For the ODS Annual Lecture 2023, Professor Lyn Ossome examines concerns around the structures, trajectories and gendered outcomes of capitalist development in the agrarian south, with the aim also of outlining a feminist decolonial critique of economic development.

This paper focuses on the weaponization of interdependences among states. Weaponization refers to one state restricting its international economic relationships (or ‘interdependences’) to inflict economic or political costs on another state. Recent examples include Western sanctions against Russia over Ukraine and Russia’s retaliatory restriction of gas supplies to several European states. We know surprisingly little about two related questions: what determines whether a particular international economic relationship can be weaponized effectively?

Many Pakistani colonial institutions such has the bureaucracy, the judiciary and especially the army have evolved into self-perpetuating elite institutions that resist change and seek to maintain the status quo. And over the years they have co-opted politicians, religious leaders, the landed gentry and also large industrial conglomerates and together they have neither pursued inclusive economic growth nor a liberal, tolerant society. Resultantly Pakistan is falling behind all its peer nations in South Asia in income and human development.

Andreas Wimmer is Lieber Professor of Sociology and Political Philosophy at the Department of Sociology, Columbia University which he joined in 2015. He is currently a fellow of the Boundaries, Membership & Belonging Program of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. For Princeton University Press, he edits the book series Studies in Global and Comparative Sociology. He also serves as one of the deputy editors of Sociological Science.

Please join either in person or online. For in-person attendees, the talk will be preceded by a light lunch at 12.15pm.

Please email comms@sociology.ox.ac.uk with any questions or to receive the Microsoft Teams link.

In his new book Why Politics Fails, award-winning Oxford professor Ben Ansell shows that it's not the politicians that are the problem, it's that our collective goals result in five political 'traps'.

Democracy: we all want a say in how we're governed, but it's impossible to have any true 'will of the people'.
Equality: we want to be treated equally, but equal rights and equal outcomes undermine each other.
Solidarity: we want a safety net when times are tough, but often we care about solidarity only when we need it ourselves.

In contrast to the ever-growing scholarship dedicated to sectarianism in the Middle East, relations between Sunni and Shi‘a Muslims in European contexts remain understudied. In Britain, the past decade has witnessed manifestations of Sunni-Shi‘a tensions which have also been matched by initiatives aimed at easing them. Such initiatives on the British Shi‘a scene are instructive to explore how Shi‘a Muslims conceive “Muslim unity” but also their own place within Islam’s diversity.

In recent decades Russia has played an increasingly active role in the Middle East as states within the region continue to diversify their relations with major external powers. Yet the role of specific Russian regions, especially those that share an 'Islamic identity' with the GCC has been overlooked.