Speakers:

Paul Conroy, Photographer, and with Marie Colvin when murdered in Syria – will launch film. Also author of ‘Under The Wire: Marie Colvin’s Final Assignment’

Peter Tatchell, Human Rights Campaigner and Director, Peter Tatchell Foundation

Ronan Tynan, Director/Co-Producer – ‘Syria – The Impossible Revolution’

Sawsan Abou Zainedin, Syrian Human Rights Defender

Chair: Brian Klaas, LSE Fellow in Comparative Politics in the Department of Government, LSE

‘Syria – The Impossible Revolution’, a film by Anne Daly and Ronan Tynan, seeks to unravel the roots and ‘complexities’  of the bloodiest conflict in the Middle East as well as the politics of the Western response. It also examines why some elements on the Left are on the same page as the extreme Right, defending the Assad regime against “US imperialism” apparently oblivious to the role of Iran and especially Russia and her indiscriminate bombing of civilians as well as hospitals which many charge are war crimes?

The film traces the roots of the Syrian revolution through the regime of Assad’s father up to the fall of Aleppo. Using extensive archive and interviews with a wide range of people directly involved as well as experts on the region, the documentary seeks to offer some understanding about a conflict that has plumbed new depths in terms of the toll it has extracted on civilians. Some suggest more than five hundred thousand are already dead, half the population have fled their homes and five millions are now refugees in Europe and neighbouring countries with little prospect of returning any time soon.

Watch the film trailer

Duration: 88 minutes

Entry to the event will be on a first come, first served basis with no ticket required. 

Use #LSESyria to join the conversation on Twitter.

Link to podcast

Speaker: Professor Susan Woodward, The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Discussant: Dr Christine Cheng, Lecturer, War Studies, Kings College London

Chair: Denisa Kostovicova, Associate Professor of Global Politics, LSE

In this public lecture we tackle the question of how to build states after conflict and discuss Woodward’s book, The Ideology of Failed States (CUP 2017), an analysis of the significant but counterproductive role played by the concept of failed states in shaping international order and intervention since the early 1990s.

Entry to the event will be on a first come, first served basis with no ticket required. 

Use #LSEWoodward to join the conversation on Twitter.

 

Speaker: A. C. Grayling, Master of the New College of the Humanities, London, and its Professor of Philosophy, and the author of over thirty books of philosophy, biography, history of ideas, and essays. He is a columnist for Prospect magazine, and was for a number of years a columnist on the Guardian and Times.

Chair: Tony Travers, Director of the LSE Institute for Public Affairs and Professor in Practice in the LSE Department of Government.

Winston Churchill described democracy as ‘the least bad of all systems.’ So it is, when it works. But it has been made to fail – notice those words: ‘made to fail’ – in at least two of its leading examples in today’s world, the US and the UK. This talk is about how democracy has been made to fail. And it is about how to put it right.

Entry to the event will be on a first come, first served basis with no ticket required. 

Use #LSEGrayling to join the conversation on Twitter.

Listen to the podcast

Speakers:

Dr. Shakuntala Banaji, Associate Professor in the LSE Department of Media and Communications

Rodney Barker, Emeritus Professor of Government in the LSE Department of Government.

Jean Seaton,Professor of Media History at the University of Westminster and the Official Historian of the BBC

Chair: Tony Travers, Director of the IPA and Professor in the Department of Government.

Rodney Barker, whose new book Cultivating political and public identity: Why plumage matters is LSE’s first open access book, will be introducing a discussion of the components – language, dress, diet, habitat -of the identities of nations, groups, and individuals, and of the perennial tension between identity as association with other people, and identity as distinction from them, a motor of both human progress and human conflict.

Entry to the event will be on a first come, first served basis with no ticket required. 

Use #LSEIdentity to join the conversation on Twitter.

Speaker: Jon Sopel (@BBCJonSopel),  BBC ’s North America Editor since 2014. As a BBC presenter of 16 years, Jon has worked variously as the corporation’s Paris Correspondent, Chief Political Correspondent, hosted both The Politics Show and Newsnight and is a regular on HARDtalk, as well as a number of Radio 4 programmes. As North America Editor, Jon has covered the 2016 election at first hand, reporting for the BBC across TV, radio, and online.

Chair: Tony Travers, Director of the IPA and Professor in the Department of Government.

Jon Sopel, BBC North America Editor will be talking about his new book If Only They Didn’t Speak English – Notes from Trump’s America in which he sets out to analyse how a country that he says once stood for the grandest of aspirations is now mired in a storm of political extremism, racial division, and increasingly perverse beliefs.

Entry to the event will be on a first come, first served basis with no ticket required. 

Use #LSESopel to join the conversation on Twitter.

Event podcast

Speaker: Matthew D’Ancona, Matthew d’Ancona is a British journalist. He writes a weekly column for the Guardian and was previously editor of the Spectator.

Chair: Tony Travers, Director of LSE London, a research centre at the London School of Economics. He is also a Visiting Professor in the LSE’s Department of Government.

One of the UK’s most respected commentators, Matthew d’Ancona, launches a powerful and deeply personal campaign in this urgent fightback manifesto.  A precious value is being eroded – Truth.  It’s time to leap to its protection. By using the route-map, Matthew’s new book ‘Post Truth: The New War on Truth and How To Fight Back’ provides, we can stand up and fight for it.

This event is free and open to all, although pre-registration is required on eventbrite (opens on 13 June).

Use #LSEdAncona to join the conversation on Twitter.

Listen to the event podcast

This event is the Brian Barry Memorial Lecture 2017

Speaker: Jane Mansbridge is Charles F. Adams Professor of Political Leadership and Democratic Values, at the Harvard Kennedy School. She is the author of Beyond Adversary Democracy, an empirical and normative study of face-to-face democracy, and the award-winning Why We Lost the ERA, a study of anti-deliberative dynamics in social movements based on organizing for an Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. She is also editor or coeditor of the volumes Beyond Self-Interest, Feminism,Oppositional Consciousness, Deliberative Systems, and Negotiating Agreement in Politics. She was President of the American Political Science Association in 2012-13.

Chair: Lea Ypi is Professor in Political Theory, Department of Government, LSE.

The Trump election and the Brexit vote in the United Kingdom revealed that some members of the political class were not listening hard enough to the concerns of some of the voters disadvantaged by globalisation. What kinds of contacts do representatives have with their constituents? What kinds ought they to have? With better contact, would the representatives have convinced their constituents that a Clinton presidency or a Remain vote better served their interests?

This event is free and open to all, with no ticket or pre-registration required.

Use #LSEBarry to join the conversation on Twitter.

     

On March 6th-8th, 2017, the LSE Latin America and Caribbean Centre, the LSE Department of Government and the LSE Student Union Mexican Society, with the support of the Mexican Embassy in the UK, will jointly host the 17th LSE-Mexican Week. The event is a three-day series of conferences and roundtables whose theme this year – The Challenge of Entangled Inequalities- was chosen by the Mexican students at LSE.

The 17th Mexican Week follows the efforts and success of previous conferences. Its objective is to provide a venue for the discussion of the challenges faced by Mexico in a global context and to engage our students in an exchange of ideas with our guest lecturers. Over the past sixteen years, the Mexican Week has brought together senior practitioners, policy-makers, governors, ministers and other officials and academics interested in Mexican and Latin American issues.

Among other issues, we will discuss the pressing situations of poverty and inequality affecting Mexico and the Latin American region, as well as which specific policies could be implemented to reduce these problems, increase social mobility and foster inclusive development.

Experts will also debate the current situation in Mexico and Latin America regarding the fight against corruption and the challenges to the implementation of the Rule of Law. The discussion on these subjects will address the complex matters of how to advance in the measurement of these phenomena, how to control corruption risks in public institutions, and what the consequences of high levels of impunity are.

Following this debate, the final session will discuss the challenges that the arrival of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States of America imposes for the Mexico-US relationship. Experts will share their views about what they expect the future of the bilateral relationship will be, the possible consequences for Mexican immigrants and NAFTA, as well as potential ways to face these challenges.

We are glad to invite you all to come, participate and join the debate.

The Organising Committee, Mexico Week 2017

 

Programme of Events for Mexico Week 2017

SOCIAL ACTIVITIES
Monday, 6 March	Inaugural Drinks and Canape Reception Attrium Gallery – Old Building, Ground Floor (LSE) 20:00 – 22:00
Tuesday, 7 March	Red Global Mx-UK CLM.6.02 – Clement House, LSE. 6th Floor, Room 2. 20:00 – 22:00

All LSE Mexico Week 2017 events are free and open to all with no ticket required.

Use #LSEMexicoWeek to join the conversation on Twitter.

Listen to the podcast
Speakers:

Gerardo Esquivel Hernandez, Professor of Economics at El Colegio de Mexico and Author of ‘Extreme Inequality in Mexico’ report published by Oxfam

Salomon Chertorivski, Mexico City’s Secretary of Economic Development

Chair:

Professor Francisco Panizza, Professor in Latin American and Comparative Politics, Department of Government, LSE

On March 6th – 8th 2017 the LSE Latin American and Caribbean Centre, the LSE Department of Government and the LSE Student Union Mexican Society, with the support of the Mexican Embassy in the UK and LSE Enterprise, will jointly host the 17th Mexican Week. The event is a three-day series of conferences and roundtables whose overall theme this year – The Challenge of Entangled Inequalities- was chosen by the Mexican students at the LSE.

Among the issues to be discussed in this year’s Week are poverty and inequality in Mexico, the impact of corruption and the (un)rule of law on Mexican society and the implications of a Trump presidency for Mexico and Latin America. The Mexican Week will be opened on 6th March at 18:00 by a round table on the topic “Inequalities in Mexico and How to Address it” with the participation of professor Gerardo Esquivel (El Colegio de Mexico) and Salomón Chertorivski (Mexico City Secretary for Economic Development).

The 17th Mexican Week follows the efforts and successes of previous conferences. Its objective is to provide a venue for the discussion of the challenges faced by Mexico in a global context and to engage our students in an exchange of ideas with the guest lecturers. Over the past years the Mexican week has brought together policy makers, state governors, ministers, academics and representatives of different sectors of Mexican society to debate Mexican and Latin American issues. Visit the LSE Mexico Week 2017 page for the full programme of events.

Venue: Room CLM 6.02, 6th floor of Clement House, LSE

This event is free and open to all with no ticket required.

Use #LSEMexicoWeek to join the conversation on Twitter.

Listen to the podcast recording.

Speakers:
Sherif Azer, Egyptian human rights activist

Dr John Chalcraft, Associate Professor in the History and Politics of Empire/Imperialism, LSE Department of Government

Shane Enright, Community Organiser (Unions and Workplaces) and Global Trade Union Adviser, Amnesty International UK

Liesbeth Ten Ham, Amnesty International Regional Representative for East Anglia

Paola Regeni, mother of Giulio Regeni, Claudio Regeni, father of Giulio Regeni and Alessandra Ballerini, family lawyer for Giulio Regeni’s family and Civil lawyer specialising in human rights and migration (joining via Skype)

Chair: Ayça Çubukçu, Assistant Professor in Human Rights, Department of Sociology/Centre for the Study of Human Rights, LSE

It is just over a year since the mutilated corpse of Giulio Regeni, the Cambridge University doctoral student, was found by a roadside on the outskirts of Cairo, Egypt. A transnational campaign has since demanded Truth for Giulio / Verità per Giulio, and drawn international attention to forced disappearances and extensive violations of human and citizenship rights in Egypt. Giulio’s killers, most likely members of Egypt’s security services, have not yet been brought to justice. This panel brings together key activists with leading social movement academics to discuss the case at one year. What happened to Giulio Regeni? What sorts of EU, Italian and UK complicity in Egyptian human rights violations have come to light? How can issues around rights and citizenship in Egypt be internationalized? What has campaigning achieved so far, and what are its prospects? What activist strategies have been, or might be effective? The panel raises wider questions about transnational rights activism in a world of globalized governance.

Venue: Room CLM 5.02, 5th floor of Clement House, 99 Aldwych, WC2B 4JF, LSE

This event is free and open to all with no ticket required.

Use #LSEtruthforgiulio to join the conversation on Twitter.

Image credit: Alisdare Hickson