Armed conflict inflicts damage and suffering to people at many levels. Surprisingly, many analyses of this connection fail to take into account that consequences of conflict on human life go far beyond physical harm and that it also deprives people of basic human entitlements. These often include access to adequate shelter, water, sanitation, knowledge and good health. Naturally, there is a need to take a people-centred on armed conflict in order to arrive at a better understanding of its relationship with peoples livelihoods.

Recognizing that poor governance hinders human and economic development, a growing literature studies accountability of politicians to voters. This talk instead considers accountability relationships within governments—the ability of politicians to implement policies by holding bureaucrats responsible for their actions, and the implications for (i) electoral accountability and (ii) service provision. The first part of the talk introduces a new explanation for why citizens may fail to vote based on government performance.

For the first GTI event of 2020, professor Manu Bhagavan will speak on the life and work of Indian diplomat and politician Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit.

Erica Benner is a political philosopher who has held academic posts at St Antony's College Oxford, the London School of Economics, and Yale. Awarded a DPhil at Oxford in 1993, she is the author of the books Really Existing Nationalisms (Oxford University Press, 1995), Machiavelli's Ethics (Princeton University Press, 2009), Machiavelli's Prince: A New Reading (Oxford University Press, 2013) and Be Like the Fox: Machiavelli's Lifelong Quest for Freedom (Penguin Allen Lane and W.W. Norton, 2017).