UCL Political Science Events

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: Dr Sam Brazys (University College Dublin) Dr Huan...

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 Senior Lecturer in Refugee Law at the Refugee Law...

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 safety.  Combining history, economics, and polit...

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 legislation to prevent online harms. Ruth Smeeth (...

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 Sydney,  CEO of the New Economics Foundation, Profe...

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 the composition of Congress affect domestic and fo...

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 chief negotiator for the EU-Korea Free Trade agr...

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 .

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 need to update the Regency Acts; Dr Carolyn Harris (...

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 legal podcast Advisory Opinions for The Dispatch,...

In this seminar we will hear from Professor John Edmunds OBE, Professor Dame Theresa Marteau, and Professor Michael Parker.

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 surprising workings of power: how children can p...

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. Jan Eeckhout also offers concrete solutions abou...

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, former Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Sir...

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 for Art and Sustainable Development (COAL) Prize wi...

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 profile inquiries: Lord Phillips, chair of the BSE...

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 Political Editor of the Glasgow Herald, Alice Thomson...

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 Defence Select Committee, and Secretary of State for Int...

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 Century, will lead the discussion with a presentation of...

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: he will discuss how data and statistics evolved du...

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, geographic, institutional and racial contexts in whi...

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 in the (unsuccessful) Copenhagen COP15 in 2009. He...

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. What have been the stresses and strains caused by the...

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 discuss the prospects for Biden’s domestic policies movi...

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 Suma Chakrabarti KCB and Sophie Miremadi, two fel...