Event Archive

International Relations Book Launch and Roundtable:

Peace, Justice and the Future of the International Criminal Court

Date: Wednesday 16 November 2016

Speaker: Dr Mark Kersten
Mark Kersten (@MarkKersten) is a postgraduate researcher, teacher and international criminal justice consultant based at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto.

Discussants: Dr Kirsten Ainley, Shehzad Charania, and Professor Kevin Jon Heller

Kirsten Ainley (@kirstenainley) is Associate Professor of International Relations at LSE.

Shehzad Charania (@UKintlaw) is Deputy Director of International and EU law at the Attorney General's Office.

Kevin Jon Heller (@kevinjonheller) is Professor of Criminal Law at SOAS.

Chair: Mark Hoffman

Mark Hoffman is Assistant Professor of International Relations and Deputy Head of Department (Teaching and Learning) at LSE.

With the dramatic withdrawals of South Africa, Burundi and the Gambia from the International Criminal Court (ICC) in October 2016, the international criminal justice project is at a crossroads. The ICC, once thought to be the missing link in the chain of global human rights enforcement, is criticized as a politicized Court, biased against the Global South.

Mark Kersten’s new book, ‘Justice in Conflict’, is an urgent examination of the role of the ICC in peace processes and post-conflict states. The roundtable will discuss the findings of the book and the potential for the International Criminal Court to reform in order to operate with legitimacy and effectiveness into the future.

International Relations Film Screening:

The Territorial Dispute over Dokdo/Takeshima and Activism in Korea and Japan

Date: Thursday 3 November 2016

Speaker: Alexander Bukh
Alexander Bukh is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He holds an LLM in International Law from Tokyo University and a PhD in International Relations from the LSE.

Chair: Professor Christopher Hughes
Christopher Hughes is Professor of International Relations at LSE.

Alexander will discuss the role of civil society actors in the Dokdo/Takeshima territorial dispute between Japan and Korea and related documentary film made in collaboration with Seoul based film maker Nils Clauss.

International Relations Public Lecture:

The Obama Legacy and the Future of US-China Relations

Date: Tuesday 1 November 2016

Speaker: Professor Thomas J. Christensen
Thomas J. Christensen is William P. Boswell Professor of World Politics of Peace and War and Director of the China and the World Program at Princeton University.

Chair: Professor Peter Trubowitz
Peter Trubowitz is Professor of International Relations, Head of Department and Director of the US Centre at LSE.

Professor Thomas J. Christensen will focus on the Obama administration’s response to the challenges China’s rise poses, and consider the implications for US policy in Asia going forward.

International Relations Workshop:

Survey research on attitudes towards killing in war: What have we learned?

Date: Friday 28 October 2016

This workshop will bring together scholars from leading Universities in Israel, the United States, and the United Kingdom to present and discuss the findings of four ongoing research projects using survey methods to study attitudes towards violence in war.

For further information, download the workshop programme.

International Relations Public Lecture:

‘The Chinese Nation-Zhonghua minzu’ - A Timely Term for a Nation in Need?

Date: Monday 17 October 2016

Speaker: Harald Bøckman
Harald Bøckman is a Norwegian researcher at the Centre for Development and Environment at the University of Oslo. He is a Sinologist, and is considered an expert on Chinese language, culture, history and politics, and is coordinator of the Network for Asian Studies.

Chair: Professor William A. Callahan
William A. Callahan is Professor of International Relations at LSE. His research examines the interplay of culture and policy in China and Asia, and considers the overlap of domestic and international politics.

This lecture will map the transmogrifications of the concept of ‘The Chinese Nation - Zhonghua minzu’ from  a national to a supra-national entity, and the consequences this may entail for China’s future inter-ethnic relations.

LSE Centre for International Studies, Department of International Relations and Department of Law Workshop:

International Criminal Justice On/ And Film

Date: 12-13 September 2016

Film — in the broadest sense of fiction, documentary, media reportage, and audiovisual court transmissions — is key to the scholarship and practice of international criminal justice.

This workshop is a creative effort to analyse and make sense of disparate ways in which film and international criminal justice relate to each other with different logics, such as in aesthetic, truth, political and legal relations.

For further information, please visit the event web page, or e-mail s.wise3@lse.ac.uk.

International Relations and CIS Film Screening:
Visualizing Borders

Date: Monday 13 June 2016

You can see CHINA from here William A. Callahan

Borders not only separate things, but are the place where people come together. This film examines how Chinese and non-Chinese people experience their encounters with the Other (and thus with their Self) at the Lo Wu Bridge, the iconic border between Hong Kong and mainland China.

‘We Are Not Immigrations’: Examining Everyday Border Practices at the US-Mexican Border Cynthia Weber

The closing of the US-Mexican border is on-going historical event that affects the daily lives of many people living along this border. These two films examine how indigenous US and Mexican Americans, whose tribal lands sit on both sides of this border, experience these effects in another register.

William A. Callahan is Professor of International Relations at LSE.

Cynthia Weber is Professor of International Relations at Sussex University, and co-Director of the media company Pato Productions.

International Relations Roundtable:

Is Putinism Sustainable?

Date: Thursday 19 May 2016

Panellists: Dr Marie Mendras, Dr Chris Miller, Dr Bryn Rosenfeld
Marie Mendras is a Professor at the Paris School of International Affairs at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques (Sciences Po), and researcher with the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Paris.
Chris Miller  is the Associate Director of the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy at Yale University and a Fellow at the Transatlantic Academy.
Bryn Rosenfeld is a Postdoctoral Prize Research Fellow at Nuffield College, University of Oxford, and holds a PhD from Princeton University. 

Discussant: Dr Ulrich Speck
Ulrich Speck is a Senior Fellow at the Transatlantic Academy.

Chair: Dr Tomila Lankina
Tomila Lankina is an Associate Professor of International Relations at LSE.

Download the event blurb for full bios and further information.

International Relations Public Lecture:

The Cultural Revolution: A People’s History, 1962-1976

Date: Thursday 5 May 2016

Speaker: Professor Frank Dikötter
Frank Dikötter is the author of The Tragedy of Liberation: A History of the Chinese Revolution, 1945-1957, and Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, which won the 2011 Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction, Britain's most prestigious book award for non-fiction. He has been Chair Professor of Humanities at the University of Hong Kong since 2006.

Chair: Professor William A. Callahan
William A. Callahan is Professor of International Relations at LSE.

Written with unprecedented access to previously classified party documents from secret police reports, to unexpurgated versions of leadership speeches, listen to Frank Dikötter discuss the third chapter in his extraordinarily lucid and ground-breaking ‘People’s Trilogy’, offering a devastating reassessment of the history of the People’s Republic of China.

Read an excerpt from his book, The Cultural Revolution: A People’s History, 1962-1976 here.

International Relations Public Lecture:

Watching War

Date: Wednesday 4 May 2016

Speaker: Professor Robert Hariman
Robert Hariman is Professor of Communications at Northwestern University. His scholarship focuses on the role of style in human affairs, particularly with regard to political judgment and the discursive constitution of modern society

Chair: Professor William A. Callahan.
William A. Callahan is Professor of International Relations at LSE.

This presentation takes up photography’s intimate relationship with warfare.

LSE Arts Public Exhibition:

An Archeology of Modern China

Date: Monday 4 April 2016 - Friday 22 April 2016 Time: Monday - Friday, 10.00am - 8.00pm Venue: Atrium Gallery, Old Building

To mark the 50th anniversary of the start of China’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), this exhibit explores the everyday experience of revolution and reform through cultural artifacts that give a tactile sense of the dramatic changes Chinese people have experienced since 1966.

The exhibit is based primarily on collections from LSE staff, and is curated by Professor William A. Callahan, International Relations Department, LSE.

International Relations Public Lecture:

Can the EU be tough with its neighbours? Insights from the practice of EU sanctions

Date: Monday 21 March 2016

Speaker: Dr Clara Portela
Clara Portela is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Singapore Management University and a Visiting Professor at the College of Europe

Chair: Dr Federica Bicchi
Federica Bicchi is Associate Professor in International Relations of Europe at LSE.

The European Union (EU) has often applied sanctions against targets in its neighbourhood in the context of its Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP): currently, Syria, Egypt, Tunisia, Belarus, Ukraine/Russia and Moldova are at the receiving end of EU sanctions.

In spite of the conditionality-based approach embedded in the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and the frequency with which the EU has targeted its neighbours, the relationship between the ENP and CFSP sanctions policy is complex. It has been suggested that Europe’s neighbourhood has received different treatment in EU sanctions policy than regions further afield (Portela 2005, Beaucillon 2012, Kreutz 2015).

But can the EU be tough on its neighbours, tougher than on actors beyond its immediate vicinity? The lecture addresses this question by reviewing EU sanctions’ practice.

International Relations and European Foreign Policy Unit Workshop:

Brexit and EU foreign policy: the view from other EU member states

Date: Wednesday 9 March 2016

Speakers: Dr Annegret Bendiek, Professor Stephan Keukeleire, Dr Petr Kratochwil, Professor Christian Lequesne, Professor Ben Tonra
Annegret Bendiek is a Senior Associate for the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.
Stephan Keukeleire is the Jean Monnet Professor of European Foreign Policy at the Leuven International and European Studies Institute, University of Leuven.
Petr Kratochwil is the Director of the Institute of International Relations, Prague.
Christian Lequesne is Professor of European Politics at Sciences Po and Director of the Centre d'études et de recherches internationales, and Professor at the College of Europe.
Ben Tonra is Jean Monnet Professor ad personam of European Foreign, Security and Defence Policy and Associate Professor of International Relations at the UCD School of Politics and International Relations.

Chair: Professor Karen Smith
Karen Smith is Professor of International Relations and Director of the European Foreign Policy Unit at LSE.

Much of the current debate about Brexit focuses on its implications for the UK. But what about the rest of Europe, and the EU itself? This workshop will contribute to current debates about the foreign policy implications of Brexit by considering the views of other member states.

International Relations Public Lecture:

What is an Islamic State? Rethinking Sovereignty Historically in Muslim Contexts

Date: Monday 29 February 2016

Speaker: Dr Ayşe Zarakol
Ayşe Zarakol is University Lecturer in International Relations, Fellow of Emmanuel College, and Senior Research Associate at the Centre for Rising Powers at the University of Cambridge.

Chair: Professor John Sidel
John Sidel is the Sir Patrick Gillam Professor of International and Comparative Politics at LSE.

In this lecture, Ayşe Zarakol will contextualise the concept of the ‘state’ (‘dawla’) historically in various Muslim contexts and discuss how the legacy of such historical understandings may be informing present day practices of ISIS/Daesh, as well other actors with similar inspirations.

International Relations Public Lecture:

When War Is Oikonomia By Other Means

Date: Thursday 11 February 2016

Speaker: Professor Patricia Owens
Patricia Owens is Professor of International Relations at the University of Sussex. She is the author of Economy of Force: Counterinsurgency and the Historical Rise of the Social (Cambridge University Press, 2015) and Between War and Politics: International Relations and the Thought of Hannah Arendt (Oxford University Press, 2007). She is co-editor of the European Journal of International Relations.

Chair: Professor Christopher Coker
Christopher Coker is Professor of International Relations at LSE.

This lecture will present a new history and theory of counterinsurgency with major implications for social, political and international thought.

International Relations Public Lecture:

On Being Able to Sleep: Bio-politics in Counterinsurgent Wars

Date: Wednesday 3 February 2016

Speaker: Professor Helen Kinsella
Helen Kinsella is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. She is the author of the prize-winning book The Image Before the Weapon: A Critical History of the Distinction Between Combatant and Civilian (Cornell University Press, 2011).

Chair: Professor John Sidel
John Sidel is the Sir Patrick Gillam Professor of International and Comparative Politics at LSE.

This talk analyses elements of the United States' counterinsurgency war in Afghanistan and Pakistan from 2001.

International Relations Public Lecture:

Frantz Fanon’s Africa: Psychiatry, Anthropology, Pan-Africanism

Date: Tuesday 2 February 2016

Speaker: Dr Jean Khalfa
Jean Khalfa is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of French at Trinity College, University of Cambridge, and a British Academy/Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellow in the Faculty of Modern & Medieval Languages at the University of Cambridge.

Chair: Professor Chris Alden
Chris Alden is Professor of International Relations at LSE.

This lecture will look at Jean Khalfa’s edition of Fanon’s unpublished writings, Écrits sur l’Aliénation et la Liberté, which has just been published in parallel in Paris (La Découverte) and Algiers (Hibr) and will be published in English by Bloomsbury in 2016.

LSE Arts Public Exhibition:

VIP: Visualising International Politics Student Films from the International Relations Department

This exhibition is co-organised by the LSE’s International Relations Department and Learning Technology and Innovation office, and is in association with LSE Arts.

For further information email arts@lse.ac.uk or phone 020 7955 6043.

International Relations Public Lecture:

EU security policy in a more connected, contested and complex world

Date: Tuesday 15 December 2015

Speaker: Joëlle Jenny
Joëlle Jenny is Director for Security Policy and Conflict Prevention at the European External Action Service.

Chair: Dr Federica Bicchi
Federica Bicchi is Associate Professor in International Relations of Europe at LSE.

Respondents: Dr Spyros Economides, Dr Frédéric Merand and Professor Christoph Meyer
Dr Spyros Economides is Associate Professor of International Relations and European Politics at LSE.

Dr Frédéric Merand is Director of CÉRIUM, the Montréal Centre for International Studies and Associate Professor, Université de Montréal.

Professor Christoph Meyer is Professor of European & International Politics at King’s College London.

In a more connected, contested and complex world, how can the EU promote security at home and abroad? At times of widespread security concerns, the EU and its member states are aiming to refine their conceptual tools, institutional framework and policy instruments. Come and join the debate!

International Relations Workshop:

European Diplomatic Practices: Contemporary Challenges and Innovative Approaches

Date: Tuesday 15 December 2015

This workshop explores how European diplomatic practices have evolved post-Lisbon, with an emphasis on practice approaches.

After the first few pioneering years, the new European foreign policy setting has begun to take shape, and this workshop will analyse the developments and the key practices, by making use of a variety of case studies both at the micro and the macro level.

For further information, please download the workshop programme.

International Relations Public Lecture:

Six Myths of the Ukrainian Crisis

Date: Monday 7 December 2015

Speaker: Dr Olga Onuch
Olga Onuch is an Assistant Professor in Politics at the University of Manchester and an Associate Fellow at Nuffield College (University of Oxford).

Chair: Dr Tomila Lankina
Tomila Lankina is an Associate Professor in the Department of International Relations at LSE.

This lecture will trace the trajectory of events that followed the “Ukrainian Crisis” and unpack the six central myths that were reproduced in policy and academic commentary and why they impede not only our understanding of the roots of the crisis but also possible solutions to it.

International Relations Public Lecture:

Passive Agents? Bureaucratic Agency in Africa-China Negotiations – a case study of Benin

Friday 4 December 2015

Speaker: Dr Folashadé Soule-Kohndou
Folashadé Soulé is a Research Associate at the CERI - Sciences Po Paris and has been a Post-Doctoral researcher at the LSE Department of International Relations since 2015.

Chair: Professor Chris Alden
Chris Alden is a Professor of International Relations and Co-Head of the LSE IDEAS Africa International Affairs programme at LSE.

This lecture will expand upon cross-disciplinary research on the bureaucratic politics of negotiation by small states engaged in asymmetrical relations with larger states.

International Relations Public Lecture:

The Changing Political Economy and the Future of Emerging Powers

Thursday 26 November 2015

Speaker: Professor Alfredo G. A. Valladão
Alfredo G. A. Valladão is a Professor at the Paris School of International Affairs (Sciences Po-Paris) where he teaches Latin American geopolitics.

Chair: Professor Chris Alden
Chris Alden  is a Professor of International Relations and Co-Head of the LSE IDEAS Africa International Affairs programme at LSE.

Alfredo G. A. Valladão visited LSE on behalf of Sciences Po to discuss the changing political economy and the future of emerging powers.

2015 Millennium Conference
Failure and Denial in World Politics.

Date:  17-18 October, 2015

Location: The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), London, UK.

International relations are enmeshed in political failure and denial: from the governing of global climate change, financial collapse, and nuclear proliferation, to liberal statebuilding, development, and the potential for pandemics. Failure and denial reside in the background of world politics. In spite of their ubiquity and global relevance, however, it is paradoxical that these concepts remain under-theorised and under-conceptualised in International Relations scholarship. The 2015 Millennium Conference thus aspires to open new and critical grounds for debate and discussion by examining this paradox. It is a call for IR to theorise what has remained in the background of its thought and theory until now: failure and denial in world politics.

For more information click here