Podcasts and videos

Pakistan's Elections 2024: Navigating the Impact on Pakistan's Democracy

Hosted by the Department of Social Policy and LSE South Asia Centre (SAC) on 26 March 2024

This event on the Pakistani elections will explore the implications of these elections for Pakistan's fragile democracy.

Esteemed scholars and practitioners provided diverse perspectives on the recent election processes and their consequences. They also explored how Western countries can contribute to this effort, ultimately reinforcing democracy globally.

Watch the video here

Women in the Workplace

Hosted by Department of Social Policy and the Women in Social and Public Policy Research Hub on 13 March 2024

In this engaging and insightful public forum, distinguished researchers and stakeholders came together to address the pressing issue of gender inequalities in the workplace.

Speakers: Dr Caroline Coly, Alesha De-Freitas, Alice Marchionno, Professor Paola Profeta
Chair: Professor Almudena Sevilla

Watch the video here

Celebrating the Career of Professor Tim Newburn

Hosted by the Department of Social Policy and LSE Law School on Saturday 2 March 2024

For over 40 years, Tim Newburn has been a key figure in British and European criminology and social policy. The author of over 40 books, Tim’s influence spans the whole field, from comparative and historical scholarship through policy studies, policing, youth justice, drugs and alcohol, urban violence and restorative justice to criminological theory. At this event, Tim’s colleagues and students gathered to discuss his influence and his major contributions to the field, and to the LSE, and to celebrate his career. The event was chaired by Professor Nicola Lacey.

Watch the video here

Education or Exclusion? The challenges and tensions between school exclusions and children’s rights

Hosted by the Department of Social Policy and the Education Research and Policy Hub on 7 February 2024

Speakers: Professor Feyisa Demie, Mathew Purchase KC, Dan Rosenberg, Kyann Zhang

Chair: Dr Sonia Exley

This panel brings together researchers and education professionals to question the ongoing issues regarding school exclusions, and the implications for governance, policy and practice.

Watch the video here

View the presentation slides here

Empowering citizens with behavioural science

Hosted by STICERD and the Department of Social Policy on 30 January 2024

Speaker: Professor Ralph Hertwig
Chair: Dr Barbara Fasolo

Behavioural public policy has gained significant attention recently due to two key factors: political debates over government size and role, and the globally influential approach of nudging. This talk will outline recent developments in conceptual and empirical research that aims to empower citizens by boosting their competences.

Watch the video here

The legacy of Richard Titmuss: social welfare fifty years on

Hosted by LSE Health and Department of Social Policy on 27 November 2023

Richard Titmuss, the first chair in Social Administration at the London School of Economics and Political Science, died fifty years ago in 1973. From his appointment in 1950 until his death Titmuss established and defined the field of social policy. This event will discuss Titmuss’s critique of the ‘welfare state’, and how his insights have had to evolve in the light of the challenges to, and strategies for, social welfare which have come to predominate since his death.

The event brings together authors of published and planned biographies of Richard Titmuss, Brian Abel-Smith and Peter Townsend, alongside Titmuss’ daughter, renowned academic Ann Oakley.

Listen to the podcast here

Watch the video here

Read the related LSE History Blog 'Fifty years on, who remembers Richard Titmuss?' by Professor John Stewart here.

Academic Freedom and Freedom from Harassment in Universities

Hosted by the Department of Social Policy and LSE Law School on 20 November 2023

There is a lot of current debate about the meaning, nature, importance of and limits to academic freedom, including how it relates to freedom of expression.

This interest and debate has been heightened in the UK by recent legislation on the Higher Education Freedom of Speech Act, as well as by prominent cases of disruption or cancellation of speakers by those with opposing views. This is the launch event for The London Universities' Council for Academic Freedom (www.lucaf.org), a new academic-led and non-partisan organisation which is committed to supporting academic freedom at London universities and beyond.

Watch the video here

Living Standards and the Cost of Living Crisis

Hosted by the Department of Social Policy on 6 November 2023

The UK is currently in the midst of a cost of living crisis, with large segments of the population finding it harder to maintain their living standards as real incomes decrease. In this event, Dr. Mike Brewer from the Resolution Foundation will present findings and research on the decline of living standards over the past two years, brought by rising inflation and the energy crisis, and the prospects for living standards over the coming year. In doing so, he will assess whether the cost of living crisis is near resolution, or becoming an entrenched reality of the UK economy and society.

Watch the video here

A 21st Century Family?

Department of Social Policy Annual Lecture

Hosted by the Department of Social Policy on 19 October 2023

What are the driving forces behind family transformation in our age? The old male breadwinner model is vanishing. What will take its place? How will a new stable family form evolve which is compatible with women's new roles? These are the questions that Professor Gosta Esping-Andersen will address in this year’s Department of Social Policy Annual Lecture.

Watch the video here

Blackness and the research gaze

Hosted by the Department of Methodology and the Department of Social Policy’s Race Matters Initiative on 16 October 2023

In this Black History Month 2023 event, speakers reflect on how they embed critical and transformative techniques in researching Black subjectivities. Discover how members of our distinguished panel evaluate the mental health consequences of the Windrush scandal on Caribbean and Black African people in the UK; address experiential and institutional dimensions of ‘race’, racism and anti-racism in Mexico; examine the role of Afro-Colombian activists in designing and implementing cultural policies; and use hip-hop aesthetics to explore the metaphysics of Blackness.

Watch the video here

Optimally Irrational. The good reasons we behave the way we do

Hosted by STICERD and the Hayek Programme in Economics and Liberal Political Economy, and the Department of Social Policy on 9 October 2023

A public lecture by Professor Lionel Page on the topic of his latest book: 'Optimally Irrational. The good reasons we behave the way we do'.

Listen to the podcast here

Watch the video here

Can people change the world? Activists, social movements, and utopian futures

Hosted by LSE Festival: People and Change on 17 June 2023

Speakers:
Dr Armine Ishkanian, Associate Professor in the Department of Social Policy and the Executive Director of the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity programme at the International Inequalities Institute.

Dr Faiza Shaheen, Program Head for the Inequality and Exclusion Grand Challenge of the Pathfinders for Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies at the Center on International Cooperation at New York University.

Georgia Haddad Nicolau, Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity and a Co-founder and Director of Brazilian commons-based organisation Instituto Procomum.

Chair: Dr Maël Lavenaire, Caribbean and Latin America historian and a Research Fellow in Racial Inequality at the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity programme.

Looking beyond just forms of resistance, this panel will discuss the role of activists and social movements in today’s world and examine their agency in imagining utopian futures and creating change. How are social movements providing creative spaces for not only challenging inequalities but also coming up with alternative ideas for solutions to address the problems they are fighting against? And how and to what extent are these ideas informing policy changes?

Listen to the podcast here

Watch the video here

The Changing Inequalities of Citizenship

Hosted by LSE Festival: People and Change on 15 June 2023

Speakers:

Dr Robtel Neajai Pailey, Assistant Professor in International Social and Public Policy in the Department of Social Policy, LSE.

Dr Kristin Surak, Associate Professor of Political Sociology in the Department of Sociology, LSE.

Dr Eleanor Knott, a political scientist and Assistant Professor in Qualitative Methodology in the Department of Methodology, LSE.

Chair: Dr Armine Ishkanian, Associate Professor in the Department of Social Policy and the Executive Director of the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity programme at the International Inequalities Institute.

Citizenship is often seen as a great equaliser. Yet access to citizenship itself is not equally distributed, nor are the rights gained from citizenship equal for all.

In this session three scholars from across the social sciences explore the varying, complex, and global nature of inequalities produced in and through citizenship in the 21st century. Drawing on their newly released books, our panel discuss new transformations in citizenship and (in)equality, ranging from contestations around dual citizenship for Liberia, to the sale of citizenship by microstates to millionaires, to the extra-territorial acquisition of citizenship in Crimea and Moldova.

Listen to the podcast here

Watch the video here

The Road to Net Zero: how to seize opportunities and manage change

Hosted by LSE Festival: People and Change on 13 June 2023

Speakers:

Dr Liam F Beiser-McGrath, Assistant Professor in International Social and Public Policy in the Department of Social Policy at LSE.

Chris Skidmore, MP for Kingswood since 2010.

Rain Newton-Smith, Director General of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI)

Dr Anna Valero, Distinguished Policy Fellow at Centre for Economic Performance (CEP)

Chair: Professor Elizabeth Robinson, Director of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at LSE.

Tackling climate change requires significant and rapid economic and societal change.

As new ways to power our homes, workplaces and transport are developed there will be opportunities for sustainable, healthier economic growth. But there will also be costs for firms, workers and households. To date, climate action has faced challenges from the people, through protests and failed referenda, but has also been driven by public support and activism.

How we can ensure the net zero transition is an inclusive one, so that crucial public support can be maintained and built?

Listen to the podcast here

Watch the video here

Book Launch: Uncomfortably off: Why the top 10% of earners should care about inequality

Hosted by the Department of Social Policy and the International Inequalities Institute on 31 May 2023

Speakers:

Dr Marcos González Hernando, Honorary Research Fellow at UCL Social Research Institute and affiliated researcher at Universidad Diego Portales and the Centre for the Study of Conflict and Social Cohesion in Chile.

Dr Gerry Mitchell, social researcher, campaigner and community activist.

Respondents:
Dr Arun Advani, Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Warwick.
Anoosh Chakelian, Britain Editor of the New Statesman.

Chair: Dr Tania Burchardt, Associate Director of the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE), Deputy Director of STICERD, and an Associate Professor in the Department of Social Policy at the LSE.

Media attention is often focused on the very richest, the 1%, and their capacity to influence politics and shape society. But they are not the only ones who drive politics, the public conversation and much of the private sector. The focus of this book is on the larger top 10%, the managers and professionals of our media, business, the third sector, political parties and academia and who are just as influential.

Watch the video here

Time to Think: in conversation with Hannah Barnes

Hosted by the Department of Social Policy on 23 May 2023

Speakers:
Hannah Barnes, journalist at the BBC's flagship current affairs programme, Newsnight.
Professor Lucinda Platt, Professor of Social Policy and Sociology in the Department of Social Policy at LSE.

Chair: Professor David Kershaw, Dean of LSE Law School.

In this event investigative journalist Hannah Barnes speaks about her book: how she came to investigate the Tavistock’s gender service for children, the testimony she received, and her attempts to understand how safeguarding concerns got lost and the service unraveled.

Listen to the podcast here

Watch the video here

Advancing Equality: The Power of Academia-Business Collaboration and Policy Action

Women In Social and Public Policy Research Hub (WISPPRH) Launch event

Hosted by the Department of Social Policy on 8 March 2023

The Department of Social Policy hosted the launch of the Women in Social and Public Policy Research Hub (WISPPRH)) on 8 March, with an open roundtable discussion as the centerpiece of the event. This event brought together renowned scholars, representatives of the civil society, and stakeholders in the fields of gender, climate change, and policy. The purpose of the roundtable discussion was to start a conversation on the potential benefits of collaboration and knowledge sharing among centers and programs dedicated to gender issues, with the ultimate goal of making progress on this critical topic.

Speakers: Emma Codd, Professor Paola Profeta, Begoña Ramos and Professor Johanna Rickne.
Chair: Professor Naila Kabeer

Watch the video here

Annual LSE Behavioural Public Policy Lecture

Behaviourally-Informed Food Policies: Models, Concepts and Some Evidence

Hosted by the Department of Social Policy on 7 March 2023

Speaker: Professor Lucia A. Reisch, Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge
Chair: Dr Adam Oliver, Department of Social Policy, LSE

The talk first sketches the contours of a behaviourally-informed food policy aiming for more resilient and sustainable food systems. It then presents five recent and ongoing empirical behavioural studies on how to induce change for more sustainable food patterns.

Watch the video here

Book Launch: A Political Economy of Behavioural Public Policy

Hosted by the Department of Social Policy on 15 February 2023

Speakers: Lord Gus O’Donnell (Chair, Frontier Economics),
Professor Shaun Hargreaves Heap (Kings College, London),
Professor Robert Sugden (University of East Anglia)
Elisabeth Costa (Behavioural Insights Team)

Chair: Baroness Minouche Shafik (Director of the LSE)

This event marks the publication of Adam Oliver’s new book, ‘A Political Economy of Behavioural Public Policy’ (Cambridge University Press). Baroness Shafik will chair a panel that will consider the development and future of behavioural public policy, with reference to Oliver’s liberal perspective for the field.

Watch the video here

How Do We Eradicate Poverty?

Hosted by the Department of Social Policy and LSE Library on 17 November 2022

Speakers: Clare Harding, Dave Hill, Manny Hothi, Stewart Lansley, Professor Baroness Lister
Chair: Professor Lucinda Platt

This event is inspired by the life, work and legacy of George Lansbury (1859–1940). A pioneering campaigner for peace, women’s rights, local democracy and improvements in labour conditions, Lansbury was an adopted East Ender who made a great contribution to local as well as national life.

Watch the video here

Listen to the podcast here

The Multidimensional Politics of Inequality

Hosted by the Department of Social Policy on 27 October 2022

In the inaugural Social Policy Lecture at LSE, Leslie McCall presents a novel analytical framework for the understanding of popular responses to economic inequality.

Watch the video here

Listen to the podcast here

Harnessing Renewable Wind Energy: COP26 Commitments and the Energy Crisis

Hosted by The Department of Social Policy's Green Team on 12 July 2022

The UK hopes to benefit from first-mover advantages in embracing its net- zero targets early, by taking a lead in developing specific technical innovations for harnessing wind energy. Net-zero will also bring wider societal benefits, for instance to human health as a result of improved air quality and a better-protected natural environment. Discussing how the UK can become a world leader in achieving the net-zero strategy, the panel will explore the potential and socio-economic benefits of wind energy amidst the rising energy crisis.

Speakers: MP Alan Brown, Professor Ian Gough

Chair: Dr Ganga Shreedhar

Watch the video here

Climate Displacement and Migration: Challenges, Politics and Solutions

Hosted by the Department of Social Policy Green Team and Earth Refuge on 28 June 2022

This webinar is uniquely structured to provide a more holistic and solutions-focused understanding of the problem of climate-driven migration and displacement.

Speakers: Dr Sumudu Atapattu, Lauren Grant, Yumna Kamel, Dr Tasneem Siddiqui, Atle Solberg

Chair: Dr Isabel Shutes

Watch the video here

Policy and Social Change

Hosted by the International Inequalities Institute, the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity, the Atlantic Institute, LSE Department of Social Policy, and LSE Cities on 31 May 2022

The world is facing multiple crises that are responsible for widening economic and social inequalities and insecurities, ranging from climate change to the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the past decade, movements such as Black Lives Matter, Extinction Rebellion, Occupy, and the Indignados have confronted States and elites, challenged inequalities and mobilised to bring about greater justice, democracy, and progressive policy changes. This panel brings together speakers who are working at the intersection of research and policy to discuss the question: what is the relationship between policy and social change?

Speakers:
Professor Ricky Burdett (Department of Sociology, LSE),
Dr Amara Enyia (Manager of Policy and Research, the Movement for Black Lives and Founder, Global Black), Tracy Jooste (Senior Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity), Dr Robtel Neajai Pailey (Department of Social Policy, LSE)

Chair:
Dr Armine Ishkanian (Executive Director of the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity, III and Associate Professor, Department of Social Policy, LSE)

Watch the video here

Listen to the podcast here

Social Stratification Conference at LSE

From 21-23 April 2022, the Department of Social Policy hosted the first major international conference to take place in person at LSE since the pandemic. This was the first in-person meeting of the RC28 (Social Stratification and Social Mobility) of the International Sociological Association since its Summer 2019 meeting at Princeton.

More information here.

Ukrainian perspectives on the war in Ukraine: A panel discussion with social scientists from Kharkiv, Lviv and Kyiv

Hosted by the Department of Social Policy on 23rd March 2022

In the 21st century humanity again faces unprecedented challenges with the war in Ukraine. A humanitarian crisis involving millions of refugees and internally displaced persons is met by the triumph of the humanity demonstrated both within and outside of Ukraine. This online public event hosted by the Department of Social Policy at the London School of Economics will provide a discussion forum for social scientists currently located in Ukraine in order for them to share their ideas and views on the war in Ukraine. Participating speakers will bring perspectives from Sociology, Economics and International Relations.

Watch the video here

A Climate of Crisis: Human Rights and The Renewable Energy Transition

Hosted by The Beacon Journal and the Department of Social Policy's Green Impact team on 2 March 2022

This event brought together panellists from academia, activist organisations, and think tanks. The conversation focused on the intersections of renewable energy, environmental justice and human rights in order to provide an interdisciplinary understanding of the human rights impacts of current transition pathways to renewable energy and a low-carbon economy.

Speakers: Professor Kathryn Hochstetler (Department of International Development, LSE), Madhuresh Kumar (III, LSE), Glada Lahn (Chatham House)
Chair: Professor Lucinda Platt (Department of Social Policy, LSE)

Watch the video here

Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?

Hosted by the Department of Social Policy on 8 December 2021

This event took the form of an open conversation between Beverly Daniel Tatum and Minouche Shafik about Dr Tatum's book Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race, a perennial bestseller on the psychology of racism, which has been published in the UK for the first time this year.

Speaker: Dr Beverly Tatum
Chair: Baroness Minouche Shafik

Watch the video here

Listen to the podcast here

Career and Family: women's century-long journey toward equity

Hosted by the Department of Social Policy and the Department of Economic History on 25 November 2021

This event took the form of an open conversation to discuss the themes of gender equity and couple equity as presented in Claudia Goldin’s book, Career and Family: Women’s Century-Long Journey toward Equity.

Speakers: Professor Claudia Goldin, Professor Jane Humphries,
Dr Berkay Ozcan, Dr Iva Tasseva
Chair: Professor Lucinda Platt

Watch the video here

Listen to the podcast here

Listen to the Shortcast 20-minute digested version here

Social Policy. A Critical and Intersectional Analysis

Hosted by the Department of Social Policy and the International Inequalities Institute on 21 October 2021

This event took the form of an open conversation about the new book by Fiona Williams, Social Policy. A Critical and Intersectional Analysis. Following a presentation of the key themes and arguments in the book by Williams, the three discussants shared their perspectives.

Speakers: Dr Timo Fleckenstein, Dr Armine Ishkanian,
Dr Isabel Shutes, Professor Fiona Williams
Chair: Professor Lucinda Platt

Watch the video here

Ninth Meeting of the Society for the Study of Economic Inequality

The Department of Social Policy, the International Inequalities Institute, and STICERD joined forces to organize the ninth meeting of the Society – the premier international economic association dedicated primarily to the study of inequality in all its manifestations – during 8-10 July.

Professor Stephen P. Jenkins (LSE Social Policy) delivered the Presidential Address, and the other keynote speakers were Professor Sir Richard Blundell (UCL and IFS) and Florencia Torche (Stanford). Around 250 papers were presented at the conference covering a wide range of topics across disciplines from wealth to extreme poverty, intergenerational mobility, educational inequality to political inequality, health inequalities and how government support protects livelihoods in COVID-19 times.

More information here

Levelling up- women's pensions need a boost

Hosted by the Department of Social Policy on 15 June 2021

Speaker: Baroness Ros Altmann, CBE

Chair: Professor Lucinda Platt

Professor Lucinda Platt will be in conversation with Baroness Ros Altmann, CBE to discuss the gender pensions gap and why women’s pension prospects are still far worse than men’s. This multi-faceted problem needs urgent solutions. Former Pensions Minister will talk about how women’s health and working life course, as well as caring roles, mean lower lifetime earnings and lower pensions, but policy also discriminates against women in numerous ways that need to be addressed.

Watch the video here

A New Global Purpose for Education?

Hosted by the Department of Social Policy on 24 May 2021

Speakers: Suchetha Bhat, Tom Fletcher, Valerie Hannon, Andreas Schleicher, Vishal Talreja
Chair: Dr Amelia Peterson

Education is a national endeavour, but with our growing interdependence, is it time we acknowledge it has a global purpose? Join us for the launch of Thrive: The Purpose of Schools in a Changing World.

There is no denying that education is in a moment of flux. With disrupted labour markets, entrenched inequality, and stalled social mobility, long-standing international assumptions about education’s purpose are under strain. Meanwhile, the climate crisis and the reckoning with colonialism are pressing for wholescale reform of what schools and universities prioritise. What movements or institutions are fit to lead this change? And what form should change take? There is a need for a new narrative of what education is for: can it be global?

Watch the video here

Listen to the podcast here

Where Are All the 'Welfare Queens?' Diversity and European Evidence on Single-Parent Families

Hosted by the Department of Social Policy and LSE US Centre on 20 May 2021

Speakers: Professor Janet C. Gornick, Dr Laurie C. Maldonado, Professor Ive Marx, Dr Rense Nieuwenhuis
Chair: Dr Amanda Sheely

In the United States, single mothers are often blamed for their own circumstances and offered little support. The American social policy discourse is very much shaped by the image of the “welfare queen” – a never-married single mother who is dependent on public assistance and refuses to work. However, experiences of lone parents across Europe and other countries calls this stereotype into question. So what does this mean for social policy?

Watch the video here

Listen to the podcast here

The New Age of Empire: how racism and colonialism still rule the world

Hosted by the Department of Social Policy on 27 April 2021

Speaker: Professor Kehinde Andrews
Chair: Professor Coretta Phillips

Coretta Phillips in conversation with Kehinde Andrews discussing his new book, The New Age of Empire. A book that offers no easy answers to critical questions, The New Age of Empire presents a new blueprint for challenging age-old systems. Andrews argues that the "West is rich because the Rest is poor", and that reforming a racist global order calls for radical solutions.

Watch the video here

Understanding human need (Second edition)

Understanding Human Need: alternative perspectives

Hosted by the Department of Social Policy on 10 March 2021

This online panel discussion will focus on a recently revised edition of the book, Understanding Human Need, by Hartley Dean. Human need is a central but elusive concept of decisive significance for Social Policy at a time when humanity as a species is subject to a confluence of intersecting and, in several respects, self-inflicted existential threats. This new book not only reprises existing distinctions between ‘thin’ needs and ‘thick’ needs and between needs defined from the ‘top-down’ and those identified from the ‘bottom up’, but pays particular attention to the question of just what is human about human need. To do this the book revisits the radical humanist perspective to be found especially in the Karl Marx’s earlier writings on the characteristics of the human species and what it essential to being human.

Speakers: Professor Hartley Dean (Emeritus Professor of Social Policy at the LSE) , Professor Ian Gough (Visiting Professor at the Centre for the Analysis of Social Exclusion and Associate of the Grantham Research Institute at the LSE, and Emeritus Professor at the University of Bath), Dr Tania Burchardt (Associate Professor and Director of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Exclusion at the LSE), Professor David Taylor (Emeritus Professor of Social Theory and Social Policy at the University of Brighton).
Chair: Dr Kitty Stewart (Associate Professor of Social Policy and Associate Director of the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion at the LSE).

Watch the video here

Why Should We Build Back Differently?

Hosted by LSE Festival: Shaping the Post-COVID World on 2 March 2021

ONLINE PRE-RECORDED EVENT

Speaker: Dr Sunil Kumar
After the pandemic we must build back not better, but differently, bringing low-wage and precarious workers centre stage. Sunil Kumar will draw upon his research on housing, informality and internal migration in India and juxtapose it with his engagement of events in England.
The COVID-19 pandemic has flattened the human experience across space and time, particularly in the areas of home, care, precarity of work and education. The experience of social distancing; the crisis in care; the plight of those in the informal economy; and the challenges of online learning apply to those in India, just as in the UK, and serve to highlight inequalities in both countries, exacerbated by the pandemic response. These shared experiences have also highlighted the highly interdependent nature of human flourishing.

Watch the video here

We Are All in This Together: has COVID-19 taught us how to save the world?

Hosted by LSE Festival: Shaping the Post-COVID World on 1 March 2021

Speakers: Sanchayan Banerjee, Professor Nick Chater,
Dr Adam Oliver, Dr Ganga Shreedhar
Chair: Dr Jennifer Sheehy-Skeffington

Can the massive shift in the way we now relate to each other, and the rules we choose to live by, help us tackle other collective threats to humanity, like climate change?

We need coordinated and cooperative collective action. Experts in behavioural public policy and sustainability discuss how the experience of the pandemic can be leveraged to enable new, transformative behaviours and policies.

Watch the video here

DevelopmentCitizenshipAndItsDiscontentsInAfrica

Book Launch Event

Development, (Dual) Citizenship and Its Discontents in Africa

Hosted by the Department of Social Policy on 25 February 2021

Does dual citizenship reproduce inequalities?

Robtel Neajai Pailey grapples with this question and more in her engaging monograph Development, (Dual) Citizenship and Its Discontents in Africa: The Political Economy of Belonging to Liberia (Cambridge University Press, 2021). Drawing on rich life histories from over two hundred in-depth interviews in West Africa, Europe, and North America, she examines socio-economic change in Liberia, Africa’s first black republic, through the prism of citizenship. Marking how historical policy changes on citizenship and contemporary public discourse on dual citizenship have impacted development policy and practice, Pailey reveals that as Liberia transformed from a country of immigration to one of emigration, so too did the nature of citizenship, thus influencing claims for and against dual citizenship. Her book develops a new model for conceptualising citizenship within the context of crisis-affected states while offering a compelling critique of the neoliberal framing of diasporas and donors as the panacea to post-war reconstruction.

Speaker: Dr Robtel Neajai Pailey (Assistant Professor in International Social and Public Policy in the Department of Social Policy at LSE).
Discussants: Professor George Klay Kieh (Dean of the Mickey Leland-Barbara Jordan School of Public Affairs and Professor of Political Science at Texas Southern University), Dr Bronwen Manby (Visiting Senior Fellow at LSE Human Rights).
Chair: Professor Coretta Phillips (Professor of Criminology and Social Policy in the Department of Social Policy at LSE).

Watch the video here

A Commitment to Welfare: the impact of Richard Titmuss on health and social policy

Hosted by the Department of Social Policy and the Department of Health Policy on 22 October 2020

Speakers: Jon Ashworth MP, Dr Sara Machado, Professor Lucinda Platt, Professor John Stewart
Chair: Professor Sir Julian Le Grand

Having joined the LSE in 1950, Richard Titmuss almost single-handedly, created the academic field of social administration (what we would now call social policy) in Britain. He wrote extensively on health, inequalities and other welfare issues, which have again come to the fore in the COVID-19 pandemic. What can we learn from Richard Titmuss as we look forward to the post-COVID world?

Listen to the podcast here

COVID-19: the impact on the UK's ethnic minority populations

Hosted by LSE's online public event series - COVID-19: The Policy Response on 1 July 2020

Speakers: Professor Kehinde Andrews, Dr Miqdad Asaria, Professor Lucinda Platt, Ross Warwick, Professor Heidi Mirza
Chair: Dr Armine Ishkanian

There is increasing concern that people from ethnic minority backgrounds are being disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 in England. Drawing on new IFS research, the panel will discuss the reasons why mortality is disproportionately high for minority groups, present evidence on how some minority groups are disproportionately affected by the economic impacts of the lockdown, and recommend ways forward to limit further differential social and economic consequences.

Watch the video of the event here

Race and Policing in America

Hosted by the United States Centre- online public event on 12 June 2020

Speakers: Professor Nicola Lacey, Professor Tracey L. Meares, Professor Tim Newburn, Dr Coretta Phillips
Chair: Professor Peter Trubowitz

George Floyd’s death has sparked widespread protest in the U.S. over police abuse. This roundtable will discuss the sources of police violence and what can be done to fix America’s police and make law enforcement accountable.

Watch the video of the event here

Exhibition: Education for Impact: promoting wellbeing and equality

Hosted by LSE Arts

Monday 20th January to Friday 14 February 2020

Atrium Gallery, Old Building LSE

This transformative and inter-disciplinary exhibition showcased PhD research being undertaken in the Departments of Social Policy, Health Policy and Psychological and Behavioural Sciences under the broad themes of wellbeing and equality.

More information here.

Britain and the Welfare State in the 21st Century: a more or less "irresponsible society"?

Speaker: Professor John Hills
Discussants: Dr Sonia Exley, Professor Howard Glennerster
Chair: Professor Anne West

Hosted by the Department of Social Policy on 14 November 2019

In November 1959, Richard Titmuss, Head of the then Department of Social Science and Administration (now Social Policy) at LSE, gave a lecture on ‘The Irresponsible Society’. In it he pointed to the features of Britain in the late 1950s that added up to irresponsibility: the power of unaccountable financial interests; the way ‘welfare for the better-off’ undermined social security; the view of education simply as economic investment; irresponsible newspapers; and the tolerance of inequality. Sixty years on from the lecture John Hills, Richard Titmuss Professor of Social Policy at LSE will discuss how we might judge today’s society by similar – and new – criteria.

Listen to the podcast

The Colour of Injustice: 'race', drugs and law enforcement in England and Wales

Speakers: Katrina Ffrench, David Lammy MP, Dr Michael Shiner, David Tucker

Chair: Dr John Collins

Hosted by the Department of Social Policy and The International Drug Policy Unit- 20 May 2019

Department of Social Policy International Social and Public Policy seminar series Catch up here

CASE events Catch up here

Catch up with all LSE events podcasts and videos