Public Events 2014

Monday 1 December 2014, 6.30-8pm (podcast)

Brazil: inclusive sustainable development?

Venue: Old Theatre, Old Building, LSE
Speaker: Brazilian Minister for Strategic Affairs, Marcelo Neri
Chair: Professor James Putzel

About the event

Minister Neri will talk about the growth of social welfare in Brazil during the last twenty years, and its determinants. How have growth and distribution of incomes evolved in Brazil? What has been the role played by various public policies (such as income transfers, housing, technical education etc)? How have different groups (organized by gender, race, region etc) performed? Is Brazil becoming a middle class country? What about the middle income trap with respect to other BRICS countries? How sustainable are the observed changes? What is the new agenda on social policies in the country for the next 10 years?

About the speaker

Marcelo Neri is Minister for Strategic Affairs for Brazil; has a PhD in Economics from Princeton University. Founder of the Center for Social Policies (CPS) at Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV); teaches at  EPGE/FGV. Edited books on Microcredit; Social Security; Diversity; Rural Poverty; Bolsa Familia; Consumption and Middle Class. He was secretary general of the Council of Economic and Social Development (CDES) and president of the Institute of Applied Economic Research (Ipea). He evaluated policies in more than two dozen countries and designed and implemented policies at three government levels in Brazil.

More information

Suggested hashtag for the event #LSENeri

Thursday 27 November 2014, 6.30-8pm

SmartAid: innovating the approach to development

Venue: New Academic Building, Room 2.06, LSE
Speaker: John Rendel
Chair: Marwan Naser

About the event

John Rendel, CEO and Founder of Promoting Equality in African Schools (PEAS) will be speaking on PEAS' unique and innovative approach to development. Founded on the pillars of access, quality and sustainability, PEAS builds and runs secondary schools in some of the most disadvantaged, isolated communities in rural Africa. After that, the schools can run themselves through a combination of a Private Public Partnership grant, low day school fees and income generating activities such as farming and horticulture. John will be speaking on PEAS's SmartAid model, the opportunities for collaboration in development and how sustainable approaches form the basis on the post-2015 UN Development Agenda. 50 seats available.

About the speaker

John Rendel is the founder and CEO of PEAS, a rapidly growing and multiple award winning social enterprise that widens access to secondary education in Africa. John studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at New College, Oxford. A trip during a university vacation to East Africa led John to found a low-fee, not-for-profit secondary school in Uganda. The success of that school led to the development of PEAS’s ‘SmartAid’ approach.

After graduating, John joined the Teach First programme and taught secondary school mathematics in Camberwell, London for two years. In the summer of 2006, John left the classroom and began working full time on 'growing PEAS'. John has gone on to win the Teach First Ambassador Award, an Unltd Social Enterprise Award, to become a member of the Courvoisier Future 500 and the Rockefeller Top One Hundred Next Century Innovators. In 2013, PEAS won the UK Charity Awards and the WISE Global Innovation Awards. In August 2014, John became the 'Rising CEO Star' at the Charity Times awards in the UK.

Tuesday 14 October 2014, 5-6.30pm (podcast)

'Secure the Borders!' The Cost and Consequences of Europe's 'Fight Against Irregular Migration'

Civil Society and Human Security Research Unit public discussion

Venue: The Venue, Saw Swee Hock Centre, LSE
Speakers:  Dr Ruben Andersson, Dr Nicholas De Genova, Mr Jeremy Harding, Dr Cecilia Malmström
Chair: Professor Mary Kaldor

About the event 

To mark the launch of Illegality, Inc.: Clandestine migration and the business of bordering Europe, experts debate whether EU states are succeeding in ‘managing the frontiers’ – and at what price. More information here.

About the speakers

Ruben Andersson (@ruben_andersson) is AXA Postdoctoral Research Fellow at LSE’s Civil Society and Human Security Research Unit.

Nicholas De Genova is a Reader in Urban Geography at King’s College, London.

Jeremy Harding is a contributing editor to the London Review of Books.

Cecilia Malmström (@MalmstromEU) is the EU Commissioner for Home Affairs.

More information

Suggested hashtag for this event for Twitter users: #LSEborders

Friday 10 October 2014, 3-4.30pm

Poor Democracies in a Conundrum: International Trade and Government Revenues in Developing Countries

Department of International Relations and Department of International Development seminar

Venue: Graham Wallace Room, 5th floor, Old Building, LSE
Speaker: Nita Rudra

About the event

Governments of developing countries need revenue to meet their substantial spending, development, and poverty reduction goals. How has globalization affected their ability to raise such revenues?  In this analysis, we contribute to the globalization and taxation debate by focusing on the fiscal impacts of declining international trade tax revenue in poor nations. We hypothesize that regime type is a major determinant of revenue raising capacity after liberalization policies have been adopted. As international trade taxes decline- once the primary form of government revenue generation in developing economies- policymakers in poor democracies find it more challenging than their authoritarian counterparts to replace the revenue loss via domestic tax reform. The unfortunate consequence is that the failure to recover declining trade tax revenue in democracies is then associated with a reduction in spending on public goods.

About the speaker

Nita Rudra is an Associate Professor of Government at Georgetown University.  Her research interests include:  the distributional impacts of globalization as they are mediated by politics and institutions; the influence of international organizations on social welfare in developing economies; the political foundations of different welfare regimes; and  the causes and effects of democracy in globalizing developing nations. Her most critical works appear in the British Journal of Political Science, World Politics, Journal of Politics, American Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, International Organization, and International Studies Quarterly.  She has a book with Cambridge University Press entitled: Globalization and the Race to the Bottom in Developing Countries: Who Really Gets Hurt?   She completed a one-year fellowship awarded by the Fulbright-Nehru Foundation at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore India in 2011.  She has also been a recipient of the International Affairs Fellowship from the Council on Foreign Relations, which placed her at the Social Development Department of the World Bank for one year.

Wednesday 8 October 2014, 6.30-8pm (video & podcast)

Improving Basic Services for the Bottom Forty Percent: lessons from Ethiopia

Public discussion

Venue: Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building, LSE
Speaker: Dr Qaiser Khan
Discussants: Marta Foresti, Peter Hawkins, Dr Andy Norton
Chair: Professor Jean-Paul Faguet

About the event

Dr Qaiser Khan will be joined by a panel to discuss Improving Basic Services for the Bottom Forty Percent: Lessons from Ethiopia, which examines Ethiopia's model in delivering basic services and why it appears to be succeeding.

About the speakers and discussants

Qaiser Khan is a lead economist and program leader at the World Bank and the co-author of Improving Basic Services for the Bottom Forty Percent: Lessons from Ethiopia.

Marta Foresti is Director of Politics and Governance Programme at the ODI.

Peter Hawkins is Head of Profession for Programme Management at DFID.

More information

Suggested hashtag for this event for Twitter users: #LSEEthiopia

Monday 29 September 2014, 3pm

Distributive Conflict and the Transition to Democratic Rule

Venue: Graham Wallace Room, Old Building
Speakers: Stephan Haggard (UCSD) and Robert Kaufman (Rutgers)

About the event

Carles Boix and Daron Acemoglu and Jim Robinson have advanced what we call a “distributive conflict” model of democratic transitions.  In earlier work, we argued that the causal mechanisms stipulated in the model did not appear to explain third wave transitions: inequality was not causally significant nor did transitions appear to occur uniformly as a result of distributive conflict.  However, some transitions did and in this chapter we explore their effects.  Regression analysis shows that distributive transitions produce higher scores on the Polity IV and Freedom House indexes.  Differences in the quality of political competition are also evident in narrative comparisons between four paired sets of cases:  Uruguay and Chile, Ukraine and Belarus, Zambia and Ghana, and El Salvador and Honduras.  The differences in the effects of distributive and non-distributive transitions are small, but they persist over a decade or more. 

About the speakers

Stephan Haggard is the Lawrence and Sallye Krause Professor of Korea-Pacific Studies; Director, Korea-Pacific Program (KPP); and Distinguished Professor of Political Science at IR/PS at the University of California, San Diego.

Robert Kaufman is Professor of Political Sciences at Rutgers University.

Wednesday 23 July 2014, 6pm

Emerging Africa: how the global economy's 'last frontier' can prosper and matter

Venue: Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House
Speaker: Kingsley Chiedu Moghalu
Chair: Professor Catherine Boone

To many, Africa is the new frontier. As the West lies battered by financial crises, Africa is seen as offering limitless opportunities for wealth creation in the march of globalisation. In his new book, Emerging Africa: How the Global Economy’s “Last Frontier” Can Prosper and Matter, Kingsley Moghalu, in considering the questions of what Africa means to today’s Africans and whether Africa is truly on the rise, challenges conventional wisdoms about Africa's quest for growth. Drawing on philosophy, economics and strategy, he ranges from capitalism to technological innovation, finance to foreign investment, and from human capital to world trade to offer a new vision of transformation. Ultimately he demonstrates how Africa's progress in the twenty-first century will require nothing short of the reinvention of the African mindset.

Kingsley Chiedu Moghalu is deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria. One of Africa’s leading economic thinkers and policymakers, he worked for the United Nations for 17 years in New York, Cambodia, Croatia, Tanzania, and Switzerland, and was the founder and CEO of Sogato Strategies SA, a global risk and strategy advisory firm in Geneva, Switzerland.

Kingsley Moghalu was educated at LSE where he earned his doctorate, Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and the Faculty of Law of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He is the author of two other books, Global Justice and Rwanda’s Genocide.

Catherine Boone is professor of comparative politics and African political economy at LSE.

Purchase the book online here >>

Thursday 26 June 2014, 6pm

Rethinking Rule of Law Approaches

JSRP and SOAS panel and book launch

Speakers: Deval Desai (Harvard Law School/SOAS), David Marshall (UN), Mareike Schomerus (JSRP, LSE)
Chair: Iavor Rangelov (LSE)

Promoting the rule of law at the national and international level is at the heart of the UN mission and is a principle embedded throughout the Charter of the UN and the constitutions of most nation states. The 2012 “Declaration of the Rule of Law at the National and International Levels”, adopted by the General Assembly, reaffirmed that human rights, the rule of law, and democracy were interlinked and mutually reinforcing, and that they belonged to the universal and indivisible core values and principles of the United Nations. 

To some, the ‘Rule of Law’ has become nothing more than empty rhetoric of individual Western states and intergovernmental bodies such as the UN, the World Bank and the EU.  In addition to conceptual uncertainty and perceived hidden agendas, there is mounting scepticism, particularly among donors, regarding rule of law promotion and its effectiveness in fragile states.  The International Rule of Law Movement critically evaluates rule of law initiatives from a contemporary global perspective. It seeks to fill the gap in knowledge among actors and to explain what has, and has not, been effective and why.  It also proposes better models for promoting justice and the rule of law in fragile states. This new book in the Harvard Law School Human Rights Program series addresses such questions as:

• 'What, and who, drives “change” in terms of rule of law reform efforts?'
• 'What have been the successes of locally-driven, “light footprint” interventions, particularly in fragile states?'
• 'If we are going to have a global rule of law system, should we use models and if so, which ones?'

Purchase the book online here.

Friday 6 June 2014, 6.30-8pm

The Amartya Sen Lecture 2014 (Transcript, video and podcast)

LSE Department for International Development and STICERD lecture

Speaker: Christine Lagarde
Discussant: Professor Amartya Sen
Chair: Craig Calhoun

The Amartya Sen Lecture 2014 was delivered this year by Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund and included a response from Professor Amartya Sen.

Suggested hashtag for this event: #LSESen

Thursday 8 May 2014, 6.30-8pm

Programme for African Leadership and Justice Africa public debate

Justice in Africa: Perspectives from Great Lakes region

Venue: Clement House, Room 3.02
Speakers: John Githongo, Dr Phil Clark, Dr Valerie Arnould
Chair: Professor Tim Allen

This event explored recent gains and challenges and current trends in the area of justice in Africa. It particularly drew attention to ongoing processes in transitional justice and to the involvement of the ICC in Africa, with a particular focus on Kenya, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and Northern Uganda.

For more information about the speakers and the chair, please click here to visit the event listing.

Tuesday 6 May 2014, 11.30am-1pm

Suppressing Protest During Electoral Crises: The Geographic Logic of Mass Arrests in Ethiopia (Seminar)

Venue: NAB.LG.09
Speaker: Leonardo Arriola, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley

How do authoritarian regimes respond to the threat of opposition protest after disputed election results? Regimes are known to use coercion to suppress protests that threaten the status quo, but it remains unclear whether they seek to maximize the impact of repression by imposing sanctions indiscriminately to compel acquiescence from the population as a whole or by targeting sanctions only against those who take to the streets. This paper explains how regimes can suppress popular mobilization by using the geography of their capitals to target repression, concentrating policing efforts around politically symbolic sites where protesters are most likely to rally. The argument is corroborated with evidence from Ethiopia’s 2005 post-election crisis. Based on an analysis of nearly 15,000 protest-related arrests in the capital, the paper shows that the incumbent regime sought to contain the threat of opposition protest through a strategy of systematic spatial targeting, preemptively detaining young men residing in neighborhoods near the capital’s most salient political focal point — the executive office. Distance from the executive office alone is shown to explain much of the variation in neighborhood-level arrest rates, while factors such as protest intensity, police infrastructure, or opposition leader whereabouts are found to have no impact on arrest rates.

About the speaker

Leonardo R. Arriola is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. His research focuses on democratization and political violence in African countries. He is author of Multiethnic Coalitions in Africa: Business Financing of Opposition Election Campaigns (Cambridge University Press, 2012), which received a best book award from the African Politics Conference Group of APSA and the African Studies Association. His research has appeared in journals such as the American Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, and World Politics.

Thursday 1 May 2014, 6.30-8pm

Economics, But Not As You Know It (Podcast and video)

Venue: Old Theatre, Old Building
Speaker: Dr Ha-Joon Chang
Chair: Professor James Putzel

In Economics: The User's Guide, which he will talk about in this public lecture, bestselling author Ha-Joon Chang explains how the global economy works, and why anyone can understand the dismal science. Unlike many economists who claim there is only one way of 'doing economics', he introduces readers to a wide range of economic theories, from classical to Keynesian, revealing how they all have their strengths, weaknesses and blind spots. By ignoring the received wisdom, and exposing the myriad forces that shape our financial fate, Chang provides the tools that every responsible citizen needs to understand - and address - our current economic woes.

About the speaker

Ha-Joon Chang teaches economics at Cambridge University. His book 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism was a no.1 bestseller and was called by the Observer 'a witty and timely debunking of some of the biggest myths surrounding the global economy.' He is a popular columnist at the Guardian, and a vocal critic of the failures of our economic system.

Suggested hashtag for this event for Twitter users: #LSEeconomics

Thursday-Saturday 3-5 April 2014

The LSE Africa Summit

The LSE’s first Africa Summit will explore the salient issues facing the African continent through the lens of entrepreneurship. The President of Ghana, His Excellency John D. Mahama, will give the keynote speech during the summit’s Business Conference on Saturday 5 April. Learn more about the programme here and follow @LSEAfricaSummit to catch up on what happened during the summit.

Tuesday 18 March 2014, 6.30-8pm

What went wrong and what can be done about it? African regional dynamics affecting post-war state building in South Sudan

Programme for African Leadership public discussion series

Venue: Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building
Speakers: Hon Richard Todwong, Hussein Maar Nyuot, Dr Edward Thomas, Naomi Pendle
Chair: Dr Hakan Seckinelgin 

About the speakers

Richard Todwong is the Minister Without Portfolio in the Government of  Uganda and a Member of Parliament representing Nwoya County in Northern Uganda. He has also previously worked as a special presidential advisor for Northern Uganda.

Hussein Maaar Nyuot  is a senior member of the current SPLM in Opposition that is headed by Riak Machar. He was the Deputy Governor for Jonglei state from 2007 until the recent violence of December 2013.

Dr Edward Thomas worked in Sudan and Egypt for twelve years as a teacher, human rights worker and researcher. His PhD focused on the history of the Republican movement, a Sufi-inspired group that called for the reform of Islamic law and civil rights for all Sudanese. He is the author of Islam’s Perfect Stranger: The Life of Mahmud Muhammad Taha (2010).

Naomi Pendle is a PhD candidate at LSE.  Her research focuses on local justice amongst Nuer and Dinka speaking communities to the west of the Nile in South Sudan.  She has lived, worked and researched in South Sudan for five years, and is currently working for AECOM assisting the Office of Transition and Conflict Mitigation in USAID.

Tuesday 4 March 2014, 6.30-8pm

After the Fall: World Order or Disorder after 1989

Civil Society and Human Security Research Unit and LSE IDEAS lecture

Venue:  Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building
Speakers: Prof Jacques Rupnick, Prof Mary Kaldor, Prof Michael Cox
Discussant: Prof Karoline Postel-Vinay
Discussant and Chair: Dr George Lawson

The end of the Cold War in 1989 ushered in a more stable world shaped by an irresistible combination of capitalism and liberalism. But did it? New wars in failing states,  the spread of nuclear weapons, rising terrorism, and in 2008 the great financial crash,  all pointed  to an international system where the certainties of a 20th Century Cold War had given way to a new century full of uncertainty and danger.

About the speakers and discussants

Professor Jacques Rupnik is Research Director at the Centre for International Research (CERI), Sciences Po.

Professor Mary Kaldor is Director of the Civil Society and Human Security Research Unit at the London School of Economics

Professor Michael Cox is Founding Co-Director of LSE IDEAS and Emeritus Professor in International Relations.

Professor Karoline Postel-Viney is Research Director at the Centre for International Research (CERI), Sciences Po.

Dr George Lawson is a Senior Lecturer of International Relations at LSE and serves on the LSE IDEAS Academic Management Committee.

Tuesday 4 March 2014, 6.30-8pm

Peacebuilding: what is it and why is it important? (Podcast)

Venue: Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House
Speaker: Judy Cheng-Hopkins
Chair: Dr Stuart Gordon

Peacebuilding has become a buzzword over the past decade. Yet, there are many diverging ideas of what peacebuilding is and what it entails. The United Nations is not exempt from such uncertainty, diverging interpretations, and misunderstandings, as well as the resulting conceptual and practical debates. Assistant secretary-general for peacebuilding support, Judy Cheng-Hopkins, will seek to outline the concept of peacebuilding, its practical significance, and translation into operational activity, with a particular focus on the work and engagement of the UN Peacebuilding Commission and the Peacebuilding Fund, which finances activities of UN agencies, funds and programmes in fragile states around the world.

About the speaker

Judy Cheng-Hopkins has been the United Nations assistant secretary-general for peacebuilding support since 2009. She was previously the assistant high commissioner for refugees (2006-2009), the director of the Asia Bureau and the Balkans at the World Food Programme (WFP), and served UNDP in Africa for ten years. She received a masters of international affairs degree from SIPA, Columbia University. In 2011, she was listed by Forbes as one of the ten most powerful women at the UN. In 2013, she received the prestigious Global Leadership Award from Columbia University.

Suggested hashtag for this event for Twitter users: #LSEpeacebuilding

Monday 3 March 2014, 6.30-8pm

What went wrong and what can be done about it? Internal dynamics on post-war state building in South Sudan

Programme for African Leadership public discussion

Speakers: Thomas Mawan Muortat, Dr Mareike Schomerus
Discussant: Alex Dowling
Chair: Professor Tim Allen

Wednesday 12 February 2014, 6.30-8pm

What went wrong and what can be done about it? A South Sudanese perspective for post-war state-building in South Sudan

Venue: Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building
Speakers: Dr Barnaba Marial Benjamin, Dr Edward Thomas
Chair: Professor Tim Allen

Dr Barnaba Marial Benjamin, Foreign Minister of South Sudan, and Dr Edward Thomas will speak on the situation in and the future of the Republic of South Sudan.

Thursday 30 January, 6.30-8pm

AIDS Drugs for All: social movements and market transformations
(Podcast)

Venue: New Theatre, East Building
Speaker: Dr Joshua Busby
Chair: Professor Ken Shadlen

Drawing on a rich set of interviews and surveys, Joshua Busby shows how the global AIDS treatment advocacy movement helped millions in the developing world gain access to lifesaving medication.

About the speaker

Joshua Busby is an associate professor of public affairs and a fellow in the RGK Center for Philanthropy and Community Service.

Suggested hashtag for this event for Twitter users: #LSEBusby

Wednesday 29 January 2014, 4-5.30pm

State building and large-scale investments in agriculture in Ethiopia: a perspective in the longue durée

Venue: Room 3.23, Old Building
Speaker: Luca Puddu

This presentation examines the territorial strategies and current geopolitical concerns that help explain different political economies of contemporary rural development programs in the Afar Regional State and Gambella Regional State of Ethiopia. In Afar Regional State, development programs feature state plantations and sugar value chains under public control.  In Gambella Regional State, we see large scale foreign investors surrounded by smaller domestic investors, and resettlement of local communities.  Puddu's analysis helps to explain the contrast.

About the speaker

Luca Puddu is a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Social Sciences and Institutions at the University of Calgiari. He is currently Visiting Scholar at Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC.

Wednesday 22 January 2014, 6.30-8pm

Poverty and the Tolerance of the Intolerable

Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Prospect Magazine public lecture @ LSE

Venue: Old Theatre, Old Building
Speaker: Professor Amartya Sen

Drawing on his ground-breaking work on poverty and development, Professor Sen will examine some of the biggest economic, moral and philosophical issues facing anti-poverty campaigners today.

About the speaker

Amartya Sen is Thomas W. Lamont University Professor, and professor of economics and philosophy, at Harvard University. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1998 for his contributions to the study of fundamental problems in welfare economics. His most recent book is An Uncertain Glory: India and Its Contradictions, co-authored with Jean Dreze. Professor Sen is an Honorary Fellow of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation is an endowed foundation funding a UK-wide research and development programme.

Prospect Magazine is "Britain's leading monthly current affairs magazine".

Suggested hashtag for this event for Twitter users: #LSEpoverty

Tuesday 21 January 2014, 5-6pm

The Next Global Development Agenda: from aspiration to delivery

International Growth Centre public lecture

Venue: Old Theatre, Old Building
Speaker: Helen Clark
Chair: Dr Jonathan Leape

2015 was the date set for achieving most of the Millennium Development Goals' targets. United Nations member states have agreed that there should be a post-2015 development agenda aimed at poverty eradication in the context of sustainable development. With negotiations on a new agenda set to begin in late 2014, Helen Clark will reflect on the inputs to the debate thus far and on how consensus can be reached on sustainable development goals.

About the speaker

Helen Clark (@HelenClarkUNDP) became the administrator of the United Nations Development Programme in April 2009, and is the first woman to lead the organization. She is also the chair of the United Nations Development Group, a committee consisting of the heads of all UN funds, programmes and departments working on development issues. Prior to her appointment with UNDP, Helen Clark served for nine years as prime minister of New Zealand, serving three successive terms from 1999 - 2008.

Suggested hashtag for this event for Twitter users: #LSEUNDP