Southeast Asia between the Superpowers: Who is Where and Why?

Thursday 16 October 2025
6.30pm to 8.00pm
Hong Kong Theatre (Clement House), LSE

Hosted by LSE IDEAS, LSE Department of International Relations and the LSE Phelan United States Centre

What explains the alignment choices of Southeast Asian states amidst the US-China rivalry and what are the implications of these choices for the region?

Meet our speaker

Yuen Foong Khong is Li Ka Shing Professor of Political Science and Co-Director of the Centre for Asia and Globalisation at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. He was formerly Professor of International Relations and a Professorial Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford University.

Chair

Peter Trubowitz is Professor of International Relations at LSE, and is also Head of LSE's Phelan United States Centre 

This public event is free and open to all but pre-registration is required. Click here to register for the event.

For any queries, email ideas.events@lse.ac.uk

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Lines Drawn by Empire: displacement, belonging, and borders

Thursday 20 November 2025
6.30pm - 8pm
In-person public event (Wolfson Theatre, CKK Building, LSE)

This public event explores how the afterlives of empire continue to shape migration regimes, bordering practices, and ideas of national belonging. It brings together educators, activists, and organisers to examine how colonial logics underpin contemporary systems of mobility control, and how these are resisted in lived experience and political advocacy. 

Meet our speakers

Dr Lucy Mayblin is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the School of Sociological Studies, Politics and International Relations, University of Sheffield, as well as Co-Director of the Migration Research Group.

Zrinka Bralo is Chief Executive of Migrants Organise – a community organising platform for migrants and refugees acting for justice. 

Boucka Koffi is the Chair of the Voice of the Voiceless Immigration Detainees in Yorkshire (VVIDY).

Chair

Asha Herten-Crabb is IRD Fellow in the Department of International Relations at LSE.

This public event is free and open to all. No ticket or pre-registration is required. Entry is on a first come, first served basis.

For any queries email ir.events@lse.ac.uk.

Find out more about the event and register

Unlearning Empire: education and the legacies of the British Commonwealth

Tuesday 21 Oct 2025 6.30pm - 8pm
MAR.1.08 Marshall Building

This panel discussion examines how the legacies of empire persist in education systems across the Commonwealth, shaping curricula, pedagogy, and institutions in ways that reproduce colonial hierarchies. It will look at how educators, artists, and organisers are contesting these legacies through counter-histories, community learning, and decolonial practice.

Meet our speakers

Obaapanin Adwoa Oforiwaa Adu of the University of Media, Arts and Communications, Ghana, is a Pan-Afrikan reparations scholar-activist and global justice advocate with two decades of work on decolonisation, gender empowerment, and sustainable development. 

Patricia Daley is Professor of the Human Geography of Africa at the School of Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford. Her publications have addressed epistemic violence and defiant scholarship. She co-authored with Amber Murrey, Learning Disobedience: Decolonizing Development Studies (Pluto Press, 2023).

Muhammad Ibrahim Alom is a 3rd year undergraduate student in the Department of International History at LSE. He is currently serving as President of the LSE Students for Justice in Palestine and Chairman of the LSE Majlis. 

Chair

Asha Herten-Crabb is IRD Fellow in the Department of International Relations at LSE.

This public event is free and open to all but pre-registration is required.

For any queries email ir.events@lse.ac.uk.

Find out more about the event and register

Seeing Beyond the Core: Alternative visions of order in times of global crisis

Wednesday 22 Oct 2025 6.30pm - 8pm
Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House

As the Liberal International Order faces an accelerating crisis of legitimacy – marked by escalating tariff wars, militarism, and inequalities – new questions are emerging about the state and future of a rapidly changing world order. To date, most of these conversations have centred the global North. This event takes a different path: it explores how the current moment looks when viewed from across the global South, recognising these perspectives as diverse and essential, not uniform and secondary. 

Meet our speakers

Ilias Alami is Assistant Professor in the Political Economy of Development in the Centre of Development Studies, and the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge.

Lina Benabdallah is McCulloch Family Faculty Fellow and Associate Professor in the department of politics and international affairs at Wake Forest University. Her book Shaping the Future of Power: Knowledge Production and Network-Building in China-Africa Relations was published in 2020 by Michigan Press University.

Jasmine Gani is Assistant Professor in International Relations Theory at LSE. She specialises in anti-colonial theory and history, and the politics of empire, race and knowledge production.

Jenna Marshall is Lecturer in International Studies at King’s College London. Before her appointment at King’s in 2022, she was a Sassoon Visiting Fellow in Black and South Asia History at the University of Oxford. 

Discussant

Giulia Sciorati is an LSE Fellow in China and the Global South, in the Department of International Relations at LSE.

Chair

Shikha Dilawri is LSE Fellow in International Relations Theory in the Department of International Relations at LSE.

This public event is free and open to all. No ticket or pre-registration is required. Entry is on a first come, first served basis.

For any queries email ir.events@lse.ac.uk.

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From Frontiers to Borders: How colonial technicians created modern territoriality

Wednesday 29 October 2025 6.30pm-8pm
Hong Kong Theatre (Clement House, LSE)

In this book launch, Kerry Goettlich will briefly present his new book, From Frontiers to Borders: How Colonial Technicians Created Modern Territoriality (Cambridge University Press, 2025), followed by a panel discussion about the key questions. How did modern territoriality emerge and what are its consequences?

Meet our speaker, discussants and chair

Kerry Goettlich is Lecturer in International Politics at City St George’s, University of London.

Discussants

Edward Keene is Associate Professor of International Relations in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford. 

Joanne Yao is Reader (Associate Professor) in International Relations at Queen Mary University of London. 

Ayşe Zarakol is Professor of International Relations at the University of Cambridge. 

Chair

Martin Bayly is Associate Professor of International Relations Theory in the Department of International Relations at LSE.

This public event is free and open to all. No ticket or pre-registration is required. Entry is on a first come, first served basis.

For any queries email ir.events@lse.ac.uk.

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The changing geopolitics of Northern Europe

Thursday 30 October 2025 6.30pm - 8pm
Old Theatre, Old Building

The abandoning of the liberal world order by the Trump regime, China’s rise, and Russia’s militarisation all strengthen the possibility that great-power concert is on the rise as an institution of international order. This has various geopolitical implications for the world’s regions. 

Meet our speaker, discussants and chair

Iver B Neumann is Director of The Fridtjof Nansen Institute, Norway and Adjunct Professor at the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History, Oslo University. He was the LSE Montague Burton Professor in International Relations 2012-2017, and is now working on a genealogy of states systems. 

Discussants

Federica Bicchi is Associate Professor of International Relations in the Department of International Relations at LSE.

Jennifer Jackson-Preece is Associate Professor in Nationalism, with a joint appointment in both the European Institute and the Department of International Relations at LSE. 

Chair

Martin Bayly is Associate Professor of International Relations Theory in the Department of International Relations at LSE.

This public event is free and open to all. No ticket or pre-registration is required. Entry is on a first come, first served basis.

For any queries email ir.events@lse.ac.uk.

Find out more about the speakers & this event

Is There a Trump Doctrine? Making Sense of US Foreign and Security Policy since Trump’s Return to the White House

Wednesday 19 November 2025
6.30pm-8pm
In-person and online public event (LSE campus, venue tbc to ticketholders)

In January 2025, Donald Trump returned to the White House. The ensuing months have been a dizzying blur for US foreign and security policy. Unprecedented US import tariffs have been threatened, reversed, and imposed. Allies have been lectured and harangued, while adversaries have been warmly welcomed. Amidst the turmoil of the Trump administration, is there an emerging logic to US foreign and security policy? Is a Trump doctrine taking shape?

Meet our speakers and chair

Ronald Krebs is Distinguished McKnight University Professor and Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota. His primary focus is international conflict and security. He is author of the award-winning Narrative and the Making of US National Security, and co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Grand Strategy.

Boram Lee is Assistant Professor in International Political Economy in the Department of International Relations at LSE. Her broad research is on how value-based issues affect economic globalisation. 

Katharine Millar is Associate Professor of International Relations in the Department of International Relations at LSE. Her broad research interests lie in examining the gendered cultural narratives underlying political violence and the modern collective use of force. 

Luca Tardelli is Associate Professor (Education) in International Relations. His research focuses on international security, military intervention, and US foreign policy. 

Rohan Mukherjee is Assistant Professor and Deputy Director of LSE IDEAS in the Department of International Relations at LSE. His research focuses on rising powers and how they navigate the power and status hierarchies of international order. 

This public event is free and open to all. This event will be a hybrid event, with an in-person audience and an online audience.

In-person: You can request one ticket via the online ticket request form, which will be open after 12 noon on Monday 13 October. The ticket line will stay open until all tickets have been allocated.

Online: Registration will open in early October.

For any queries email events@lse.ac.uk.

Find out more about this event