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Catch up with any event you have missed. The public event podcast series from UCL Political Science brings together the impressive range of policy makers, leading thinkers, practitioners, and academics who speak at our events. Further information about upcoming events can be found via our website: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/political-science/political-science
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Meet the speakers Sir Rob Behrens was the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman between 2017 and 2024. Prior to this, he held roles including Complaints Commissioner at the Bar Standards Board, Secretary to the Committee on Standards in Public Life, and Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education (Office of the Independent Adjudicator) in Eng…
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- Meet the speakers - Dr. James D. Boys is a Boston-based analyst focused on US political history. He was most recently a Visiting Research Scholar at the Center for Strategic Studies at Tufts University’s Fletcher School. An expert on US politics and grand strategy, he frequently shares his insights as an on-air commentator on CNN, BBC News, Sky N…
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Recorded 24 October 2024. A new government has been in power in Westminster since July. In our Policy & Practice mini-series, Priorities for the new UK Government, we will explore key issues on which the government is—or ought to be—focusing its attention. In the first event in this miniseries, we discuss the Government's central focus: economic gr…
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For our first Policy & Practice seminar of academic year 2024-2025 we were joined by ex-Ambassador Simona Leskovar. The ex-Ambassador talked about her own experience both in trying to get Slovenia elected to the UN Security Council, but also more broadly about her experience in the UK and within the UN. The talk included a discussion as to why smal…
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Political Strategist, New European editor-at-large, mental health campaigner and co-host of the country’s Number 1 podcast, The Rest is Politics, Alastair Campbell came to UCL for a special opening event of the UCL Department of Political Science's Policy & Practice seminar series for 2023-24, in partnership with the UCL European Institute and UCL …
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Our democratic system is not working as well as it should: on this, both the public and most experts agree. But what exactly are the problems? What are the pros and cons of the potential solutions? And are such changes feasible? Drawing on recent Constitution Unit research into public attitudes to democracy, as well as his own work on electoral sys…
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Debates over standards in public life have a long history. Their evolution is partly cyclical, reflecting reactions to extended periods of one party in office. But there is also long-term growth in a belief that ministers cannot be trusted to behave well and that more formal structures are needed to check their power. Of late, the view that the abu…
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Drawing on evidence from Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America, it shows that certain global best practices do exist, and that effective government institutions share a common set of foundational management practices. But different institutions inside governments vary in the extent to which such practices are in place – despite sharing the same g…
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The current conservative super-majority on the U.S. Supreme Court has a chance to reshape American law in a dramatic way. One such way is in the realm of administrative law, as members of this conservative majority have sought to restrain the powers of federal bureaucratic agencies, as in the 2022 case of West Virginia vs. EPA. Similar future decis…
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POLICY & PRACTICE. China in Africa. The Belt & Road Initiative & Future of Development Cooperation
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This panel explores these nuances and tackle pressing questions: What are the pros and cons of China's involvement in Africa? Does China's aid and FDI pressure Western donors to adjust and improve their delivery? What are the long-term impacts of Chinese involvement and what does the future of China-Africa cooperation look like? Meet the speakers: …
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LGBTIQ+ people continue to face persecution and discrimination in virtually every region of the world. Many of them are forced to migrate or seek asylum. Our panellists will discuss the unique challenges that LGBTIQ+ migrants and asylum seekers face, in their home countries, in the course of migration, and in receiving countries. Dr Sarah Singer is…
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Democracies are facing a drawn-out contest with authoritarian states that is entangling much of public policy with global security issues. In Global Discord, Paul Tucker lays out principles for how democracies can approach relations with China and other illiberal states without sacrificing their deepest political values or recklessly risking their …
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Tony Stower is an experienced public servant and is currently Principal, Online Safety Policy at Ofcom. Maeve Walsh is a policy and government relations consultant with expertise in digital and health policy. A former civil servant with 17 years' experience in Whitehall, she has been an Associate with Carnegie UK since 2018 and is an advocate for l…
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Marc Stears is an internationally regarded academic, political strategist, speechwriter and executive educator, who specialises in creating dynamic collaborations between academic researchers and broader society. Currently the inaugural Director of the UCL Policy Lab, Marc has previously been Director of the Sydney Policy Lab at the University of S…
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Midterms typically serve as a referendum on the president and the party in office. But in an election year that has seen a roiling economy, the overturning of abortion rights, and the resurgence of Donald Trump, conventional wisdom may not apply. How is voter mobilization different this year, and what results should we expect? How would changes to …
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POLICY AND PRACTICE - Can the multilateral trade regime survive geopolitical tensions? An agenda for WTO reform.
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About the speakers Ignacio Garcia Bercero participated in the Uruguay Round negotiations that led to the establishment of the World Trade Organizations. Between 2001 and 2005, he headed the unit in the European Commission responsible for WTO dispute settlement. Since 2005, he has been Director in DG trade where, among other responsibilities, he was…
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About the speaker Klaus Welle is the Secretary-General of the European Parliament, a position he has held since 2009. Find out more. Chaired by Robert Hazell.由UCL Political Science
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In addition to celebrating her Jubilee, thought is turning to the future of the monarchy, and what changes might be expected after she is gone. Dr Bob Morris (expert on church and state at the Constitution Unit, UCL) will talk about the next Accession and Coronation; Dr Craig Prescott (constitutional lawyer at Bangor University) will explain the ne…
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In this panel discussion, three leading experts—Sarah Isgur (The Dispatch), Megan McArdle (Washington Post), and Matthew Weil (Bipartisan Policy Center)—will examine the causes of distrust in American elections and investigate its broader impact on the resilience of U.S. democracy. About the speakers: Sarah Isgur is a staff writer and host of the l…
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In this seminar we will hear from Professor John Edmunds OBE, Professor Dame Theresa Marteau, and Professor Michael Parker.由UCL Political Science
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n this talk about his new book, Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us, UCL associate professor of global politics Brian Klaas draws on over 500 interviews with some of the world’s top leaders – from the noblest to the dirtiest – including presidents, war criminals, cult leaders, terrorists, psychopaths, and dictators to reveal the most …
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The Profit Paradox describes how a handful of companies have reaped most of the rewards of technological advancements—acquiring rivals, securing huge profits, and creating brutally unequal outcomes for workers. The consequences are immense, from unnecessarily high prices, to fewer startups that can compete, to rising inequality and stagnating wages…
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POLICY AND PRACTICE - Russia and Ukraine: Europe’s biggest security crisis since World War 2?
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Tensions have been mounting rapidly since Russia massed 100,000 troops on the Ukrainian border in December. What does Putin hope to achieve? How should the West respond if the Russians do invade? Can the tensions be defused by the US-Russia talks in Geneva? Four distinguished experts join us to answer these questions: General Sir Adrian Bradshaw, f…
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POLICY AND PRACTICE - Addressing the Climate Change-Migration Nexus Through Policy and Art
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Speakers Dina Ionesco is Manager in the Adaptation Division at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) secretariat, focusing on human mobility and climate change. Lena Dobrowolska and Teo Ormond-Skeaping are an artist collaboration from Poland and the UK whose work focuses on climate change. They won the 2019 Coalition fo…
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POLICY AND PRACTICE - Lord Phillips, Sir Brian Leveson, Margaret Aldred: Setting Up the Covid Inquiry
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The Covid Inquiry is due to start work in the spring, chaired by Baroness (Heather) Hallett, a former Court of Appeal judge. It will be one of the most complex inquiries in legal history, and highly charged politically, with 150k deaths so far, and the pandemic far from over. This seminar brings together three speakers involved with previous high p…
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In this seminar four senior political correspondents reflect on what journalism was like at the start of their careers; how it has changed during their lifetimes; and how that has changed the way the press reports on politics, and the way politicians respond. Trevor Kavanagh was for many years Political Editor of The Sun, Catherine MacLeod was Poli…
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POLICY AND PRACTICE - Rory Stewart and Weeda Mehran on Nation Building in Iraq and Afghanistan
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Rory Stewart has been a diplomat, soldier, explorer, politician, and is now an academic at Yale. In 2003 he became deputy governor in two remote provinces of Iraq, recorded in his book Prince of the Marshes. In 2005 he moved to Kabul to establish an NGO, the Turquoise Mountain Foundation. From 2010 to 2019 he was an MP, becoming chair of the Defenc…
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The Covid pandemic has exacerbated many existing inequalities and introduced new ones. There could hardly be a more pressing time to understand how inequalities arise, which ones matter, why, and how they should be addressed. Professor Sir Richard Blundell (UCL), Research Director at IFS and PI for the Deaton Review: Inequalities in the 21st Centur…
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Official statistics and evidence have been central in ensuring that the government has the best possible data, not just on infections and deaths, but on social behaviour, the impact on the economy, etc. As chair of the UK Statistics Authority, Sir David Norgrove is responsible for safeguarding the production and publication of official statistics: …
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This seminar presents – and vigorously critiques – a new edited volume, “American Political Economy”, which aims to reorient our understanding of US politics. Democratic erosions and economic inequalities, two of the most pressing political problems of the United States and its rich western peers, can only be understood in light of the economic, ge…
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In this seminar Michael Jacobs will explain the main issues to be discussed at the Summit, the key players, and likely outcomes. He will place COP26 in the wider context of multilateral cooperation and the domestic politics of acting on climate change. Michael was climate adviser to Gordon Brown when he was Prime Minister and was heavily involved i…
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The covid-19 pandemic has been a severe test for the European Union as well as for its member-states: a test in which European cooperation has often been found wanting, in particular when it came to its vaccine programme. But this test has also led to a deepening of European solidarity, manifested most prominently in the European recovery fund. Wha…
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Less than two months into his term, President Joe Biden is signing his first major piece of legislation, a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package. What are his other domestic priorities, and who are the leading figures in his administration to deliver them? What obstacles does he face in Congress and elsewhere, and can he overcome them? To discus…
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Nick Herbert is a former Minister, and the founder of GovernUp. Last summer he launched the Commission for Smart Government, to tackle the systemic problems of government in the UK: departmental silos, a muddled centre exercising weak financial management, unaccountable agencies, inability to learn from mistakes. In this seminar he is joined by Sir…
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The British media tend to report on Brexit only from the British point of view. In this seminar we redress the balance by inviting four foreign correspondents based in London to talk about how Brexit has been viewed from France, Germany, Italy and Poland. What conclusions have leading European countries drawn from the whole Brexit process; and wher…
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Deirdre Hutton has experienced all those spheres of regulation, and more, having just stepped down from ten years as chair of the Civil Aviation Authority. In this seminar she is joined by Professor Cary Coglianese, director of the Penn Program on Regulation, and Walter Merricks, former Chief Ombudsman of the Financial Ombudsman Service. Together t…
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In this seminar he is joined by Ciaran Martin, Chief Executive of the National Cyber Security Centre 2016-2020, to discuss spycraft, how raw intelligence is analysed, and how intelligence officers then use that information – often contradictory or incomplete – to build the most accurate possible image of the world. The ways of thinking used in inte…
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China regards the island of Taiwan as a breakaway province; Taiwan’s leaders say it is an independent state. As China rises to superpower status, it has shown greater interest in reclaiming territory long regarded as its own, in the South China Sea, along the Himalayan border – and in Taiwan. The growing tensions could drag the US into the fray. To…
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John Micklethwait is editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News, and Adrian Wooldridge is political editor of the Economist, and author of their Bagehot column. In their latest book they analyse the disastrous failure of many western countries to control the Coronavirus, and what it exposes about the weaknesses of their systems of government. It is a wake u…
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Government interventions in response to Covid-19 make clear that the state can act as an extremely powerful guarantor of economic and health security. But has the crisis, and the subsequent governmental response, shifted voters' attitudes about the role that the government should play in society more generally? In a recent study, Tim Hicks, Tom O’G…
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Jack Straw was Foreign Secretary in the Blair government from 2001 to 2006. His five years at the Foreign Office saw him grappling with every conflict zone from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, the accession of ten new states to the EU, the failed accession bid from Turkey, the bombing of the Twin Towers on 9/11, and the Allied invasion of Iraq, led by the…
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To discuss these worldwide trends, how to counter them, and how worried we should be about a populist rise in the UK, we are joined by three international experts: Anne Applebaum, author of Twilight of Democracy: The Failure of Politics and the Parting of Friends Rory Stewart, former Cabinet Minister and 2019 candidate for the Conservative Party le…
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POLICY AND PRACTICE - How should we deal with statues of racists and what should we do in our public space instead?
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Last summer, we saw a statue of Bristol slave trader, Edward Colston, thrown in the harbour by Black Lives Matters protesters. Other statues of racist, colonial or controversial figures have also been taken down or been the sites of protests and University and other buildings have been renamed. A conversation has started to take place about how we …
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Speakers: Lorriann Robinson is the founder and Director of The Advocacy Team, a consultancy practice providing policy, advocacy & campaigning services to international organisations. She is the co-founding partner of and advocacy lead for The Equity Index. Alex Martins is an independent researcher, facilitator and advocate passionate about creating…
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With the dust finally settling on one of the highest stakes US elections in recent memory, pollsters, pundits, academics, and policymakers are looking to make sense of what happened. What are the key take-aways from the 2020 US elections? Why did the results turn out as they did? What are the main policy implications of the elections, and how will …
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The words the future of conflict triggers shiny images of technology overtaking the battlefield and an extreme revolution in military affairs. But how real is the hype about the disruption to defence and what will this mean for the soldier on the ground? In this panel we bring together three experts to consider the real face of the future of confli…
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Speakers: Brian Klaas is a political scientist at UCL and a weekly columnist for the Washington Post. He has written three books: The Despot's Accomplice (Oxford University Press), The Despot's Apprentice (Hurst & Co), and How to Rig an Election (Yale University Press). His research focuses on democracy, authoritarianism, Trumpism, the nature of po…
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To discuss this we have four experts who have all been involved in writing and thinking about this: Prof Jonathan Boston from New Zealand had a Fulbright Fellowship to do comparative research on Governing for the Future; Jaakko Kuosmanen (Finnish Academy) is an expert on the human rights of future generations, and member of the Finnish Government’s…
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Vernon Bogdanor Research Professor at King's College, London, Gresham Professor of Law, and Fellow of the British Academy Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska, Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for European Reform Baroness (Julie) Smith, Reader in European Politics at Cambridge University Chair: Professor Robert Hazell…
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In July the Intelligence and Security Committee published its long awaited Russia report.To introduce the report, and explain the difficulties which delayed its publication, our first speaker is Dominic Grieve, former Attorney General and chair of the committee when the report was compiled. Then to discuss the threat posed by Russia, and how the We…
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