UCL Uncovering Politics

Democracy is what one social scientist once famously called an ‘essentially contested concept’ – one that we are never likely all to agree about. And disagreements over the form that democracy should take have lately sparked major political conflicts in many democratic countries. How far were politicians in the UK obliged to follow the so-called ‘will of the people’ as expressed in the Brexit referendum of 2016? Can the strongman democracy pursued by leaders in Hungary, India, and Brazil be called ‘democracy’ at all? And what should we make of contemporary arguments in favour of bringing more public deliberation into our democratic processes?Questions such as these have prompted a new research project recently launched by UCL’s Constitution Unit, called Democracy in the UK after Brexit. Led by Dr Alan Renwick, working alongside Professors Meg Russell and Ben Lauderdale, the project will explore how people in the UK conceive of democracy and what kinds of democratic arrangement they prefer. Host: Professor Jennifer HudsonDr Alan RenwickProfessor Albert WealeProfessor Meg Russell  UCL’s Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy offers a uniquely stimulating environment for the study of all fields of politics, including international relations, political theory, human rights, public policy-making and administration. The Department is recognised for its world-class research and policy impact, ranking among the top departments in the UK on both the 2021 Research Excellence Framework and the latest Guardian rankings.

We’re returning this week to the topic of climate change. You may have heard our episode a few weeks ago exploring global climate governance. Well this week, we turn our attention to global climate justice. The climate crisis has been caused mostly by the rich countries of the old industrial world. But many of the effects of that crisis are being felt first and most harshly elsewhere – in countries that bear little responsibility and often lack the resources to adapt. So what would a just response to the climate challenge look like? How close have past rounds of negotiation come to that? And how are things looking for the COP26 climate summit taking place in Glasgow in November?Host: Dr Alan RenwickDr Simon Chin-Yee Dr Lauren Gifford Dr Jessica Omukuti   UCL’s Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy offers a uniquely stimulating environment for the study of all fields of politics, including international relations, political theory, human rights, public policy-making and administration. The Department is recognised for its world-class research and policy impact, ranking among the top departments in the UK on both the 2021 Research Excellence Framework and the latest Guardian rankings.

We typically divide the modern state into three branches: the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary. On a traditional view, the legislature makes the laws, the executive implements them, and the judiciary decides on disputes. In reality, in most states, the executive in fact plays a much bigger role than that. It not only executes the will of the legislature, but also shapes the policy agenda, develops legislative proposals, and conducts a great deal of foreign policy. And on some matters the executive can act without the consent of the legislature – even, in some cases, against its explicit opposition. Here in the UK, such powers are called prerogative powers, and they have been pretty controversial in recent years – relating, for example, to the government’s ability to suspend sittings of parliament. And they raised eyebrows in the United States too, when, on his first day in office, President Biden reversed a whole series of Trump-era policies just by signing a set of executive orders.So what such prerogative powers exist? How do they work? And, in the context of modern democracy, should they be subject to greater constraints?Host: Dr Alan RenwickProfessor Robert Hazell  UCL’s Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy offers a uniquely stimulating environment for the study of all fields of politics, including international relations, political theory, human rights, public policy-making and administration. The Department is recognised for its world-class research and policy impact, ranking among the top departments in the UK on both the 2021 Research Excellence Framework and the latest Guardian rankings.

How the European Union relates to the world of business has long been a matter of great contention. Scepticism towards the EU on the right of politics has for decades been fuelled by the perception that Brussels is a bureaucratic regulation generator, with little understanding of how business operates. On the Eurosceptic left, by contrast, the EU has been seen as a capitalist club, in hock to big business, incapable of seeing the interests of ordinary people.How has the relationship between business and the EU evolved over time? How does it vary from sector to sector? And what does it all mean for policy outcomes? A new book sheds much fresh light. Called Business Lobbying in the European Union, the book is co-authored by UCL’s very own David Coen, along with Alexander Katsaitis from the London School of Economics and Matia Vannoni from King's College London. Host: Dr Alan RenwickProfessor David CoenBusiness Lobbying in the European Union  UCL’s Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy offers a uniquely stimulating environment for the study of all fields of politics, including international relations, political theory, human rights, public policy-making and administration. The Department is recognised for its world-class research and policy impact, ranking among the top departments in the UK on both the 2021 Research Excellence Framework and the latest Guardian rankings.

There is common agreement that climate change poses the greatest policy challenge of our age. The costs of getting it wrong would be immense, but the barriers to getting it right are dauntingly high. Action is needed on a global scale. But global politics is deeply fractured, and individual countries may be tempted to free ride on the actions of others. So what are the global governance structures through which the world is attempting to address this challenge? Are they delivering, or do they need reform? Well three of the leading experts on these questions – David Coen, Julia Kreienkamp, and Tom Pegram – are based at the UCL Department of Political Science and have just written a book on the subject. It’s called Global Climate Governance and it’s published now by Cambridge University Press. And two of those authors join my now to discuss the findings.Host: Professor Jennifer HudsonJulia KreienkampDr Tom PegramGlobal Climate GovernancePolicy brief   UCL’s Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy offers a uniquely stimulating environment for the study of all fields of politics, including international relations, political theory, human rights, public policy-making and administration. The Department is recognised for its world-class research and policy impact, ranking among the top departments in the UK on both the 2021 Research Excellence Framework and the latest Guardian rankings.

The politics of asylum is more important than ever before. At the end of 2019, according to data from the UNHCR, there were 80 million displaced persons around the world. More than half of those were displaced within their own countries. But 25 million were refugees, and a further 4.2 million were seeking asylum in another country. So how do the countries that refugees and asylum-seekers flee to respond? And what determines the degree to which these countries adopt an open or a closed approach?Well two of our colleagues here in the UCL Department of Political Science are seeking answers to such questions in their research. Host: Professor Jennifer HudsonDr Anna Oltman Dr Judith Spirig   UCL’s Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy offers a uniquely stimulating environment for the study of all fields of politics, including international relations, political theory, human rights, public policy-making and administration. The Department is recognised for its world-class research and policy impact, ranking among the top departments in the UK on both the 2021 Research Excellence Framework and the latest Guardian rankings.

Care ethics is a branch of moral philosophy that focuses on how we relate to, respond to, and care for each other. Its central question is not about what abstract principles of justice we should follow, but rather about how we should respond to the needs of a given person in a particular set of circumstances.It’s been around for several decades, but now one of our colleagues here at UCL has applied it to a setting that we might not think its natural home: the world of punishment. Dr Helen Brown Coverdale argues that looking at our practices of punishment through the lens of care gives us a new and valuable perspective on them.So what would it mean to approach punishment through an ethic of care? And what counterarguments might there be to taking such an approach?Host: Dr Alan RenwickDr Helen Brown Coverdale Caring and the Prison in Philosophy, Policy and Practice: Under Lock and Key  UCL’s Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy offers a uniquely stimulating environment for the study of all fields of politics, including international relations, political theory, human rights, public policy-making and administration. The Department is recognised for its world-class research and policy impact, ranking among the top departments in the UK on both the 2021 Research Excellence Framework and the latest Guardian rankings.

Talking with each other about matters of politics and policy is an essential part of democracy. And today much of that conversation takes place online, through social media. The digital revolution has given voice to millions of people who previously had little chance to be heard beyond the dinner table or the pub or the local town hall. That has great benefits, opening up the democratic conversation to much wider participation. But it also has costs. Misinformation, hate speech, and words inciting violence can all rapidly spread.That raises big questions about how speech online should be regulated. And if it should be regulated more, who should set and enforce the rules: the state, or the social media companies themselves?Such events were cast in yet starker relief by events earlier this month in the United States. Is it right that Donald Trump was banned from Twitter? And that Parler – the alternative to Twitter that became popular on the far right – has been squeezed from the internet by service providers?We explore all of this and more with Dr Jeffrey Howard, Associate Professor of Political Theory, New Generation Thinker, and Leverhulme Trust Research fellow.Host: Dr Alan RenwickDr Jeffrey HowardJeff’s 2019 article ‘Dangerous Speech’ has been awarded the Fred Berger Memorial Prize by the American Philosophical Association for the best article published on the philosophy of law in the last two years.   UCL’s Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy offers a uniquely stimulating environment for the study of all fields of politics, including international relations, political theory, human rights, public policy-making and administration. The Department is recognised for its world-class research and policy impact, ranking among the top departments in the UK on both the 2021 Research Excellence Framework and the latest Guardian rankings.

Joe Biden is President, Kamala Harris is Vice-President, and Donald Trump is out of office. The Senate and the House are both controlled by Democrats. A dramatic power shift is (more or less) complete. But the process of getting there has been fraught, and potentially damaging for American democracy for years to come.So what are the repercussions of the last few weeks – and indeed the last four years – likely to be? And what will the presidency of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris bring?We explored such questions in November when the votes were still being counted. But so much has happened since then that we thought, in this inauguration week, we should reconvene our US politics expert panel and scan the horizon once again.Host: Professor Jennifer HudsonDr Colin ProvostDr Julie NormanDr Thomas Gift  UCL’s Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy offers a uniquely stimulating environment for the study of all fields of politics, including international relations, political theory, human rights, public policy-making and administration. The Department is recognised for its world-class research and policy impact, ranking among the top departments in the UK on both the 2021 Research Excellence Framework and the latest Guardian rankings.

This week we focus on the political impact of Covid-19, and particularly the pandemic’s effects on so-called ‘contentious politics’ – politics conducted through confrontational means, whether protests, or strike actions or, indeed, insurrections.What is the role of contentious politics in the political process as a whole? And how has the pandemic changed contentious politics around the world? Has the heightening of inequalities increased people’s willingness to protest? Or have social distancing measured stifled popular voice? Indeed, have those in power in some countries used the pandemic as a pretext for suppressing free speech and other civil liberties?Host: Dr Alan RenwickProfessor Kristin M BakkeDr Katerina TertytchnayaDr Nils Metternich  UCL’s Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy offers a uniquely stimulating environment for the study of all fields of politics, including international relations, political theory, human rights, public policy-making and administration. The Department is recognised for its world-class research and policy impact, ranking among the top departments in the UK on both the 2021 Research Excellence Framework and the latest Guardian rankings.