The big picture as an approach to the study of international relations
Speakers
Barry Buzan is one of Europe’s most influential scholars of international relations, renowned for his interdisciplinary collaborations and for making complex ideas accessible to a wide audience. This panel discussion marks the launch of The Big Picture as an Approach to the Study of International Relations: Thinking With and Beyond Barry Buzan, and reflects on his intellectual legacy and enduring contribution to the discipline.
Bringing together leading scholars, the event will both honour Buzan’s contribution to the Department of International Relations and offer a timely discussion on the role of large-scale theorising in contemporary IR. It will be of particular interest to those seeking to understand the direction of the field and the place of big-picture thinking within it.
Meet our speakers and chair
Barry Buzan is Emeritus Professor of International Relations at LSE (formerly Montague Burton Professor); honorary professor at Copenhagen, Jilin, and China Foreign Affairs Universities; a Senior Fellow at LSE Ideas; and a Fellow of the British Academy. He has written, co-authored or edited over twenty-five books, written or co-authored nearly one hundred and fifty articles and chapters, and lectured, broadcast or presented papers in over twenty countries.
Rita Floyd is Professor of International Security and Ethics in the Department of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Birmingham. Her research and teaching interests lie in security studies, the ethics of emergency politics, and climate/environmental security. Floyd is the originator of Just Securitization Theory and also has a general interest in IR theory, especially the English school.
Laust Schouenborg is Associate Professor of International Politics and Director of the Centre for Statecraft and International Order at the Roskilde University in Denmark. He completed his PhD in International Relations at LSE and his research interests revolve around different historical dimensions of international relations, drawing mainly on the English School approach to IR. He is the current convener of the ISA Working Group on Security and International Society.
Ayşe Zarakol is a Professor of International Relations at the University of Cambridge and a Politics Fellow at Emmanuel College. Her research is at the intersection of historical sociology and IR, focusing on East-West relations, history and future of world order(s), conceptualisations of modernity and sovereignty, rising and declining powers, and Turkish politics in a comparative perspective.
Robert Falkner is Professor of International Relations and the Academic Dean of the TRIUM Global Executive MBA, a world leading executive MBA programme jointly run by NYU Stern School of Business, HEC Paris and LSE.
More about this event
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The Department of International Relations at LSE is now in it's 99th year - one of the oldest as well as largest IR departments in the world, with a truly international reputation. Throughout 2027 we will celebrate our centenary with a series of events and initiatives involving faculty, students, alumni and the public. We are ranked 2nd in the UK and 5th in the world in the QS World University Ranking by Subject 2026 tables for Politics and International Studies.
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