London School of Economics: Public lectures and events

Speaker(s): Professor Paul Collier | The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which track poverty among 5 billion people, miss the key future challenge for development policy. This is that around 50 countries, now at the bottom of the world economy, are economically stagnant and so are diverging from the rest of mankind at an accelerating rate. The lecture analyzes why these countries, with around a billion people, are diverging - why globalization generates both convergence for most of the developing world and divergence at the bottom. Based on this diagnosis of the problems, it shows why the current approach of the G8 is liable to fail, and how a more serious and broadly based set of policies could be radically more effective.

Speaker(s): Professor John Gray | Editor's note: Unfortunately the fist few minutes of this event are missing from the audio podcast, our podcast begins during the introduction by Professor Lord Meghnad Desai. Where does the utopian impulse in politics originate, and does it have a future? John Gray argues that though they often claimed to be rooted in a scientific analysis of history and society the revolutionary political movements of the past.

Speaker(s): Professor John Gray | The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Macedonia (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia), Antonio Miloaoski, will present a picture of the political and economic situation in this small but fascinating Balkan country, of the relations in the region, as well as of the impending challenges on its road to full-fledged membership of the European and Euro-Atlantic family.

Speaker(s): President Tarja Halonen | In a globalised world, can the welfare state model - such as the one in Finland and other Nordic states be successful and survive? Can the pursuit for competitiveness and welfare state be combined? Tarja Halonen was elected Finland's first female head of state in 2000, and re-elected 2006.

Speaker(s): Neil Duxbury, Professor Lisa Jardine; Professor Nicola Lacey; Geoffrey Lewis | Legal biographies and autobiographies are a rich and important source of information about the legal system, statute law and the legal profession. Lisa Jardine is centenary professor of renaissance studies at Queen Mary, University of London. Nicola Lacey is professor of criminal law at LSE. Neil Duxbury is professor of law at Manchester University. Geoffrey Lewis is author of the biographies of Lord Aitkin and Lord Hailsham.

Speaker(s): Antony Gormley, Darian Leader; Renata Salecl | Over the last 25 years Antony Gormley has revitalised the human image in sculpture through a radical investigation of the body as a place of memory and transformation. Antony Gormley was awarded the Turner Prize in 1994 and the South Bank Prize for Visual Art in 1999. Darian Leader is a psychoanalyst and author. Renata Salecl is centennial professor of law at LSE and a senior researcher in criminology at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Speaker(s): Dr Gwendolyn Sasse, Dr Andrew Wilson | On 30 September pre-term parliamentary elections will be held in Ukraine. Can the country's stalemate be resolved by the ballot box? Gwendolyn Sasse is based at Nuffield College, University of Oxford. Andrew Wilson is based at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, London.

Speaker(s): Andris Piebalgs | Since the call of the Hampton Court European Council for a European Energy Policy the Commission has been actively answering this challenge, with a new set of concrete proposals to address the three challenge of competitiveness, sustainability and security of supply expected from the Commission during the second half of 2007. Commissioner Piebalgs will outline these challenges and Europe's emerging responses. Andris Piebalgs has been European energy commissioner since 2004.

Speaker(s): Professor Luis Garicano | This is the first in a series of lectures to mark the establishment of LSE's Department of Management. Professor Garicano will discuss how recent advances in the economic analysis of the internal organisation of firms allow for a deeper study of the organisational consequences of positioning choices, and thus permit a more complete understanding of strategy implementation'.

Speaker(s): Dr Helen Duffy | This lecture will explore some of the key human rights challenges posed by the 'War on Terror' and the experience of resorting to the courts to address them. Helen Duffy is the legal director of INTERIGHTS.

Speaker(s): Professor Paul Kennedy | Professor Kennedy's latest book is The Parliament of Man: the past, present and future of the United Nations (2006), which is inspired by the work he did on a report for the secretary general for the 50th anniversary of the UN.

Speaker(s): Lord Bingham, Professor Ross Cranston | Legal biographies and autobiographies are a rich and important source of information about the legal system, statute law and the legal profession.Lord Bingham is patron of The Legal Biography Project. Ross Cranston is centennial professor of law at LSE.

Speaker(s): Lord David Owen | Lord Owen will explore the effects of political power on politicians themselves and investigate the concept of the Hubris Syndrome and its impact on politicians including Tony Blair, George Bush and Margaret Thatcher.

Speaker(s): Miklos Haraszti, Edward Lucas; Pavel Andreev; Darya Pushkova | Who is to blame for the current state of the Russian media? Can press freedom be revived? Miklos Haraszti is the representative on freedom of the media at the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Edward Lucas is East European correspondent at The Economist and author of The New Cold War and How to Win It, to be published in 2008. Pavel Andreev is London deputy bureau chief, Russian News & Information Agency. Darya Pushkova is a correspondent from Russia Today.

Speaker(s): His Excellency Paul Kagame | Africa is experiencing major changes to its environment as a result of climate change. This has clear implications for a continent that has already suffered disproportionately from abuses of human rights and from slow economic growth. Paul Kagame is president of the Republic of Rwanda.