Revolutions and world order: still the 'Sixth Great Power'?

Department of International Relations Fred Halliday Memorial Lecture 2024/25

Tuesday 27 May 2025, 6.30pm to 8.00pm
In-person and online public event
Sheikh Zayed Theatre, CKK Building

This lecture, held in honour of the renowned scholar Fred Halliday, will explore the relationship between revolutions and world order in contemporary geopolitics.

Fred Halliday argued that revolutions were the “sixth great power” of the modern world, a force that sat alongside the five great powers that sought to regulate 19^th century world politics. Does Halliday’s assessment of the impact of revolutions remain true today?

This lecture analyses the three main forms that revolution takes today – ‘people power’ movements, ‘restoration revolutions’ and ‘decentralised vanguardism’ – and assesses their impact on contemporary world order. It argues that revolutions remain central to contemporary world politics, not as a “sixth great power”, but still as the primary means through which people around the world mobilise against injustice, inequality and domination.

Meet our speakers and chair

George Lawson is a professor in the Department of International Relations at the Australian National 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. 

Chair:

Toby Dodge is a Professor in the Department of International Relations at LSE. He is also Kuwait Professor and Director of the Kuwait Programme at the Middle East Centre at LSE.

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.

For the in-person event: No ticket or pre-registration is required. Entry is on a first come, first served basis. For any queries see LSE Events FAQ.

For the online event: Registration for this event via LSE Live is now open via the link below.

Find out more about the speakers and this event

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

Find out more about Fred Halliday and previous memorial lectures.

Economic nationalism and global (dis)order

Department of International Relations Martin Wight Memorial Lecture 2024/25

Monday 9 June 2025 6.30pm to 8.00pm
In-person and online public event
Old Theatre, Old Building, LSE

Join us for this year's Martin Wight Memorial Lecture which will be delivered by Robert Falkner who will explore the rise of economic nationalism amidst growing geopolitical rivalry.

The lecture will be based on his new co-authored book, The Market in Global International Society: An English School Perspective on International Political Economy.

Meet our speaker and chair

Robert Falkner is Professor of International Relations at LSE and the Academic Dean of the TRIUM Global Executive MBA. He held academic positions at the universities of Oxford, Kent and Essex before joining LSE. 

Katerina Dalacoura is Associate Professor in International Relations at LSE. She was awarded a three-year Major Research Fellowship by the Leverhulme Trust for her project, entitled The International Thought of Turkish Islamists: History, Civilisation and Nation.

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.

For the in-person event: No ticket or pre-registration is required. Entry is on a first come, first served basis. For any queries see LSE Events FAQ.

For the online event: Registration for this event via LSE Live is now open via the link below.

Find out more about the speaker and this event

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

Find out more about Martin Wight and previous memorial lectures.

Reckoning with the past: truth-telling and the British Empire

Saturday 21 June 2025 3.30pm to 4.30pm
In-person and online public event (Marshall Building)

Hosted by LSE Festival: Visions for the Future

How can we reckon with the complex and painful legacies of the British Empire? What would it mean to create an international truth-telling commission, and why is this conversation so urgent today?

This event explores the vision for a Peoples' International Truth-Telling Commission on the British Empire - a platform to uncover historical injustices, amplify voices silenced by colonial histories, and challenge enduring inequalities. 

Meet our speakers:

Bell Ribeiro-Addy is the Labour MP for Clapham and Brixton Hill, her home constituency. Born and raised in Brixton Hill, she is a dedicated feminist, anti-racist, and trade unionist. 

Lidia Thorpe is a Gunnai, Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung mother, grandmother, and advocate for First Peoples. She is an Independent Senator for Victoria in Australia and represents the Blak Sovereign Movement.

Imaobong Umoren is an Associate Professor of International History at LSE where she specialises in histories of colonialism, racism, women, and political thought in the Caribbean, Britain, and United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. 

Kofi Mawuli Klu is an independent Pan-Afrikan scholar-activist, community advocate, and educationist specializing in Pan-Afrikan community law and global citizenship education. He is the Chief Executive Commissioner of PANAFRIINDABA, a grassroots Pan-Afrikan community advocacy, research, and think tank organisation. 

Chair:
Asha Herten-Crabb is a Fellow in the LSE Department of International Relations. Her research covers international trade, health policy, and gender equality - and their intersections – with an emphasis on how legacies of imperialism in global governance shape policy making and its outcomes.

This event is free and open to all, but a ticket is required. Online booking for events in the LSE Festival will open at 12 noon on Monday 19 May 2025.

Find out more about the event and register

Visit the LSE Festival 2025 homepage

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