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  • The NHS is currently in crisis: record numbers of people are on waiting lists, there are serious staff shortages, buildings and equipment are outdated, and research indicates that patient satisfaction is at rock bottom. There does not seem to be much optimism about the UK’s current health system and the NHS’s public support may be waning. Beyond clinical shortcomings, we face a string of public health challenges in the UK, including persistent health inequalities and a slowing or even halted rate of increase in life expectancy.

    Is there a way out of the current crisis for the NHS – and a way forwards for public health more broadly? How much should the state do to promote our health? And can a look at the values that ought to underpin public health strategies tell us how to do better?

    This week we are joined by Albert Weale, Emeritus Professor of Political Theory and Public Policy here in UCL Department of Political Science, and James Wilson, Professor of Philosophy in UCL Department of Philosophy. He is also co-director of the UCL Health Humanities Centre.

    Mentioned in this episode:

    Peter Littlejohns, David J. Hunter, Albert Weale, Jacqueline Johnson, Toslima Khatun. 2023 'Making Health Public: A Manifesto for a New Social Contract.'James Wilson. 2021 'Philosophy for Public Health and Public Policy: Beyond the Neglectful State.'James Wilson. 2023 ‘What makes a health system good? From cost-effectiveness analysis to ethical improvement in health systems.’ Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy.

    UCL’s Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy offers a uniquely stimulating environment for the study of all fields of politics, including international relations, political theory, human rights, public policy-making and administration. The Department is recognised for its world-class research and policy impact, ranking among the top departments in the UK on both the 2021 Research Excellence Framework and the latest Guardian rankings.

  • Armed conflict is all too common around the world today. One of the consequences of conflict is that civilians are harmed. Military forces – if they respect basic moral and legal standards – seek to avoid those harms so far as they can. But sometimes they will fail in that. So how should armed forces and governments respond when they cause unintended harm to civilians?

    Well that is a question that the United States and its allies are thinking about very carefully at the moment.

    One of the researchers whose work is shaping that process joins us today. She is Dr Kaleigh Heard. Kaleigh has advised multiple governments and NGOs around the world. She is also Lecturer in Human Rights here in the UCL Department of Political Science.

    Mentioned in this episode:

    Kaleigh Heard. The Price of a Life: The Confluence of Strategy and Legitimacy in Civilian Harm Compensation.

    UCL’s Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy offers a uniquely stimulating environment for the study of all fields of politics, including international relations, political theory, human rights, public policy-making and administration. The Department is recognised for its world-class research and policy impact, ranking among the top departments in the UK on both the 2021 Research Excellence Framework and the latest Guardian rankings.

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  • Protest is a fundamental part of democracy. From thousands attending pro-Palestine marches in London, to farmers driving their tractors into Paris, Berlin, and Cardiff, to Just Stop Oil spraying UCL’s famous portico orange – protests are rarely out of the spotlight.

    But what do protests actually achieve? Do they affect political debate and policy outcomes?

    A new study sheds light on that, focusing on the impact of climate protests here in the UK on what MPs talk about – both in parliament itself and online.

    One of the co-authors of that article is Tom Fleming, Lecturer in British and Comparative Politics, who joins us for this episode.

    Mentioned in this episode:

    Barrie, C., Fleming, T. G., and Rowan, S. S. (2023) ‘Does Protest Influence Political Speech? Evidence from UK Climate Protest, 2017-2019’, British Journal of Political Science.

    UCL’s Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy offers a uniquely stimulating environment for the study of all fields of politics, including international relations, political theory, human rights, public policy-making and administration. The Department is recognised for its world-class research and policy impact, ranking among the top departments in the UK on both the 2021 Research Excellence Framework and the latest Guardian rankings.

  • In the wake of the 1917 Russian Revolution, the new Bolshevik regime, keen to destroy the power of global capital, expropriated the commanding heights of the Russian economy and repudiated a mountain of foreign debt incurred by the Tsar. That action left thousands of international investors out of pocket. But addressing their claims proved exceptionally hard. Only in 1986, in the era of Thatcher and Gorbachev, did the British and Soviet governments finally reach a settlement. Other Western powers agreed resolutions later still.

    The story of this episode is fascinating in itself, but it also sheds new light on how disputes between states and international investors are resolved today. Those disputes rarely hit the headlines, however, that they can be incredibly important for all of us.

    How they’re resolved today is very different from in the 1980s, but the modern methods face severe criticism – not least from experts and campaigners who argue they can impede action on climate change and human rights.

    Lauge Poulsen joins us today. He is Professor of International Relations and Law here in the UCL Department of Political Science, is co-author of the study of the Russian case, and THE expert on disputes between states and investors.

    Mentioned in this episode:

    Eileen Denza and Lauge Poulsen. 'Settling Russia's Imperial and Baltic Debts'. American Journal of International Law.

    UCL’s Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy offers a uniquely stimulating environment for the study of all fields of politics, including international relations, political theory, human rights, public policy-making and administration. The Department is recognised for its world-class research and policy impact, ranking among the top departments in the UK on both the 2021 Research Excellence Framework and the latest Guardian rankings.

  • Death threats, on the face it, appear to be exactly the sort of content that an online platform ought to censor – or ‘moderate’, as the preferred and obscuring term has it. Surely it is impermissible to threaten someone’s life and surely it is appropriate for online spaces like Facebook – or now Meta – to remove such speech.

    But what if the statement isn’t really an urge towards violence, nor a declaration of one’s intent to kill? Sometimes, when people make death threats, say to dictators, might that really be more of a political slogan or a form of critique? What if there is no intent behind the threat, and the target isn’t in danger? And ought online platforms care about such nuance when thinking about what to leave up and what to take down.

    We are joined by Jeffrey Howard, who is Associate Professor in Political Philosophy and Public Policy, and director of the Digital Speech Lab, and Sarah Fisher, a Research Fellow.

    Mentioned in this episode:

    Jeffrey Howard and Sarah Fisher. Ambiguous Threats: ‘Death-to’ Statements and the Moderation of Online Speech-Acts. Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy (forthcoming)

    UCL’s Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy offers a uniquely stimulating environment for the study of all fields of politics, including international relations, political theory, human rights, public policy-making and administration. The Department is recognised for its world-class research and policy impact, ranking among the top departments in the UK on both the 2021 Research Excellence Framework and the latest Guardian rankings.

  • For around a decade, the EU – which was founded by the principles of freedom, democracy and the rule of law – has been struggling to contain anti-democratic developments in some member states.

    More broadly, the European Union faces a challenge of how to create unity, and yet accommodate the significant political, social, and economic diversity of its member states. Can it accommodate this diversity? And can it do so without risking being unfair or undermining its own legitimacy?

    Addressing these big questions is Professor Richard Bellamy, Professor of Political Science here at in the Department of Political Science and a Senior Fellow at the Hertie School in Berlin. He has recently co-authored a book on the subject, called Flexible Europe: Differentiated Integration, Fairness, and Democracy.

    Mentioned in this episode:

    Richard Bellamy. Flexible Europe: Differentiated Integration, Fairness, and Democracy.

    UCL’s Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy offers a uniquely stimulating environment for the study of all fields of politics, including international relations, political theory, human rights, public policy-making and administration. The Department is recognised for its world-class research and policy impact, ranking among the top departments in the UK on both the 2021 Research Excellence Framework and the latest Guardian rankings.

  • One of the most remarkable transformations over recent decades has been the growing acceptance and celebration of LGBT+ rights. Here in the UK, for example, the proportion of respondents to the British Social Attitudes survey saying that same-sex relationships are not wrong at all has risen from just 11 per cent in 1987 to 67 per cent a generation later in 2022.

    Yet recent years have seen a backlash against such advances. Self-styled ‘family values’ movements have campaigned against the so-called ‘gay lobby’ or ‘gender ideology’ in many countries, often claiming threats not just to the family, but to the nation as a whole. In the UK and elsewhere, a backlash against trans rights has been especially prominent.

    We are joined by Phillip Ayoub, Professor of International Relations here in the UCL Department of Political Science. As well as marking LGBT+ History Month, this is a special inaugural episode for Prof Ayoub touching on his career journey and research influences.

    Mentioned in this episode:

    Phillip M. Ayoub and Kristina Stoeckl. The Global Fight Against LGBTI Rights: How Transnational Conservative Networks Target Sexual and Gender MinoritiesPhillip Ayoub. When States Come Out. Europe's Sexual Minorities and the Politics of Visibility

    UCL’s Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy offers a uniquely stimulating environment for the study of all fields of politics, including international relations, political theory, human rights, public policy-making and administration. The Department is recognised for its world-class research and policy impact, ranking among the top departments in the UK on both the 2021 Research Excellence Framework and the latest Guardian rankings.

  • How parliaments hold ministers (particularly prime ministers) to account is a fundamental part of parliamentary democracy. And one of those mechanisms of accountability involves asking questions.

    We take a good hard look at how – and how effectively – parliaments question prime ministers.

    We are joined by Dr Ruxandra Serban, Associate Lecturer in Democratic and Authoritarian Politics here in the UCL Department of Political Science. Her research focusess directly on parliamentary questioning processes.

    Mentioned in this episode:

    Ruxandra Serban. Conflictual behaviour in legislatures: Exploring and explaining adversarial remarks in oral questions to prime ministers. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations.Ruxandra Serban. Is confrontational questioning bad for parliaments and democratic politics? The Constitution Unit Blog.

    UCL’s Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy offers a uniquely stimulating environment for the study of all fields of politics, including international relations, political theory, human rights, public policy-making and administration. The Department is recognised for its world-class research and policy impact, ranking among the top departments in the UK on both the 2021 Research Excellence Framework and the latest Guardian rankings.

  • Peace in Northern Ireland is widely recognised as one of the leading achievements of politics in recent decades. The Good Friday, or Belfast Agreement, reached in 1998 by the British and Irish governments and most of the main Northern Ireland political parties brought an end to thirty years of violent conflict in which over three and a half thousand people were killed.

    It did so in part by establishing a system of power-sharing government. A new Northern Ireland Assembly would be elected by proportional representation, so no one group could dominate. Within the new Northern Ireland Executive, representatives of Northern Ireland’s two political traditions would have to work together.

    Over the years since the Agreement was reached, the power-sharing institutions have worked well some of the time. But for others they have worked badly or not at all. Since February 2022 their functioning has once again been suspended. Public anger at this situation is intense. Negotiations for restoring the institutions are ongoing. But, as yet, there has been no breakthrough.

    Indeed, the situation has become so grave that many think the future viability of power-sharing government is now in doubt. And there are suggestions that the settlement reached in 1998 may need to be revisited.

    In this episode we’re joined by two experts:

    Alan Whysall is an Honorary Senior Research Associate at the Constitution Unit here within the UCL Department of Political Science. He was previously a senior civil servant in the Northern Ireland Office, where he worked for many years on the Northern Ireland peace process – including the talks that led to the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement.

    Conor Kelly is a Research Assistant at the Constitution where he has worked on multiple projects relating to Northern Ireland, most recently examining perceptions of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement among politicians and the public in Northern Ireland.

    Mentioned in this episode:

    Alan Whysall’s reports: 'Report 1: Northern Ireland's Political Future' and 'Report 2: The Agreement at 25' https://www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit/northern-irelands-political-futureConor Kelly and Alan Renwick, Perspectives on the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement

    UCL’s Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy offers a uniquely stimulating environment for the study of all fields of politics, including international relations, political theory, human rights, public policy-making and administration. The Department is recognised for its world-class research and policy impact, ranking among the top departments in the UK on both the 2021 Research Excellence Framework and the latest Guardian rankings.

  • The quality of public services – whether health, education, water supply, or sewage disposal – has a big impact on all of our lives. How to enhance that quality is therefore one of the big questions for political studies.

    Professor Marc Esteve is one of the leading experts on exactly that issue. We have recorded this special episode of our podcast to coincide with his inaugural lecture as Professor of Public Management here in the UCL Department of Political Science.

    Mentioned in this episode:

    Assessing the Effects of User Accountability in Contracting Out, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory.Determinants Of Network Outcomes: The Impact Of Management Strategies. Public Administration.The Political Hourglass: Opportunistic Behavior in Local Government Policy Decisions. International Public Management Journal

    You can watch Marc's inaugural lecture on our YouTube channel, where it will be uploaded in January 2023.

    UCL’s Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy offers a uniquely stimulating environment for the study of all fields of politics, including international relations, political theory, human rights, public policy-making and administration. The Department is recognised for its world-class research and policy impact, ranking among the top departments in the UK on both the 2021 Research Excellence Framework and the latest Guardian rankings.

  • Analysts of Russia’s war in Ukraine have often – since its inception in 2014 – highlighted a seeming contradiction. On the one hand, Russia is violating the sovereignty of a neighbouring state in pursuit of its own interests. On the other, Russia simultaneously condemns Western interventions in places such as Syria, Iraq, and Libya, as well as Serbia back in 1999, on the basis that they breach the principle of non-interference in other states.

    So are Russian leaders just being inconsistent? Or is there more going on?

    Dr Kalina Zhekova, Lecturer in Political Science here in the UCL Department of Political Science, joins us for this week's episode. A specialist in Russian approaches to military intervention and state sovereignty, Kalina’s latest paper looks at elite-level Russian discourse during the 2014 Ukraine crisis.

    Mentioned in this episode:

    Kalina Zhekova (2023) The West in Russian Discourses of Sovereignty During the 2014 Ukraine Crisis: Between ‘Compatriot Protection’ and ‘Non-Interference’. Europe-Asia Studies.

    UCL’s Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy offers a uniquely stimulating environment for the study of all fields of politics, including international relations, political theory, human rights, public policy-making and administration. The Department is recognised for its world-class research and policy impact, ranking among the top departments in the UK on both the 2021 Research Excellence Framework and the latest Guardian rankings.

  • Political science is centrally concerned with understanding how politics works. It’s a discipline of the present tense, and the bulk of our research focuses on gathering evidence in the here and now. But sometimes political scientists also dig into the past. From time to time, you’ll even find one of us trawling through the records in a dusty archive.

    We are discussing one particular ongoing example of historical research in political science - at prisoner-of-war camps in the UK in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War.

    We are joined by:

    Zeynep Bulutgil,Professor in International Relations. Regular listeners may remember in episode we did with her back in 2022 on the origins of the secular state.

    Sam Erkiletian, a final-year PhD student who’s just about to submit his dissertation on patterns of socialization in groups of combatants.

    Mentioned in this episode:

    Bulutgil, H. Zeynep, The Origins of Secular Institutions: Ideas, Timing, and Organization.

    UCL’s Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy offers a uniquely stimulating environment for the study of all fields of politics, including international relations, political theory, human rights, public policy-making and administration. The Department is recognised for its world-class research and policy impact, ranking among the top departments in the UK on both the 2021 Research Excellence Framework and the latest Guardian rankings.

  • Our guest today is Professor Lisa Vanhala. A Professor in Political Science here at UCL and an expert on the politics of climate change. Lisa recently gave her inaugural lecture: Governing the End: The Making of Climate Change Loss and Damage, offering a fascinating insight into the way that UN meetings and negotiations over climate change get framed, and how they proceed, informed by the ideas of Goffman and Bourdieu.

    She also examines the ways that civil society organisations engage with the law to shape policy and social change both around climate change and around equality and human rights, including in her award-winning first monograph, Making Rights a Reality? Disability Rights Activists and Legal Mobilization.

    Lisa joins us this week to talk about a comparative politics of climate change loss and damage.

    Mentioned in this episode:

    Lisa Vanhala, Cecilie Hestbaek. Framing Climate Change Loss and Damage in UNFCCC Negotiations. Global Environmental Politics.Lisa Vanhala, Angelica Johansson, Frances Butler. Deploying an Ethnographic Sensibility to Understand Climate Change Governance: Hanging Out, Around, In, and Back. Global Environmental Politics.Lisa Vanhala. COP28: a year on from climate change funding breakthrough, poor countries eye disappointment at Dubai summit. The Conversation.Lisa's Inaugural Lecture.

    UCL’s Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy offers a uniquely stimulating environment for the study of all fields of politics, including international relations, political theory, human rights, public policy-making and administration. The Department is recognised for its world-class research and policy impact, ranking among the top departments in the UK on both the 2021 Research Excellence Framework and the latest Guardian rankings.

  • Today we are examining speech acts and uptake. A central contribution from J. L. Austin has been the idea that our speech sometimes doesn’t only say things – sometimes it does things. When we speak, we don’t only convey content or information. We sometimes also - for instance - promise, name, refuse, or order: in short, our speech sometimes acts.

    And that has prompted a great deal of philosophical debate over when speech acts are successfully performed, and whether that depends on the effects on the audience. This might sound like an esoteric matter, but philosophers think that thinking about how – and when- speech does things has implications for what we should think of pornography, and for when people really consent to sex.

    Our guest today is Dr Sarah Fisher, a Research Fellow here in the department of political science on a cross-disciplinary project on the ethics of content moderation on social media and the future of free speech online, funded by UKRI.

    Mentioned in this episode:

    Sarah A. Fisher, Kathryn B. Francis & Leo Townsend (2023) An empirical investigation of intuitions about uptake, Inquiry, DOI: 10.1080/0020174X.2023.2220359Langton, Rae. “Speech Acts and Unspeakable Acts.” Philosophy & Public Affairs, vol. 22, no. 4, 1993, pp. 293–330. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2265469


    Some references suggested by Sarah for further reading:

    Townsend, L. and Townsend, D.L. (2020). Consultation, Consent, and the Silencing of Indigenous Communities. Journal of Applied Philosophy, 37: 781-798. DOI: 10.1111/japp.12438Townsend, L. and Lupin, D. (2021). Representation and Epistemic Violence. International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 29(4): 577-594. DOI: 10.1080/09672559.2021.1997398Francis, K. B., Beaman, P., & Hansen, N. (2019). Stakes, scales, and skepticism. Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy. DOI: 10.3998/ergo.12405314.0006.016

    UCL’s Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy offers a uniquely stimulating environment for the study of all fields of politics, including international relations, political theory, human rights, public policy-making and administration. The Department is recognised for its world-class research and policy impact, ranking among the top departments in the UK on both the 2021 Research Excellence Framework and the latest Guardian rankings.

  • The book that we’re discussing in this episode suggests that IMF funding becomes a resource held by local leaders, which those leaders can use to benefit their own supporters to the detriment of the rest of the population.

    The book – called IMF Lending: Partisanship, Punishment, and Protest – has two authors, and we are joined by both of them.

    - Dr Rod Abouharb is Associate Professor in International Relations here in the UCL Department of Political Science.

    - Dr Bernhard Reinsberg is Reader in Politics and International Relations at the University of Glasgow and also a Research Associate in Political Economy at the Centre for Business Research at the University of Cambridge.

    Mentioned in this episode:

    IMF Lending: Partisanship, Punishment, and Protest

    UCL’s Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy offers a uniquely stimulating environment for the study of all fields of politics, including international relations, political theory, human rights, public policy-making and administration. The Department is recognised for its world-class research and policy impact, ranking among the top departments in the UK on both the 2021 Research Excellence Framework and the latest Guardian rankings.

  • Immigration is a hot political issue in many countries. Its economic and social costs and benefits are widely debated. The people who are most directly involved in it or affected by it are often highly vulnerable, meaning that policy debate ought to proceed with care and caution. Yet it’s often used as a political tool by one or other side, as campaigners fuel fears or animosities for their own ends.

    Our Migration Research Cluster is seeking to coordinate and promote evidence based work on the politics of migration and migration policy. To mark the Migration cluster’s foundation, we are joined by three of its members.

    Dr Alex Hartman is Associate Professor in Qualitative Research Methods. Her research focuses on the political economy of institutions in fragile states, with one strand looking particularly at the politics of forced displacement.

    Dr Moritz Marbach is Associate Professor in Data Science & Public Policy. He is particularly interested in how policies regulating migration affect migrants, voters and politicians.

    And Dr Judith Spirig is Lecturer in Political Science. Among other things, she examines the determinants and the consequences of anti-immigrant attitudes.

    Mentioned in this episode:

    Immigration and inequality: the role of politics and policies. Dominic Hangartner and Judith Spirig.

    UCL’s Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy offers a uniquely stimulating environment for the study of all fields of politics, including international relations, political theory, human rights, public policy-making and administration. The Department is recognised for its world-class research and policy impact, ranking among the top departments in the UK on both the 2021 Research Excellence Framework and the latest Guardian rankings.

  • During the recent pandemic, unprecedented public spending was required to help tackle the deadly disease and minimise its economic fallout. But faced with heightened uncertainty, rapidly changing conditions, and imperfect information, fiscal transparency was perhaps not at the forefront of politicians’ minds when making important public investment and spending decisions.  

    Post-pandemic, in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, and on the edges of a recession, there is a greater desire to understand the government’s fiscal position and policies. In order to understand exactly what’s going on, a degree of fiscal transparency – which refers to the publication of information on how governments raise, spend, and manage public resources – is needed.  

    We are joined by Dr Mike Seiferling, Assistant Professor in Public Finance here in the Department of Political Science at UCL and an expert (and former economist) at the IMF. Mike discusses the cost of non-transparency, and the importance of citizen engagement and civil society organizations in promoting fiscal transparency and accountability in government asset management.

    Mentioned in this episode:

    Seiferling, M. and Tareq, S. ‘Hiding the Losses: Fiscal Transparency and the Performance of Government Portfolios of Financial Assets’Hameed, Farhan, Fiscal Transparency and Economic Outcomes (December 2005). IMF Working Paper No. 05/225, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=888094

    UCL’s Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy offers a uniquely stimulating environment for the study of all fields of politics, including international relations, political theory, human rights, public policy-making and administration. The Department is recognised for its world-class research and policy impact, ranking among the top departments in the UK on both the 2021 Research Excellence Framework and the latest Guardian rankings.

  • Many people in South Africa live in very unsatisfactory so-called ‘backyard dwellings’. But few take part in collective action to improve their lot. Why not?

    This puzzle centres on the broader idea known to social scientists as the ‘collective action problem’, that people often struggle to work together to achieve a common goal, leading to suboptimal outcomes. This has long been explored by scholars and is ever-present in our lives: in explanations, for example, of low voter turnout, depletion of natural resources, and foot-dragging in action to tackle climate change.

    Yet collective action problems can be overcome under certain conditions – think of successful strike actions or civil rights protests, or the effective management of some local shared resources. And political scientists are naturally keen to understand what these conditions are, seeking answers by analysing group dynamics in different settings.

    To explore these questions, we are joined by Dr Adam Harris, Associate Professor in Development Politics here in the UCL Department of Political Science, and also an Associated Researcher with the Centre for Social Change at the University of Johannesburg.

    Mentioned in this episode:

    Making Demands on Government: Theorizing Determinants of Backyard Residents’ Collective Action in Cape Town, South Africa. African Studies Review

    UCL’s Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy offers a uniquely stimulating environment for the study of all fields of politics, including international relations, political theory, human rights, public policy-making and administration. The Department is recognised for its world-class research and policy impact, ranking among the top departments in the UK on both the 2021 Research Excellence Framework and the latest Guardian rankings.

  • This week we welcome Dr Emily McTernan, co-host of this podcast, into the guest seat. Emily is talking about her new book, On Taking Offence. In it, she argues that taking offence is an important and often valuable response to affronts against our social standing, and that it deserves to be taken more seriously by scholars than it has been (and perhaps less seriously than it might be seen by some sections of society).


    Mentioned in this episode:

    On Taking Offence. Emily McTernan.

    UCL’s Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy offers a uniquely stimulating environment for the study of all fields of politics, including international relations, political theory, human rights, public policy-making and administration. The Department is recognised for its world-class research and policy impact, ranking among the top departments in the UK on both the 2021 Research Excellence Framework and the latest Guardian rankings.

  • The soap opera of US politics rolls on. Joe Biden – the first octogenarian president – plans to run again in 2024. So too does Donald Trump, despite a series of ongoing legal cases against him

    Beneath this surface, serious issues are at stake, around economic and climate policies, relations between the United States and China, the future stance of the US towards the war in Ukraine, and women’s rights and abortion after Roe v. Wade was overturned. And there are major questions to ask about the health of US democracy itself.

    So, it’s high time we had one of our occasional reviews of the state of US politics. Joining us this week are the Co-Directors of the UCL Centre on US Politics:

    - Dr Julie Norman, Associate Professor (Teaching) in Politics and International Relations,

    - and Dr Thomas Gift, Associate Professor in Political Science, both in the UCL Department of Political Science.

    Mentioned in this episode:

    CUSP - the UCL Centre on US Politics.

    UCL’s Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy offers a uniquely stimulating environment for the study of all fields of politics, including international relations, political theory, human rights, public policy-making and administration. The Department is recognised for its world-class research and policy impact, ranking among the top departments in the UK on both the 2021 Research Excellence Framework and the latest Guardian rankings.