Cyril Foster Lecture 2025: 'How to End Wars: Pragmatic Approaches to Peacebuilding'

Over the past 50 years, the Cyril Foster Lecture series has delivered engaging lectures from some of the world's most influential policymakers and academics. This year's lecture will be given by Christine Ahn and Lt Gen (Ret) Dan Leaf, US Air Force, bringing together two leading, internationally renowned speakers on peace activism and peacekeeping. The lecture will be introduced by Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Professor Lord Tarassenko, and chaired by Cyril Foster Lecture Chair, Professor Neta Crawford.

The Cyril Foster Lecture 2025:

Reflections on Italy - Roundtable and Panel Discussion hosted by Lord Patten

“Authoritarianism, nationalism, centralization, demagogy: surely these are evils from which we may expect to be cured” - Alessandro Passerin D’Entrèves, 1947.

In 1947, Alessandro Passerin D’Entrèves gave his inaugural lecture as Serena Professor of Italian at the University of Oxford. A scholar and Italian resistance fighter, he delivered the lecture less than two years after the end of the second World War. Passerin D’Entrèves saw his appointment as a chance to “cement the bonds of friendship and mutual understanding between England and Italy”.

Prof. Neta Crawford's Inaugural Lecture as the Montague Burton Chair in International Relations: The 'Fierce Urgency of Now': war, climate, and change in the deep time of world politics

Join us for the Montague Burton Chair in International Relations Inaugural Lecture, which will mark the appointment of Professor Neta Crawford to this highly prestigious position.

Professor Crawford will deliver the Lecture: The ‘Fierce Urgency of Now': war, climate, and change in the deep time of world politics. The lecture will be followed by a drinks reception

Nuclear Terrorism: What is the Threat? (Oxford Cyril Foster Lecture 2023)

Nuclear terrorism remains a low probability, high consequence threat. Lack of access and capability will likely continue to inhibit most non-state-sponsored terrorism scenarios; and nuclear forensics, and the risk that a state-sponsor’s identity would be discovered, will likely inhibit proxy attacks. But several developments appear to be changing the nature of the threat. One of these is that non-state groups likely to be motivated to try to use radiological or improvised nuclear devices are changing and growing in number.

Oxford Spring School in Advanced Research Methods

Our hybrid Oxford Spring School in Advanced Research Methods offers graduate students and researchers from universities across the UK and abroad a unique opportunity to learn cutting-edge methods in Social Science.

The week-long Spring School is now in its 20th year and consists of five core courses in quantitative and qualitative methods. Participants who choose to attend one of these courses will also be invited to attend additional research methodology classes along with the full Spring School cohort in the mornings.

The course options are:

Democracy, Votes, and Participation

In recent decades, liberal democracies have considerably expanded the scope for citizen participation, calling their citizens to vote in a growing number of popular votes. This research investigates the effects of the rising election frequency on electoral participation. It theorizes which, when, and how past votes affect current voter turnout. We argue that all election types contribute to a common factor of election frequency, whose high values depress voter turnout and reduce the effectiveness of party mobilization even in the most important elections.

Undoing Revolution: Sudan and Politics of Debt

The Oxford University Sudanese Society is proud to host Dr Harry Cross, author of Undoing a Revolution: Sudan and the Politics of Debt, for a critical discussion on how international finance has shaped and constrained Sudan's path since independence.

Dr. Cross, a specialist in Sudan's economic and financial systems, reveals how Western creditors have leveraged unpayable debts to extract policy concessions, devastate the economy, and erode Sudanese sovereignty.

Ava Tabatabaei

I am a second-year MPhil Political Theory candidate at St. Anne's College. I previously completed my BA in Political Science, with a minor in Law & Society, at the University of British Columbia with high distinction. My thesis, titled "All of the Above: Political Theory, Emotional Connections, and Iranian-American Identity as a Balancing Act," received the Russ Patrick Arts Undergraduate Student Research Award from the University of British Columbia Faculty of Arts.

Omar Azfar Lecture - 'How much should we worry about inequality?'

On most measures income inequality in the UK has barely changed in 35 years. Indeed, it has fallen since the financial crisis. Yet public concern about inequality is higher than ever.

In this talk Paul Johnson will draw on the IFS Deaton review of inequalities to help understand this conundrum, and will also look at the sorts of areas - beyond tax and welfare - that policymakers ought to be exploring.
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