Contributor(s): Professor Gilbert Achcar | The euphoria that welcomed the Arab uprising in its initial stage tended to turn into gloom in recent months. Away from impressionistic reactions, Gilbert Achcar will assess and discuss the latest developments in the Arab-speaking region on the occasion of the publication of his recent book, The People Want: A Radical Exploration of the Arab Uprising. Gilbert Achcar grew up in Lebanon, researched and taught in Beirut, Paris and Berlin, and is currently professor of development studies and international relations at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) of the University of London.

Contributor(s): Alexandre A. Tombini | In his lecture Governor Tombini will discuss the current state of the Brazilian economy and perspectives on the future, with a focus on monetary policy. Alexandre Tombini is governor of Banco Central do Brasil, a position he has held since January 2011. He is a member of the BIS Board of Directors since December 2013, and also holds the position of co-chair of the FSB Regional Group of the Americas since July 2013 and the position of chairman of CEMLA´s Board of Governors since May 2013. He was deputy governor for financial system regulation and bank licensing at the Central Bank of Brazil and has held other positions at the board level, since June 2005, including in the area of international affairs and of special studies. Previous to joining the board of Banco Central do Brasil, he was senior advisor to the board of the International Monetary Fund, in Washington DC. Earlier in his career, he held various senior positions in banking and international trade, working for Banco Central do Brasil, the Brazilian Government and at Universidade de Brasília. The nomination to his current post required Senate approval. Mr Tombini holds a PhD degree in Economics from University of Illinois, at Urbana-Champaign, and an undergraduate degree from Universidade de Brasília, at Brasília.

Contributor(s): Aruna Rao | We are pleased to announce that Aruna Rao, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Gender at Work, will be delivering a lunchtime seminar. How can change be made to happen to disrupt the deep structures of gender inequality in the programs, policies and every-day practices of social change organizations, mainstream development agencies and systems? This presentation will use the Gender at Work analytical matrix as a ‘lens’ to examine this question in a set of organizations, assess outcomes, and highlight key questions and challenges. Aruna Rao, an Indian national, is the Co-founder and Executive Director of Gender at Work (www.genderatwork.org), an international collaborative that strengthens organizations to build cultures of gender equality and social justice. She is an expert in the field of gender and development with over 30 years of experience in pioneering new approaches to gender and institutional change. She has consulted widely with a range of government, academic and development agencies. She has led the Boards of AWID and CIVICUS and served on the Board of the UN Democracy Fund. She has written extensively on gender equality and institutional change, gender mainstreaming, and human rights. Among Dr. Rao’s publications are Gender at Work: Organizational Change for Equality (Kumarian Press, 1999), and Gender Analysis and Development Planning (Kumarian Press, 1991). She holds a Ph.D. in Educational Administration from Columbia University, New York.

Contributor(s): Nigel Farage | UKIP leader and MEP Nigel Farage will discuss the importance of this year’s upcoming European elections. Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) is leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP).

Contributor(s): Professor Barry Buzan, Trine Flockhart, Professor John Ikenberry, Professor Charles Kupchan | This roundtable of eminent scholars will debate the future of the liberal international order. The liberal order is a global system based on shared norms, economic openness, and commitment to cooperation through multilateral institutions. Will this system of global governance persist, or is the global system likely to become more fragmented, mercantilist, and more conflictual? Barry Buzan is emeritus professor of international relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science and honorary professor at the University of Copenhagen and Jilin University. Trine Flockhart is senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies in Copenhagen and in 2013-2014 senior fellow at the Transatlantic Academy in Washington D.C. John Ikenberry is Albert G. Milbank Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University and co-director of Princeton’s Center for International Security Studies. In 2013-2014 he is the Eastman Visiting Professor at Balliol College, Oxford. Charles Kupchan is professor of international affairs at Georgetown University and the Whitney H. Shepardson Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. In 2013-2014 he is a senior fellow at the Transatlantic Academy.

Contributor(s): Dr Mareike Kleine, Professor Duncan Snidal, Luuk van Middelaar, Professor Helen Wallace | This roundtable of eminent scholars and practitioners of the EU will debate a new way of thinking about how the EU and other international organisations really work as well as discussing the book’s insights and the implications of its argument. Simon Hix (@simonjhix) is professor of European and comparative politics at LSE. Mareike Kleine is lecturer in EU politics at LSE. Duncan Snidal is professor of international relations at the University of Oxford. Luuk van Middelaar (@LuukvMiddelaar) is advisor to the president of the European Council. Helen Wallace is an emeritus professor at the European Institute at LSE.

Contributor(s): Professor Amartya Sen | Drawing on his ground-breaking work on poverty and development, Professor Sen will examine some of the biggest economic, moral and philosophical issues facing anti-poverty campaigners today. Amartya Sen is Thomas W. Lamont University Professor, and professor of economics and philosophy, at Harvard University. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1998 for his contributions to the study of fundamental problems in welfare economics. His most recent book is An Uncertain Glory: India and Its Contradictions, co-authored with Jean Dreze. Professor Sen in an Honorary Fellow of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Contributor(s): Dr Alice Wilson | The outbreak of the Arab uprisings marked the 35th year of the conflict over Western Sahara, Africa’s last decolonization case. The international community has so far failed to produce a political climate conducive to the resolution of the conflict. If formal conflict resolution is locked in a stalemate, this paper analyses changes on the ground in recent years. These changes have been enacted by Sahrawis both in Western Sahara, and in the refugee camps in Algeria where exiled Sahrawis live. Alice Wilson is is junior research fellow in social anthropology, Homerton College, University of Cambridge. Her research explores insights into state power and sovereignty brought to light by the changing significance of tribes in the government-in-exile of Western Sahara. She is currently working on a monograph entitled Remaking Sovereignty in a Saharan revolution.

Contributor(s): Isabel Hilton | In 1912 the last emperor of China abdicated, leaving behind a country that had doubled in size under the Qing Empire. The collapse of the Qing set in train more than a century of savage political conflict as the unwieldy former empire struggled to find a modern political form and establish its identity as a nation state. More than 100 years later China still has fundamental questions to answer: what does it mean to be Chinese today? Who belongs and who does not? Can a national story be agreed that can bind together one fifth of humanity in a common identity? China is approaching a crossroads on the road to reform: which direction it chooses will affect the whole world. Isabel Hilton is a journalist, founder and editor of Chinadialogue, and former editor in chief of openDemocracy. Her publications include The Search for the Panchen Lama. In 2009 she was awarded an OBE.

Contributor(s): Professor Timothy Snyder | At no other time in European history were so many human beings deliberately killed as a matter of policy as in Eastern Europe between 1933 and 1945. In the lands between Berlin and Moscow, the Soviets killed more than four million by starvation and bullets, the Germans more than twice that number by starvation, bullets, and gas. Most deliberate Soviet killing, and almost all deliberate Nazi killing, took place in this zone. If we can understand the totality of the catastrophe, we will better understand the two regimes, and we may be better prepared to understand its component parts, the most significant of which was the Holocaust of European Jews. Professor Timothy Snyder is the Philippe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs, 2013/2014.