Affairs Programme focuses on the contemporary challenges in the international affairs of Southeast Asia, such as regional integration, climate change, territorial disputes and democracy.

The programme hosted conferences, both in Southeast Asia and at LSE, which produced special reports including ASEAN: Perspectives on Economic Integration based on a conference in Kuala Lumpur, Climate Change: Is Southeast Asia Up to the Challenge? from a conference in Jakarta, and Democratisation & Voter Mobilisation in Southeast Asia.

Public lectures included the visits of the Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and American Senator John McCain to LSE.

The Latin America Programme aimed at increasing understanding of the region and recognising its importance in the Cold War.

The programme held international conferences across the world, ranging from:

• Chile and the Cold War: Beyond Washington and Moscow in Santiago
• Brazil and the Cold War in Rio de Janerio
• The Cold War in Latin America in Cadiz (Spain)
• Brazil and the Americas in the 21st Century at LSE
• Mexico Today: Economic Prospects and Public Security at LSE

Public lectures and events included the International Peace and Security in Latin America series and visits from the region’s leaders such as President of Ecuador Rafael Correa, Vice President of Bolivia Álvaro García Linera, and Colombian government High Commissioner for the Peace Process Sergio Jaramillo Caro.

The Middle East Programme was dedicated to enhancing our understanding of the region stretching from the Maghreb, through the Levant and the Gulf to South West Asia.

The programme’s notable conferences included:

• Britain and France in their Middle East and Muslim Environment, co-hosted by Science Po Paris at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office
• Reappraising the Iran-Iraq War Thirty Years Later, co-hosted by the LSE International History Department and LSE Global Governance in 2010

The Middle East Programme also published regular analysis of events in the Middle East, through IDEAS Situation Updates and reports including After the Arab Spring: Power Shift in the Middle East?

The Russia Programme was established in 2010 to study the history of Russia’s international relationships, both regionally and globally.

The programme ran an Annual Lecture by a leading Russian historian, beginning with ‘Reflections of Russia’s place in Europe in the 18th Century’ by Professor Aleksandr B. Kamenskii (Higher School of Economics, Moscow).

Other events included the Russia and the Napoleonic Wars conference, Nationalism in Russia and Europe Workshop, and the Comparative Workshop on Mass Protests.               

The Southern Europe Programme promoted the study of the modern history and politics of Southern Europe. Its aim was to investigate how the contemporary political, economic and social features of the Southern European region have been shaped.

The programme ran the LSE Euro Crisis in the Press project, an interdisciplinary and comparative study of press coverage of the currency crisis and the impact of this coverage, asking whether there is a ‘European press’ how has coverage affected ideas about European identity?

The programme was launched in 2013 with the Strategy for Southern Europe conference, including a keynote from Javier Solana, former Spanish Foreign Minister and Secretary General of NATO.

Read the Strategy for Southern Europe conference report. 

Later in the year, The Road to Democracy in Southern Europe: The International Dimension conference was hosted by the programme in Lisbon.

Before this, the Programme operated as the Balkan International Affairs Programme, which promoted study of the region beyond stereotypes and contribute to defining a vision of the Balkan future.

Balkan Programme conferences included:

• The Balkans in the Cold War in Athens,
• A True Alternative? The Nonaligned Movement in the Cold War co-hosted with the National Archives of Serbia in Belgrade
• Balkans 2020: the Ministerial Debate at LSE with Serbian Minister for Foreign Affairs Vuk Jeremić and Bulgarian Minister of Foreign Affairs Nickolay Mladenov               

The United States Programme, originally known as the Transatlantic Relations Programme, focused on how the United States acts in the world, and in particular, the structural role of the United States in the current international system.

A range of public lectures included the visit of former secretary of state Madeleine Albright to LSE.

Conferences included:

• Obama and American Power Today in association with the University of Manchester and the Eccles Centre at the British Library as part of the AHRC Research Network on the Obama Presidency
• US Foreign Policy in International Perspective in association with the Munk School of Global Affairs (Toronto) and American School of International Service
• American Structural Power including a keynote by Joseph Nye

United States Programme publications ranged from The United States after Unipolarity to the Governing the Global Drug Wars report from which the IDEAS International Drug Policy Project developed.