LSE IQ | Intelligent questions with social science answers

From stage-show stereotypes to life-changing treatment, this episode explores the science - and the myths - behind hypnosis and hypnotherapy. We uncover extraordinary stories of addiction recovery, pain relief, and everyday healing from a form of talking therapy that remains widely misunderstood. Asking whether we should take hypnotherapy more seriously, Joanna Bale talks to LSE anthropologist Dr...

The last two decades have seen significant growth in the relationship between China and the EU. Now, China is the EU’s biggest import and third-largest export partner. But this relationship is becoming increasingly one sided, with China’s industrial policy and economic protections making it increasingly difficult for Europe to sell its products there. And at the same time, there are fears that new...

From the pets we love to the animals we rarely see, our relationship with non-human life is full of contradictions. In this episode, we explore what it really means to protect animals and whether welfare is enough, or if rights are the way forward. Beginning with a simple question inspired by my own dog, Pip, this episode moves from the personal to the global. Through conversations with experts in...

We’ve all had rough days at work. But none of us have been fired by a sitting President after just 11 days in the job. That’s what happened to American financier and LSE alumnus Anthony Scaramucci, whose brief and explosive stint as White House Communications Director in 2017 became global news. But instead of letting the experience define him, Anthony rebuilt his career, returned to his investmen...

Fertility rates are at record lows around the world, reshaping communities and even forcing some schools to close. In 1950, the global average was around five live births per woman. Today, that number has more than halved to 2.2, and in England and Wales, it’s closer to 1.4. The UK’s falling birth rate reflects what the United Nations has described as ‘a global fertility slump’. In this episode of...

What does the future of work really look like?  Many workers today face unstable contracts, insecure employment, and widening inequalities. Yet, at the same time, rapid technological change and advances in AI are transforming productivity, reducing repetitive tasks, and opening new possibilities for creativity and flexible working. In this episode of LSE iQ, Maayan Arad explores how work is changi...

It seems every week we hear a new report of a cyber-attack. Recent examples include the hacks on Marks and Spencer's, Jaguar Land Rover, and the Co-op, all causing massive economic disruption. While these attacks seem to have come from cyber criminals working within the UK rather than other nation states, they highlight the destruction that cyber-attacks can wreak. What if those attacks were on ou...

Will artificial intelligence cause huge unemployment? Will it free us from working? Will it replace us? In this special edition of LSE iQ, Sophie Mallett sits down with Professor Judy Wajcman, LSE’s Emeritus Professor of Sociology and one of the world’s leading voices on technology and society. Together, they explore one of the biggest questions of our time: what does artificial intelligence reall...

Exploring the reasons people might find themselves with problematic levels of debt, the options open to those in financial trouble and how bankruptcy laws could be used more impactfully to the benefit of both individuals and society; this month we revisit an episode from 2023 which asks, “Do we always need to pay our debts?” It's a question that has come back into focus recently as the UK continue...

Across the world, far right ideas, once confined to the political fringe, have entered the mainstream. They spread through social media feeds and dominate tabloid headlines. Many fear they’re transforming politics, threatening democracy and tearing at the fabric of society. Joanna Bale meets Imam Adam Kelwick, whose Liverpool mosque was surrounded by an angry mob after the murders of three young g...

Artificial intelligence is transforming the world around us, offering increased productivity and promising to help tackle difficult problems like global warming. But behind the scenes, its environmental costs are mounting. From massive energy use to vast quantities of water required to cool data centres, AI’s footprint is growing fast. So, in an age of water scarcity and climate crisis, can we jus...

What type of person falls for an online scam? Who are the fraudsters and how does colonialism motivate them? And what’s the connection between criminality and pop music? This episode of LSE iQ looks at how we can avoid falling for online scams. We think it couldn’t happen to us, but incidents of online fraud are escalating at an alarming rate, affecting all areas of our day-to-day lives, from soci...

With the cost-of-living crisis leading to the closure of community spaces around the UK, and the pressures on urban development projects, this episode of LSE iQ asks, are we in danger of losing our communities? Speakers: Professor Shani Orgad, Dr Divya Srivastava , Dr Julia King, Dr Olivia Theocharides-Feldman Research links: “Listening in times of crisis: The value and limits of radio phone-in sh...

This episode of LSE iQ looks at whether we should still be driving, whether public transport in cities has helped alleviate the need to drive and how driverless cars are still a distance away from really helping solve the issue of the number of cars on the road. Contributor (s) Dr Phillip Rode, Professor Rachel Aldred, Dr Chris Tennant and Indira Ray LSE iQ is a university podcast by the London Sc...

This episode of LSE iQ explores a national scandal: widespread illegal sewage dumping by our privatised water companies, and why they are all under criminal investigation. Speakers: Professor Gwyn Bevan, Dr Kate Bayliss, Jo Bateman How Did Britain Come to This? A century of systemic failures of governance by Gwyn Bevan: https://press.lse.ac.uk/site/books/m/10.31389/lsepress.hdb/ Reports of my deat...

With companies, like SpaceX or Blue Origin, getting into space exploration and the cost of launching rockets dropping, could we see a lot more people heading into space in the future? What kind of possibilities does this new space age bring—and what dangers should we be worried about? Can any nation seize possession of the moon? Could it be mined? Is there junk in space? And whatever happened to t...

While there are always rumours about who might win a Nobel Prize every year, there is no short list for the globally revered academic awards. This means that winning one always comes as a complete surprise. In this episode of LSE iQ, we explore what it’s like to win the prestigious prize and how it changes your life. The Nobel Prizes were established in 1900 at the behest of Alfred Nobel, a Swedis...

This episode of LSE iQ explores whether gender pay gap reporting, pay transparency and tackling gender norms can reduce the gender pay gap. On average across the globe, for every pound earned by a man, a woman earns around 80 pence, according to a 2023 report from the United Nations. But despite huge advances in access to education, the labour market, and the introduction of the UK Equality Act of...

A shining city on a hill. America the beautiful. The United States has long been mythologised as the land of dreams and opportunity. And since the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s it has been undisputedly the most powerful nation on earth. But is it a fading force? The idea of an America in decline has gained traction in recent years and has, of course, been capitalized on by President...

Why do some countries, such as China and Russia, stand outside of the liberal international order and oppose values that the West takes for granted – values such as liberty and democracy? For the late Professor Christopher Coker the answer lay in the rise of a new political entity, the civilizational state. In an episode of LSE iQ which explored China’s position in the world in the coming century,...

Are we on the verge of a weight-loss revolution? Are weight-loss jabs the answer to Britain’s obesity crisis? Should we be doing more to tackle the root causes? Joanna Bale talks to Helen, who found Ozempic ‘life-changing’, Clinical Psychologist Sarah Appleton, and LSE’s Nikki Sullivan & Paul Frijters. Research links: The relationship between obesity and self-esteem: longitudinal evidence from Aus...

More than one in four people in the UK, from solidly middle-class backgrounds, mistakenly think of themselves as working-class. Why is this? In this episode of Extra iQ, a shorter style of the LSE iQ podcast, Sue Windebank speaks to Sam Friedman, a sociologist of class and inequality at LSE to find out more. Sam spoke to the podcast in November 2022 for an episode which asked, ‘How does class defi...

This episode of LSE iQ asks, ‘How can we tackle loneliness?’. According to the Office for National Statistics, 7.1 per cent of adults in Great Britain - nearly 4 million people - say they 'often or always' feel lonely. Look around you when you’re in a crowded place – a supermarket or an office - 1 in 14 of the people you’re looking at are likely to be lonely, not just sometimes but most of the tim...

This episode of LSE iQ asks, ‘Can we change the world?’ Experts will discuss how change isn't as straightforward as we'd like it to be – How it can be all in the timing and that, at times, you just need to wait for the right moment to make change happen. We’ll hear from an academic striving to become a Member of Parliament and make change from within the political system, rather than by lobbying f...

What’s it like to be criminalised for being gay? Homosexuality is illegal in just over a third of countries across the globe. Some nations, like Barbados, have recently repealed anti-gay laws, but others, like Uganda, have just introduced the death penalty. Joanna Bale talks to LSE’s Dr Ryan Centner about how Western gay men living in Dubai create covert communities where they can meet and sociali...