'Comparative Protest Politics Workshop'

Venue:Nuffield College

The key focus of the workshop is to combine and complement recent advances in empirical and theoretical knowledge of protest events in different regions. Participant paper contributions will seek to find links, as well as analyse variations in processes, actor involvement (including types and roles of actors) and structural mechanisms involved in the making of protest events. We are interested in having a deliberate mix in methodology, including comparative cases studies, quantitative analyses and formal models.

We aim to provide a space for comparative, collaborative and multidisciplinary analyses of the phenomenon of protest events, a trend that is not only of interest to academic investigations but also affects large portions of citizens and governments in most regions of the world. The workshop will not only promote the exchange of knowledge between British, European and North American based scholars, but it will also help shape the development of a new research agenda and identify new directions for protest event research.

Full details of this event are here.

Open to all Oxford University members

Please register your participation by e-mailing the organizer olga.onuch@nuffield.ox.ac.uk

Contact Olga Onuch

'Conservative globalism at a crossroads: Turkey's economic and democratisation challenges during the AKP era'

Speaker: Ziya Önis (Koç University, Istanbul)

Venue:Seminar Room, European Studies Centre 70 Woodstock

Chair: Kerem Öktem (St Antony’s College, Oxford)

This event is part of the SEESOX Seminar Series seminar series.

'How to Reshape Treaties without Negotiation: Intellectual Property Enforcement as a Case Study of Global Governance by Stealth'

Speaker: Valéria Guimarães de Lima e Silva (Hauser Fellow, NYU)

Venue:Swire Seminar Room, University College

Dr Valéria Guimarães de Lima e Silva, a Hauser Fellow at NYU and previously an Oxford-Princeton Global Leaders Fellow, will be presenting her paper on How to Reshape Treaties Without Negotiations: Intellectual Property Enforcement as a Case of Global Governance by Stealth. Alison Slade, of the Oxford IP Research Centre, will be discussant.Thomas Hale, of the Blavatnik School of Government, will chair.

‘Is Universalism Ethnocentric?’

Speaker: Michael Ignatieff (Harvard University) in conversation with Adam Roberts (Oxford University) and Timothy Garton Ash (Oxford University)

Venue:Nissan Lecture Theatre, St. Antony's College

Dahrendorf Programme for the Study of Freedom event.

'Matthew Eagleton-Pierce Book Launch: Symbolic Power in the World Trade Organization'

Speaker: Matthew Eagleton-Pierce (Lecturer in International Relations, University of Exeter)

Venue:Manor Road Building, Seminar Room A

Matthew Eagleton-Pierce is a Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Exeter. He previously taught at the London School of Economics and the University of Oxford. His research interests lie within the field of international political economy and international political sociology. His first monograph, Symbolic Power in the World Trade Organization (Oxford University Press, 2013) examines the relationship between power, language, and practices of legitimation in world trade. The event serves as an opportunity to debate questions arising from the book.

The discussants will be Valéria Guimarães de Lima e Silva (Global Research Fellow, Hauser Global Law School Program, NYU) and Thomas Hale (Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford).

The event will be chaired by Kalypso Nicolaidis (DPIR, Oxford).

A summary of the book is as follows:

Questions of power are central to understanding global trade politics and no account of the World Trade Organization (WTO) can afford to avoid at least an acknowledgment of the concept. A closer examination of power can help us to explain why the structures and rules of international commerce take their existing forms, how the actions of countries are either enabled or disabled, and what distributional outcomes are achieved. However, within conventional accounts, there has been a tendency to either view power according to a single reading - namely the direct, coercive sense - or to overlook the concept entirely, focusing instead on liberal cooperation and legalization. In this book, Matthew Eagleton-Pierce shows that each of these approaches betray certain limitations which, in turn, have cut short, or worked against, more critical appraisals of power in transnational capitalism. To expand the intellectual space, the book investigates the complex relationship between power and legitimation by drawing upon Pierre Bourdieu's notion of symbolic power. A focus on symbolic power aims to alert scholars to how the construction of certain knowledge claims are fundamental to, and entwined within, the material struggle for international trade. Empirically, the argument uncovers and plots the recent strategies adopted by Southern countries in their pursuit of a more equitable trading order. By bringing together insights from political economy, sociology, and law, Symbolic Power in the WTO not only enlivens and enriches the study of diplomatic practice within a major multilateral institution, it also advances the broader understanding of power in world politics.

For reviews, see: http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199662647.do#.UXEY_Cv71C8

'Fundamental Issues in the Crisis of the Eurozone’

Speaker: Yannis Manuelides (Allen & Overy) and Philip Wood QC (Allen & Overy & visiting professor, Oxford University)

Venue:Law Board Room, St Cross Building, St. Cross Road

This event is part of the Justice and Democracy beyond the Nation-State: Lessons From and For Europe seminar series.

'The new Turkish foreign policy in the age of Arab revolutions: Between ethics and self-interest'

Speaker: Ziya Önis (Koç University, Istanbul)

Venue:Seminar Room, European Studies Centre 70 Woodstock

Chair: Kerem Öktem (St Antony’s College, Oxford)

This event is part of the SEESOX Seminar Series seminar series.

'Development Aid Confronts Politics: The Almost Revolution'

Speaker: Thomas Carothers and Diane de Gramont

Venue:Lecture Theatre, Blavatnik School of Government, 10 Merton Street, Oxford, OX1 4JJ

After decades of denial, the development community now acknowledges that effective assistance requires grappling with the domestic politics of recipient countries. Development agencies are openly promoting political goals alongside traditional socioeconomic ones and trying to apply politically smart methods. Yet considerable controversy and confusion accompany this potential revolution in development aid. In Development Aid Confronts Politics, Thomas Carothers and Diane de Gramont ask whether aid can achieve a productive synthesis of political and socioeconomic concerns. In this seminar, the authors will discuss their provocative findings with Ngaire Woods.

Thomas Carothers is vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and director of Carnegie’s Democracy and Rule of Law Program. He is author of Aiding Democracy Abroad;  Promoting the Rule of Law Abroad: In Search of Knowledge; and Confronting the Weakest Link: Aiding Political Parties in New Democracies.

Diane de Gramont, a Clarendon Scholar at Oxford University, was previously a researcher in the Democracy and Rule of Law Program of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

'Has financial integration benefited Eastern Europe?'

Speaker: Erik Berglof (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development)

Venue:Seminar Room, European Studies Centre 70 Woodstock

Political Economy of Financial Markets (PEFM) Seminar

Chair: Max Watson (St Antony’s College, Oxford)

'Open Budgets: The Political Economy of Transparency, Participation, and Accountability'

Speaker: Paolo de Renzio

Venue:Queen Elizabeth House

How and why do improvements in fiscal transparency and participation come about? How are they sustained over time? When and how do increased fiscal transparency and participation lead to improved government responsiveness and accountability? In this lunchtime seminar, GEG researcher Dr Paolo de Renzio will discuss these and other tough questions about fiscal transparency and participation. The seminar is based around the new book Open Budgets: The Political Economy of Transparency, Participation, and Accountability, which de Renzio co-edited with Sanjeev Khagram and Archon Fung.  Dr Diego Sanchez Ancochea will be discussant. Sandwiches provided. 

‘Normative Political Theory and the EU: Should we take the EU as it is, or as it ideally ought to be?’

Speaker: Andrea Sangiovanni (Kings’ College, London)

Venue:Law Board Room, St Cross Building, St. Cross Road

Discussant: Professor Philippe Van Parijs

This event is part of the Justice and Democracy beyond the Nation-State: Lessons From and For Europe seminar series.

'Circumcision and surveillance: The German attitude towards Muslims and Jews'

Speaker: Kerem Oktem (St Antony’s College, Oxford)

Venue:Seminar Room, European Studies Centre 70 Woodstock

Chair: Dimitrios Gkintidis (St Antony’s College, Oxford)

This event is part of the SEESOX Seminar Series seminar series.

'Inequality and Regime Change: Democratic Transitions and the Stability of Democratic Rule'

Speaker: Professor Robert Kaufman (Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey)

Venue:Clay Room, Nuffield College

'Shaping Europe's Destiny: Vision and Opportunities'

Speaker: Professor Philippe Van Parijs

Venue:Manor Road Building, Seminar Room A

Discussants: Dr. Pavlos Eleftheriadis, Professor David Miller and Professor Kalypso Nicolaidis

This event is part of the Justice and Democracy beyond the Nation-State: Lessons From and For Europe seminar series.

'Energy meets politics in the Eastern Mediterranean'

Speaker: Androulla Kaminara (St Antony’s College, Oxford)

Venue:Seminar Room, European Studies Centre 70 Woodstock

Chair: David Madden

In association with European Studies Centre

This event is part of the SEESOX Seminar Series seminar series.

'Shadow Banking, Financial Risk and Regulation in China and other Developing Countries'

Speaker: Professor Steven Schwarcz (Stanley A. Star Professor of Law & Business, Duke University School of Law)

Venue:Blavatnik School of Government, 10 Merton Street,

This special Seminar is co-hosted by the Globalization and Finance Project and the Political Economy of Financial Markets Programme (PEFM). This is a small, closed seminar, please email geg@univ.ox.ac.uk if you would like to join.

Is the rapid growth of shadow banking placing China and other developing countries at increased risk of financial crisis? Shadow banking is growing rapidly in a number of emerging and developing countries, including China, where lending by non-bank institutions is now thought to be as large as lending by banks. The shadow banking sector in developing economies is typically weakly regulated, and the growth of the sector poses risks to financial stability. Yet, some argue that shadow banking is an important channel of alternative funding to emerging and developing economies, particularly in the face of significant retrenchment by European banks. In this seminar, Professor Schwartz will examine the impact of shadow banking on financial market and systemic risk in developing countries, and explore whether and, if so how, the sector should be regulated.

Professor Steven Schwarcz is the Stanley A. Star Professor of Law & Business, Duke University School of Law and Founding Director of Duke’s interdisciplinary Global Capital Markets Center. His areas of research and scholarship include insolvency and bankruptcy law; international finance, capital markets, and systemic risk; and commercial law. Prior to joining the Duke faculty, he was a partner at two leading international law firms, where he represented top banks and other financial institutions in structuring innovative capital market financing transactions, both domestic and international.