Erica Chenoweth to deliver the 2024 Cyril Foster Lecture

The Department is looking forward to the 2024 Cyril Foster Lecture on Tuesday 7 May, which will be delivered by Erica Chenoweth, Frank Stanton Professor of the First Amendment at Harvard Kennedy School.

This year’s lecture, ‘On the Declining Success of Civil Resistance’, will take place at 5pm at the Examination Schools followed by a drinks reception.

Professor Chenoweth will explore the puzzling decline in the success of civil resistance movements in the past decade, even as unarmed movements have become more popular worldwide. The findings have implications for the future of nonviolent alternatives to armed struggle, as well as to the ability of pro-democratic movements to defeat authoritarian challenges.

Erica Chenoweth is the Academic Dean for Faculty Engagement and the Frank Stanton Professor of the First Amendment at Harvard Kennedy School, Faculty Dean at Pforzheimer House at Harvard College, and a Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute. They study political violence and its alternatives. At Harvard, Chenoweth directs the Nonviolent Action Lab, an innovation hub that provides empirical evidence in support of movement-led political transformation.

The Cyril Foster Lecture is Oxford University's principal annual guest lecture in the field of International Relations. Since its inception in 1960, the lecture series has attracted a wide range of internationally renowned speakers, from the worlds of politics, policy, and academia.

The lecture is free to attend, and booking is required. Places should be reserved through Eventbrite. Please arrive on time for the lecture as seats will be allocated on a first come, first served basis.