LSE: Public lectures and events

Contributor(s): Dr Keyu Jin | Yet Western economists have long been incorrectly predicting its collapse. Why do they keep getting it wrong? Because, according to Keyu Jin, the Chinese economy that most Westerners picture is an incomplete sketch, based on Western dated assumptions and incomplete information. We need a new understanding of China, one that takes a holistic view of its history and its culture. Professor Jin presents The New China Playbook, a revelatory, clear-eyed, and myth-busting exploration of China’s economy, how it grew to be one of the largest in the world, and what the future may hold.

Contributor(s): Professor Richard Sennett | The Performer explores the relations between performing in art (particularly music), politics and everyday experience. It focuses on the bodily and physical dimensions of performing, rather than on words. Richard Sennett is particularly attuned to the ways in which the rituals of ordinary life are performances. The book draws on history and sociology, and more personally on the author's early career as a professional cellist, as well as on his later work as a city planner and social thinker. It traces the evolution of performing spaces in the city; the emergence of actors, musicians, and dancers as independent artists; the inequality between performer and spectator; the uneasy relations between artistic creation and social and religious ritual; the uses and abuses of acting by politicians. The Janus-faced art of performing is both destructive and civilizing.

Contributor(s): Professor Tania Murray Li | In Southeast Asia, 30 million more people live and work in rural areas today than they did in 1990. Yet rural people are largely absent from public and academic discourse, out of sight and out of mind. One reason for the neglect is the stubbornly persistent transition narrative which suggests that rural populations are anachronistic: they belong to the past, and sooner or later they will move to cities and join the march of progress. Hence it is not worth worrying too much about who they are or how they live, how national and global currents affect them, or how their aspirations and practices shape the course of history. The only question seems to be how to move them more quickly out of agriculture, into jobs, and off the land to free up more space for mining, corporate agriculture or conservation schemes. In this talk Tania Murray Li outlines the main powers and processes at work in transforming rural Southeast Asia and draw on her ethnographic research in Indonesia to illustrate how rural people navigate their ever-changing terrain.

Contributor(s): Lord Harrington, Professor Nigel Driffield, Professor Riccardo Crescenzi, Laura Citron | The recently published Harrington Review of Foreign Direct Investment offers a set of evidence-based and achievable recommendations for the UK to provide a tailored, responsive and comprehensive offer that meets foreign investors’ expectations and factors in the speed of the modern world. This panel discussion pushes the debate on FDI attraction and retention forward and consider how the Harrington Review’s recommendations can be put into practice and what impacts they will have. The panel discusses how best practices from around the world should inform new strategies to link FDI, Global Value Chains and sustainable and inclusive development in the UK and beyond.

Contributor(s): Professor Nello Cristianini | Instead, the prevailing form of machine intelligence is the direct result of a series of decisions that we have made over the past decades. These were shortcuts aimed at addressing various technical (and business) problems, and that are now behind many of the current concerns about the impact of this technology on society. A major shortcut was taken with the creation of the very first statistical language models, and we will describe how that step was the first move towards statistical AI, how it challenged previous assumptions, and how it reflected a new mindset that was starting to emerge among AI researchers. When business models, data availability and scientific paradigms became aligned, the current revolution started. Understanding how those technical shortcuts limit the options of regulators will be essential to safely co-exist with the present form of AI.

Contributor(s): Christian Lindner | The German Finance Minister talks about new realities and strengthening Germany’s competitiveness for the benefit of its economy and its partners.

Contributor(s): Professor Mark R Beissinger, Professor Olga Onuch | In his new book, The Revolutionary City, Mark R. Beissinger provides a new understanding of how revolutions happen and what they might look like in the future. He is joined by Olga Onuch who will discuss the book.

Contributor(s): Lord Bassam, Sheela Agarwal, Madeleine Bunting | England invented the seaside resort as a place of pleasure and these towns became iconic in the nation's sense of identity for over a century, but for over four decades the rise of package holidays and cheap flights have eroded their economies. This has resulted in a 'salt fringe' of deprivation, low pay, poor health and low educational achievement and the worst social mobility in the country. Despite persistent affection for many of these resorts which still attract millions of visitors, their chronic plight has failed to capture political engagement and investment. How can these resorts, with their wealth of cultural heritage, forge a new future?

Siva Thambisetty, an expert in innovation regulation, joins forces with Michael I Kanu, Sierra Leone's UN Ambassador, Philippe Carvalho Raposo, a Brazilian diplomat, and Robert Blasiak, a resilience researcher. They dive into the groundbreaking Oceans Treaty, exploring its role in international governance for ocean biodiversity. Topics include navigating complex negotiations, the necessity of equitable benefit sharing, and urgent conservation goals to protect marine environments. The dialogue emphasizes multilateral cooperation and the future of sustainable ocean practices.

Contributor(s): Professor Madawi Al-Rasheed | Mainly the pervasive sub-national identities that dominated Arabia or the supra-national Islamic identity that the regime promoted to achieve legitimacy. But since the rise of Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman in 2017, a new populist Saudi nationalism is promoted. This lecture traces the shift in Saudi nation-building from the early days of religious nationalism to the current populist trend. It will explain why only recently constructing a Saudi nation became a priority for the leadership after almost a century of creating a state. The new Saudi national narrative inevitably involves selectively remembering and forgetting aspects of the past in order to consolidate a shift in national consciousness about who Saudis are. But while the new nationalism promises to invigorate the nation, the process is accompanied by serious violence against dissenting voices.