Cutting Edge Issues in Development Thinking & Practice

The Sahelian Question: The ultra-periphery in a changing worldSpeaker: Rahmane Idrissa teaches international cooperation at the University of Niamey. His research focuses on the political economy of democratization, political Islam and the problems of the integration processes in the West African region.Discussant: Aoife McCullough, LSE IDChair: Laura Mann, LSE ID This event is part of the Cutting Edge Issues in Development Thinking & Practice guest lecture series hosted by the International Development Department at LSE.

What's at stake in the US-China Trade War?Speakers: Elizabeth Ingleson: is Assistant Professor Department of International History and is the author of Made in China: When US-China Interests Converged to Transform Global TradeYeling Tan: is Professor of Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government. She is also a non-resident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.Discussant: Robert Wade, LSE IDChair: Laura Mann, LSE ID This event is part of the Cutting Edge Issues in Development Thinking & Practice guest lecture series hosted by the International Development Department at LSE.

Re-examining the History of the Industrial RevolutionSpeaker: Michael Mann is Distinguished Research Professor of Sociology, UCLA and the author of The Sources of Social Power which covers the history of power in human societies from prehistory to the present.Discussant: James Putzel, LSE IDChair: Laura Mann, LSE ID This event is part of the Cutting Edge Issues in Development Thinking & Practice guest lecture series hosted by the International Development Department at LSE.

The crisis of peace-keepingSpeaker: Marsha Henry is the Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton Chair in Women, Peace, Security and Justice at the Mitchell InstituteDiscussant: Myfanwy James, LSE IDChair: Laura Mann, LSE ID This event is part of the Cutting Edge Issues in Development Thinking & Practice guest lecture series hosted by the International Development Department at LSE.

British Aid in a Changing WorldSpeakers: Clare Short is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for International Development from 1997 to 2003Kevin Watkins is a former CEO of Save the Children UK and is a visiting professor at the Firoz Lalji Institute for AfricaChair: Laura Mann, LSEThis event recording is part of the Cutting Edge Issues in Development Thinking & Practice guest lecture series hosted by the International Development Department at LSE.

What the Gene-Editing Revolution Means For Rural Welfare, Global Futures and Social JusticeSpeaker: Ronald Herring, Cornell University Discussant: Aniket Aga, SUNY BuffaloChair: James Putzel, LSE

'Industrial Policy Challenges in the Developing World' Speakers: Arkebe Oquaby, Gov of EthiopiaRichard Kozul-Wright, UNCTAD Chair: Laura Mann, LSE 

'The debt and climate change precipice: How can the global majority cope?'Speakers: Jayati Ghosh, AmherstNdongo Samba Sylla, International Development Economics AssociatesKevin Watkins, LSEChair: James Putzel, LSE

'Bringing Cyberspace Down to Earth in China: From smart-cities to village digital projects'Speaker: Hong Yu, Mayling Birney Scholar from Zhejiang UniversityDiscussant: David Soskice, LSEChair: Laura Mann, LSE

'Slavery and British Development'.Speakers: Bronwen Everill, Cambridge University Jennifer Adam, Bank of England. Chair: Laura Mann, LSE

'Guest lecture on Palestine'.Speaker: Rafeef Ziadah, King's College London Discussant: Mai Taha, LSEChair: James Putzel, LSE

'Development or Dependence?: China's Investment and development finance in Africa'. Speakers: Keyu Jin, LSEYunnan Chen, Overseas Development InstituteWeiwei Chen, Open UniversityChair: Tin Hinane El Kadi, LSE

The Latin American Left: Opportunities, challenges, and setbacksSpeakers: Ana Karine Pereira, Universidade de BrasíliaGeoff Goodwin, Leeds UniversityMelany Cruz, Leicester UniversityChair: James Putzel, LSE

Gender and Work in Global Value Chains: Capturing the gains?Speaker: Stephanie Barrientos, Manchester UniversityDiscussant: Kate Meagher, LSEChair: Laura Mann, LSE

Making Anti-Corruption Real: A strategy for feasible reform in adverse contexts.Speakers: Mushtaq Khan and Pallavi Roy, SOASDiscussant: Jonathan Di John, SOASChair: James Putzel, LSE

The Russia-Ukraine War: Consequences for global security and development.Panel: Mark Lowcock, UN, UKYuliya Yurchenko, Greenwich UniversityAnna Matveeva, King's College LondonDavid Luke, LSEChair: James Putzel, LSE

In search of repair: The necessity of community development to mental health improvements in contexts of adversity.Speaker: Rochelle Burgess, University College LondonDiscussant: Philipa Mladovsky, LSEChair: Laura Mann, LSE

Professor Ha-Joon Chang and Professor James Putzel discuss the state of the world economy. Speaker: Ha-Joon Chang, SOASChair: James Putzel, LSE

Dirk-Jan Koch and Clare Short discuss Dirk-Jan Koch's new book 'Foreign aid and its unintended consequences' (Open access). Foreign aid and international development frequently bring with it a range of unintended consequences, both negative and positive. This book delves into these consequences, providing a fresh and comprehensive guide to understanding and addressing them.Speaker: Dirk-Jan Koch, Chief Science Officer of the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign AffairsDiscussant: Clare Short, British politicianChair: James Putzel, LSE

This panel examines the record of digital technologies and asks what we might do to re-engineer them to fulfil their early promise.Fibre optic internet cables have now connected almost every part of the world into a giant web of networks. Pundits once claimed this infrastructure would allow everyone to raise her voice, speak her mind, learn from others and hold authorities to account. A decade on, a far more subdued mood has settled, with reports of targeted misinformation campaigns and nefarious surveillance the world over. This panel examines the record of digital technologies and asks what we might do to re-engineer them to fulfil their early promise. How might these infrastructures be used to generate more accurate information about contexts usually ignored or misconstrued by mainstream news outlets? How might we encourage users to actually listen and learn from those outside their own networks? How might we reconfigure these systems for deliberation and transparency, rather than divisiveness?SpeakersNanjala Nyabola is a writer and researcher based in Nairobi, Kenya. Her work focuses on the intersection between technology, media, and society. She is the author of Digital Democracy, Analogue Politics: How the Internet Era is Transforming Politics in Kenya (Zed Books, 2018) and Travelling While Black: Essays Inspired by a Life on the Move (Hurst Books, 2020).Idrees Ahmad, is the Director of Journalism at the University of Essex. He is a founding editor of New Lines magazine and a contributing editor at the Los Angeles Review of books. He writes for the New York Review of Books, Foreign Policy, The Washington Post, Times Literary Supplement, The Observer among others. He is on Twitter: @im_pulse.Amil Khan is a former Reuters foreign correspondent and BBC investigative journalist. He started working with right-based groups in the Middle East when the Arab Spring kicked off. In 2020, seeing online manipulation emerge as a critical threat to journalists, activists and political movements across the world, he founded Valent Projects with the aim of levelling the playing fieldKecheng Fang is an Assistant Professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research interests include digital media, journalism, and political communication.ChairLaura Mann is a sociologist whose research focuses on the political economy of development, knowledge and technology. Her regional focus is East Africa (Sudan, Kenya and Rwanda) but she has also worked on collaborative research on ICTs and BPO in Asia and has conducted fieldwork in North America as part of a project on digitisation within global agriculture.This talk is part of the Cutting Edge Issues in Development Thinking & Practice 2022 series, a high-profile lecture series run by the Department of International Development at LSE and organised by Dr Laura Mann and Professor in Practice Duncan Green.The Department of International Development promotes interdisciplinary postgraduate teaching and research on processes of social, political and economic development and change.