Contributor(s): Paul Johnson | Government decisions determine the welfare of the poor and the elderly, the state of the health service, the effectiveness of our children’s education, and how prepared we are for the future: whether that is a pandemic or global warming. As a society, we are a reflection of what the government spends.

Johnson looks at what happened following the financial crisis of 2008-09 and the austerity years that followed. He examines the way that the government tackled the economy during Covid – when the UK budget shot up to over a trillion for the first time – and he analyses prospects for our future as we grapple with looming recession and the cost of living crisis.

Contributor(s): Daniel Jolles, Dr Aliya Hamid Rao, Belton Flournoy, Dr Claire Crawford | Weak productivity in Britain is an acute problem. Explanations have included insufficient necessary skills, an overinvestment in unnecessary skills at the university level, capital shallowing and too little creative destruction. In this webinar we explore a different explanation.

We ask whether a failure to recruit and operationalise diverse talent is an underlying root cause of slow growth.

Contributor(s): Professor Alex Voorhoeve, Dr Elin Palm, Dr Orla Lynskey | Prominent ethical and legal frameworks claim that governments and businesses can permissibly process personal information, under specific conditions, as soon as data subjects give their consent. This already justifies constraints on personal data processing practices to secure free, informed, and unambiguous consent, as well as to respect the context in which consent was given. But consent is not the whole story.

Processing personal data without consent may be permissible in some cases when other “legitimate interests” are at stake, such as national security or fraud prevention: so, how to balance privacy and other legitimate interests? On the other hand, emerging accounts of privacy propose that obtaining individual consent is sometimes insufficient to justify personal data processing. If giving away one’s personal data reveals information about others, or if coordination failure leads to suboptimal privacy for all, collective privacy decisions may be required.

Contributor(s): Dr Nihan Albayrak-Aydemir, Roger’s Bacon, Dr Dario Krpan, Dr Celestin Okoroji, Feiyang Wang | This low diversity of thought is reflected in numerous aspects of social sciences—for example, certain research topics (e.g., those that may be easily publishable) are prioritized over other important but less desirable topics (e.g., those that are not heavily cited or easy to publish); some methodologies such as experimentation are widely used whereas less common methods (e.g., self-observation) are neglected; short-term projects with quick gains are prioritized over the long-term ones; some participant populations are understudied (e.g., non-WEIRD samples - i.e., non-western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic); and theorizing is driven by arbitrary conventions and overly reliant on available research findings while avoiding speculation that could lead to new insights. In this event, social scientists of varied backgrounds will express their perspectives on diversity of thought in social sciences followed by a panel discussion.

Contributor(s): Dr Stuart Gordon, Sveto Muhammad Ishoq, Halima | The UK government could soon be sending some asylum-seekers on a one-way flight to Rwanda as part of a controversial strategy to deter those crossing the English Channel on small boats.

Joanna Bale talks to Dr Stuart Gordon, Sveto Muhammad Ishoq and Halima, an Afghan refugee living in a hotel, about what it’s like to flee your country and policy ideas to help resolve the situation.

Research links:

Regulating humanitarian governance: humanitarianism and the ‘risk society’ by Stuart Gordon: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/105296/

The protection of civilians: an evolving paradigm? by Stuart Gordon: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/101979/

Afghan women’s storytelling and campaigning platform: https://chadariproject.com/about-chadari/

Contributor(s): Baroness Barker, Natalie Gamble, Dr Kirsty Horsey, Professor Isabel Karpin | In 2023, the Law Commission will publish its long-awaited final proposals for reform of the law relating to surrogacy in the UK.

Contributor(s): Professor Roy Allison | Russia and Western states have long clashed over the nature of international society and the desirability of a liberal rule-based international order. Relations plunged with Russia’s annexation of Crimea, which flouted a core prohibition of the United Nations Charter system against territorial expansion by force. Putin’s renewed all-out invasion of Ukraine now appears openly revanchist. This lecture assesses the implications for international order at large and the operation of international law, including international humanitarian law, around the conflict. It dissects the peculiar logic and false justifications Putin offers for Russia’s aggression.

Does he really believe Russia occupies some common civilizational and territorial space with Ukraine, justifying the subjugation of Ukraine to return ‘historic Russian regions’? Or is this cynical cover for strategic ends aimed at the mobilisation of domestic support? With no end to the war in sight, the lecture also questions what remains of the post-Cold war territorial settlement in Europe and whether an eventual negotiated settlement of the war is conceivable under the current Russian leadership.

Contributor(s): Professor Helen Thompson | The war in Ukraine, mounting cost of living crisis and the looming threat of climate change all underscore the importance of energy to contemporary politics. To help make sense of this vital aspect of 21st century political economy, the Ralph Miliband Programme is joined by Helen Thompson to discuss how many of the defining dislocations of our contemporary world are best understood through the lens of energy politics.

Contributor(s): Martin Wolf, Diane Coyle, Jesse Norman MP | Democracy and capitalism are the political and economic 'operating systems' of today's high-income democracies. But how stable is the relationship between them? The answer is 'not very', since it requires a separation of power from wealth inconsistent with almost all historical experience. In his new book, The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism, Martin Wolf argues that this complex system can best be described as a marriage of 'complementary opposites'. The book analyses how this marriage happened, why it is fragile and how economic and political changes have undermined it. It concludes by asking what needs to be done in response to developments that threaten the survival of liberal democracy itself.

Contributor(s): Dr Hans Kluge | Three years of COVID-19 have exposed the fault lines in health systems across the WHO European Region and globally. The pandemic has also driven home the gross inequities that impact access to health within societies and between countries. As we embark on the 4th year of what the UN Secretary-General has labelled the worst global crisis since World War Two, it’s clear that governments and health partners need a new approach to strengthening health systems overall.

Dr Kluge avers that a dual track approach to health strategy and policy must be our new normal. Countries must prepare for the health emergencies that lie ahead, arriving faster than ever before, while, at the same time, investing in essential, everyday health services. This approach addresses this range of health challenges, requiring political commitment at the highest levels, grassroots efforts to strengthen primary health care, innovations in health such as digital health and the adoption of disciplines such as behavioural and cultural insights.