Are we in danger of losing our communities?

Contributor(s): Professor Lea Ypi, Professor Andrés Velasco | Ralph Miliband has written poignantly on the limits of parliamentary democracy. But are revolutions justified? Moralists think that if the ends of revolution are right, revolution cannot be wrong. Legalists think that since the means of revolution are wrong, revolution cannot be right. In this lecture Lea Ypi revisits their arguments and offers an alternative that cuts across the divide. She examines revolution not in relation to the justice demanded by specific agents but grounded on a philosophical theory of history that focuses on collective progress.

Contributor(s): Professor Diane Coyle | Professor Coyle argues that the way we measure the economy—developed in the 1940s—no longer fits today’s realities. The outdated framework underpinning economic statistics distorts how policymakers understand and respond to the digital economy. Coyle explains why statistics matter deeply, shaping decisions that affect freedom, justice, and everyday life. The metrics of growth were designed for a world of physical capital and demand management, not one driven by digital innovation, slowing living standards, and environmental constraints. She calls for a new framework for economic measurement—one that reflects modern challenges and enables the right kind of growth for the benefit of all.

Contributor(s): Professor Steffen Hertog | International relations literature has begun to focus on the foreign policy corollaries of populist ideologies. Populist leaders reject hegemonic Western powers, the transnational elites associated with them, and the liberal international institutions they have created. But how impactful is populist foreign policy really, given that rejection of the global liberal order potentially carries significant costs? In his inaugural lecture (based on his research with Ferdinand Eibl) Steffen Hertog argues that populist leaders in all but the largest countries can afford radical policies only if they enjoy autonomy from international economic constraints. The main factor providing such autonomy are natural resource rents. The combination of populist leadership and resource rents creates a particular brand of radical foreign policy in which leaders combine sharp anti-Western rhetoric and diplomacy with a withdrawal from liberal international organizations. He illustrates these arguments with case studies of Bolivia, Ecuador, Iran and Venezuela and then demonstrates the wider applicability of our theory through a range of econometric tests. Professor Hertog identifies the combination of rents and populism as an important driver of the disintegration of the liberal international order.

Contributor(s): Zainab Salbi | Climate change is not gender-neutral — not in its impact on women and girls, nor in the solutions women are leading. This lecture will share new research revealing how women’s leadership is providing new pathways to address the climate crisis. By centring their relationship with nature and its protection, they are bringing about new behaviour changes and economic models that are leading to long-term transformations within communities. Their actions are transformative, positioning humans and communities as part of nature, not actors upon it.

Contributor(s): Professor Dani Rodrik | Fighting climate change, saving democracy, and eradicating poverty are urgent global challenges, yet the world’s leaders continue to pursue outdated policies that focus on one while worsening the trade offs between each of them. Join us for this talk by Dani Rodrik where he will talk about his new book, Shared Prosperity in a Fractured World, in which he shows how the nations of the world can achieve all three objectives. Dani Rodrik provides a bold new vision of globalisation, one in which we accelerate the green transition to achieve a sustainable planet, shore up the middle class to restore democracy’s foundations, and hasten economic revitalisation in the developing world to put an end to poverty.