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.

Is China Building a Rival International Order and How Would We Know?

Is China building a rival institutional order to challenge and potentially replace the existing one? In the decades following the Cold War, the United States played a leading role in creating the institutions of what became known as the liberal international order (LIO). Since then, China’s global profile has risen while the United States has reduced its commitment to global leadership. With growing evidence of a hegemonic transition, observers are increasingly debating whether Beijing is working to overturn the existing order by fostering rival institutional structures.

Beyond Rivalry: How Americans and Chinese View Global Justice

How do citizens in the United States and China evaluate the fairness of the international system and the impartiality of its legal institutions? As the two countries vie for global leadership, public perceptions of the existing order and visions for its reform can shape global trajectories by influencing support for or resistance to their governments’ efforts to reshape world order.

How Should we Understand the UK Parliament’s Real Power? Q&A with Professor Jane Green and The Rt Hon. Lord Andrew Tyrie

This seminar Q&A between Professor Jane Green and The Rt Hon. Lord Andrew Tyrie, will give students, and all interested in the UK Parliament, an expert insider’s answer to questions covered in the PPE and MPhil British politics syllabi, with first-hand insight from a former MP and now member of the House of Lords, described in 2013 as “the most powerful backbencher in the House of Commons”. Audience members will have a wide-ranging opportunity to ask questions.

Asian ‘Revolutions’: Youth and Protest in the 2020s

This event will explore the wave of recent major political protests across several Asian countries. We hope to cover the themes of authoritarianism, populism, corruption, dynastic politics and crisis of political authority and legitimacy as well as intergenerational inequality, discontent surrounding labour, employment and education, and the role of social media and new political idioms. The discussion will include: Bangladesh, Indonesia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, South Korea, Sri Lanka, and Thailand.
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