Ukrainian Discussion Series 2024
Russia's War on Ukraine in 2024: pivotal moment or impasse?

Wednesday 13 March 2024 (75 minutes)

Two years into Russia’s large scale invasion of Ukraine, the war is entering a new stage. Ukraine’s major allies are facing fresh challenges and changes in their political landscapes.

Despite Ukraine’s resistance, new tranches of military and financial aid to Ukraine are proving difficult to approve and organise. Pre-electoral domestic struggles in the US signal the possibility of the re-distribution of leadership roles within the international coalition in support of Ukraine, and the necessity of re-evaluating current tactics towards not only Ukraine, but Russia as well.

Meet our speakers and chair:

Mariia Zolkina is the DINAM Research Fellow (2022-2024) in the Department of International Relations at LSE. She is a Ukrainian researcher and political analyst working in the fields of regional security, wartime diplomacy, conflict studies and reintegration policies in occupied territories. Since 2014 she has been producing expertise on the Russo-Ukrainian war, focusing mainly on the Donbas region, and has analysed the socio-political implications of the conflict both at the national and international levels. 

Olga Tokariuk is a Chatham House OSUN Academy Fellow, Ukraine Forum. Her main professional interests are international affairs and research on disinformation, especially in the context of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. She is a former fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University and CEPA non-resident fellow. Olga’s background is in journalism and she has vast experience in Ukrainian and international media. She is a former head of foreign news desk at the independent Ukrainian Hromadske TV. 

Dr Maryna Vorotnyuk is an Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI) in London. Previously, she held the position as Research Fellow in the International Security Studies team at RUSI. She works on security developments in the Black Sea region, Russian, Ukrainian and Turkish foreign policies, and the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.

Chair:

Dr Luke Cooper is an Associate Professorial Research Fellow with the Conflict and Civicness Research Group and Director of PeaceRep’s Ukraine programme. Dr Cooper is a historical sociologist and political scientist, whose work studies processes of change and transformation within and between societies. He has written extensively on nationalism, authoritarianism and the theory of uneven and combined development, engaging both contemporary and historical case studies. His most recent book, Authoritarian Contagion; the Global Threat to Democracy, was published by Bristol University Press in 2021.

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Religion and diplomacy in the Middle East

Wednesday 06 March 2024 (90 minutes)

Hosted by the Department of International Relations and the LSE Religion and Global Society Unit

Listen to Michael Driessen, Madawi Al-Rasheed and Fabio Petito as they discuss with Professor in Practice James Walters how events since 7 October have reshaped the interreligious landscape.

Recent years have seen a growth in state-sponsored interreligious dialogue initiatives, particular within, and connecting with, the Middle East. In this discussion, Michael Driessen presents the findings of his new book The Global Politics of Interreligious Dialogue as the basis for a discussion of how events since 7th October have reshaped the interreligious landscape.

Meet our speakers and chair:

Michael Driessen is Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs and Director of the MA program in International Affairs at John Cabot University. Driessen’s books include The Global Politics of Interreligious Dialogue (Oxford University Press, 2023) and Religion and Democratization (Oxford University Press, 2014).

Madawi Al-Rasheed is Visiting Professor at the Middle East Centre, London School of Economics and Fellow of the British Academy. 

Fabio Petito is Professor of Religion and International Affairs and Professor of International Relations in the School of Global Studies at the University of Sussex. 

Chair:

James Walters is founding director of the LSE Faith Centre and LSE Religion and Global Society. He is a Professor in Practice, affiliated to the Department for International Relations and an associate of the LSE Department of International Development.

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Ukrainian Discussion Series 2024
Ukrainian Donbas: debunking Russia's myths and narratives about the region

Wednesday 28 February 2024 (60 minutes)

Watch or listen to DINAM Research Fellow at LSE, Ukrainian researcher and political analyst Mariia Zolkina as she reveals the data-based findings about real public moods in Donbas, starting from spring 2014 and afterwards, following the Russian invasion. She discloses crucial changes of public views, caused by beginning of hybrid war, and shows how they differed from many myths and ungrounded narratives circulating internationally about Donbas. 

Meet our speakers and chair:

Mariia Zolkina is the DINAM Research Fellow (2022-2024) in the Department of International Relations at LSE. She is a Ukrainian researcher and political analyst working in the fields of regional security, reintegration policies in occupied territories and wartime diplomacy. Since 2014 she has been producing expertise on the political component of Russo-Ukrainian war, especially regarding the Donbas region, and has analysed the socio-political implications of the conflict both at the national and international levels. 

Discussant:

Dr Florian Foos is Associate Professor in Political Behaviour in the Department of Government at LSE. He studies political campaigns using randomised field experiments and aims to identify the causal effects of formal and informal interactions between citizens, politicians and campaign workers on electoral mobilisation, opinion change and political activism. 

Chair:

Tomila Lankina is Professor of International Relations at LSE. She has worked on democracy and authoritarianism, mass protests and historical drivers of human capital and political regime change in Russia and other countries; she has also analysed the propaganda and disinformation campaigns in the wake of Russia’s annexation of Crimea and aggression in Ukraine. 

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The revolutionary city: urbanization and the global transformation of rebellion

Thursday 08 February 2024 (90 mins)

Speaker:

Mark Beissinger, Henry W. Putnam Professor of Politics at Princeton University

Discussant:

Olga Onuch, Professor in Politics at the University of Manchester and an Associate of Nuffield College (Oxford) and The Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. 

Chair:

Tomila Lankina, Professor of International Relations, LSE

Drawing on his new book, The Revolutionary City: urbanization and the global transformation of rebellion, Professor Beissinger focusses on the impact that the concentration of people, power, and wealth in cities exercises on revolutionary processes and outcomes. Using engaging examples from around the world, Mark Beissinger explores the causes and consequences of the urbanisation of revolution in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. 

He is joined by Dr Olga Onuch to discuss the book.  

Read the LSE blog post by Mark R Beissinger: "Revolutions by the numbers - how urbanisation has transformed rebellion".

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The perils of Saudi nationalism

Department of International Relations Fred Halliday Memorial Lecture 2023/24

Monday 5 February 2024 (90 mins)

Listen to the 2023/24 Fred Halliday Memorial Lecture with Madawi Al-Rasheed who will discuss the history of Saudi nationalism and the new populist Saudi nationalism.

Since the rise of Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman in 2017, a new populist Saudi nationalism has been promoted. This lecture traces the shift in Saudi nation-building from the early days of religious nationalism to the current populist trend. The new Saudi national narrative inevitably involves selectively remembering and forgetting aspects of the past in order to consolidate a shift in national consciousness about who Saudis are. But while the new nationalism promises to invigorate the nation, the process is accompanied by serious violence against dissenting voices.     

Meet our speaker and chair

Madawi Al-Rasheed is Visiting Professor at the Middle East Centre, London School of Economics and Fellow of the British Academy. Her research focuses on history, society, religion and politics in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, Middle Eastern Christian minorities in Britain, Arab migration, Islamist movements, state and gender relations, and Islamic modernism. She has published several books on Saudi Arabia. Her most recent book is The Son King: Reform and Repression in Saudi Arabia (OUP 2020).  

Jeffrey Chwieroth is Professor in the Department of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and Head of the Department. He is also co-investigator at the Systemic Risk Centre and Faculty Affiliate at the Phelan United States Centre at LSE.

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