The talk is based on a chapter discussing the links between pre-communist social structure and post-communist voting patterns among the middle class from her forthcoming book The Estate Origins of Democracy in Russia: From Imperial Bourgeoisie to Post-Communist Middle-Class (coming out with Cambridge University Press in 2022). The book departs from classic accounts in historical political economy and comparative politics that analyze the significance of the bourgeoisie from the perspective of coalitional dynamics and role in genesis of particular orders—democracy or autocracy.

This event will take place on Zoom; sign up to the Seminar mailing list for the Zoom link at:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSehoD13cFQgnv1NQAO_T-mJTfog9pZii4DC9wm2FWn-x_zJsg/viewform?usp=sf_link

Discussant: Amiad Haran Diman

Elina Alem Kent was a video and audio producer for the now-shuttered Kyiv Post in Ukraine and is currently producing a podcast, Media in Progress, about the Post journalists' decision to defy the shutdown and start their own independent outlet.

This series is an opportunity for DPIR DPhils to present their work in progress and gather feedback.

Our first presenter this term is Javier Pérez Sandoval. Javier defended his dissertation in Michaelmas and is currently on the job market. His talk is titled "The Origins of Subnational Democracy."

The rise of China has become one of the most significant geopolitical development and issue of our time. To some, the Middle kingdom symbolises opportunity and growth; to others, it represents oppression and the return of an anti-liberal, anti-democratic world order.

With the Beijing Winter Olympics fast approaching, the world's spotlight is once again on China, its political system, its economic performance, its pandemic response, and perhaps the most controversial of all, its human rights record. This raises several questions:

What is the China under President Xi?

Does power corrupt, or are corrupt people drawn to power? Are entrepreneurs who embezzle and cops who kill the outgrowths of bad systems or are they just bad people? Are tyrants made or born? If you were thrust into a position of power, would new temptations to line your pockets or torture your enemies gnaw away at you until you gave in?

Does fathers’ leave, a policy intervention that disrupts traditional gender roles, promote more gender-equitable attitudes? We examine this question by studying a policy reform in Estonia that tripled the length of fathers’ leave for children born on or after July 1, 2020. The reform promoted fathers as care givers – it offered both parents the opportunity to conceive of their social roles in a less traditional fashion and to thereby reassess traditional beliefs about the appropriate roles and essential traits of men and women.

Sana Safi is an Afghan broadcast journalist, currently working for BBC World Service. Her audio documentary, Afghanistan and Me, charts 30 years of Afghan history through her own experiences.

This year's Bingham lecture will be given by Dr Hannah White, Deputy Director at the Institute of Government. Time pressure is a necessary constraint on aspects of the constitution, but it can also pose a threat to good government, parliamentary accountability and scrutiny. In this lecture Hannah White will consider the impact on the constitution of the time constraints created by the Article 50 process and the COVID-19 pandemic.