When China embarked on modernization in 1979, many hoped that the country’s turn toward capitalism would put its totalitarian past to rest and moved it toward a more democratic future. Instead, China has reverted to a neo-totalitarian regime after more than four decades of economic reform and globalization. The fundamental cause is Deng Xiaoping’s strategy of saving one-party rule with capitalism. He steadfastly kept intact the institutional foundations of totalitarianism even as he unleashed private entrepreneurship and courted foreign investment.

The 2026 Reuters Memorial Lecture will be delivered by Carlos Dada under the title 'Journalism as Resistance'. Dada is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of the Salvadoran digital news outlet El Faro, the first digital-only news site launched in Latin America. The lecture will be followed by a panel discussion on the challenges facing journalists worldwide.

The Oxford Computational Political Science Group (OCPSG) is pleased to announce its speaker event w/ Prof Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey, FBA and Amara Otero-Salgado. They will be presenting their paper 'Measuring Empirically the Legal Conflicts over U.S. Public Lands from 1960 to 2024'. It seeks to better understand how conflicting views over public lands have evolved over time, namely by examining empirically a newly developed dataset to assess competing narratives that have driven legal battles in the U.S. in the modern era of environmental policy.

Many small-scale societies, including mobile hunter-gatherers, are commonly referred to as “egalitarian,” meaning that equality of political influence is valued and enforced by societal norms. The term “egalitarian” is misleading, however, because in general the egalitarian principle applies only to married men. Married men tend to dominate both bachelors and women, partly by controlling coercive institutions such as law and religion, and ultimately by their monopolizing the legitimate use of execution to punish norm violators.

We look forward to welcoming Dr Tom F. Wright to the English Faculty to talk on 'The Politics of Oracy and the Post-Literacy Panic' in this News UK lecture. The event will take place in Seminar Room - 00.063 at the Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities on 11 March at 5pm.

All welcome. Tickets are free, but registration is required.

Abstract

The Trump administration’s actions and rhetoric toward Venezuela, Cuba, Greenland, and the proclamation of the so-called 'Donroe Doctrine' in recent months have cast doubt over long- standing assumptions about the geopolitics of the Western Hemisphere. In this event, a panel of experts will examine the past, present, and possible futures of power, alliances, and democratic governance across the region. What has US power in the Western Hemisphere meant historically? What does it mean today? Where might it be heading next?

Panellists include: