Zimbabwe's catastrophic cholera outbreak of 2008–9 saw an unprecedented number of people affected, with 100,000 cases and nearly 5,000 deaths. Cholera, however, was much more than a public health crisis: it represented the nadir of the country's deepening political and economic crisis of 2008. This study focuses on the political life of the cholera epidemic, tracing the historical origins of the outbreak, examining the social pattern of its unfolding and impact, analysing the institutional and communal responses to the disease, and marking the effects of its aftermath.

Ethnic identities around the world are deeply linked to the modern territorial state, yet it is often unclear to what extent ethnicity shapes states or states shape ethnic identities. I argue that governments at the national and subnational level have incentives to bias governance in favor of the largest ethnic groups in their territory. The resulting disadvantages for ethnic minorities can motivate minority assimilation and emigration. Both reactions gradually align ethnic with administrative boundaries. I examine this process at the subnational level in 20 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Online discussion of two new books: 'China, the UN, and Human Protection: Beliefs, Power, Image' by Rosemary Foot, and 'China’s Good War:
How World War II is Shaping a New Nationalism' by Rana Mitter.

Please visit the University of Oxford China Centre website to register.

Britain’s naval power was long the central instrument in its strategy and defence policy, at the heart of what was even claimed to be a distinctive ‘British way in warfare’. This centrality was challenged in the first half of the 20th century and even more in the second, with some casting doubt on the continuing relevance of sea power for Britain and with the size and shape of the Royal Navy becoming the single most contentious issue in a succession of defence reviews.

The following seminars will take place at 1pm unless otherwise stated. All welcome to join via Zoom, but registration required: https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/calendar.

The European Studies Centre, St Antony's College, is delighted to welcome and host, at its opening event for the academic year 2020/21, João Vale de Almeida, the Ambassador of the European Union to the United Kingdom. He will be the lead speaker for our customary panel discussion on "Europe: State of Play". The year 2020 has been truly extraordinary for the EU, its member states and all citizens.

In this talk, Dr Annette Idler will discuss preliminary findings of the multi-year AHRC-ESRC funded project “The Changing Character of Conflict Platform: Understanding, Tracing, and Forecasting Change across Time, Space, and Cultures”. First, she will present a general overview on how the Conflict Platform promotes dialogue across methodologies and epistemologies, bringing together large data analysis with ethnographic fieldwork, complexity science, visualisation techniques, visual arts, and historical tracing back to the Thirty Years War.

We kindly invite you to the second edition of the Occasional CONPEACE Webinar Series. As part of this series, researchers of the programme CONPEACE (conpeace.ccw.ox.ac.uk) – From Conflict Actors to Architects of Peace (University of Oxford) and international speakers analyse security challenges in Latin America and beyond. They explore how security architectures need to be adapted to adequately respond to changing security landscapes from a people-centred security perspective.