The Federal Reserve is the most powerful central bank in the world. Without its central bank, the American economy would be subject to devastating fluctuations and instability. In maintaining this stability, The Fed dictates interest rates and designs bailouts without the usual checks and balances that pervade US policy making. Most commentators treat the Fed as an impartial referee exercising its independence to advance the best interests of America.
Wrong.
In recent months, as Russia has stepped up its involvement in the Syrian civil war, there has been a flurry of analysis by Western observers of Moscow's possible objectives. On a spectrum of interpretations concerning Russian actions are claims that the Kremlin's main concern is ensuring the survival of the Assad regime. Others assume broader strategic foreign-policy goals, including no less than a "grand bargain" with the West over the Ukraine crisis and Moscow's re-admission into the club of Western nations.
Félix Krawatzek and Andy Eggers present a new podcast series in which they discuss Text in the Social Sciences.
[Please scroll down for podcast recordings.]
Language is essential to human interaction, and so is essential to understanding politics and society.
Researchers in many disciplines now employ a variety of methods to analyse large bodies of text in more systematic and reliable ways. These techniques are complementary to conventional reading techniques and may generate new insights for understanding texts or using text as data.
Geir Lundestad was the director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute and from 1990 to 2014 was the secretary of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, which awards the Nobel Peace Prize. In 2015 Geir published a frank account of his 25 Nobel years. The lecture was based on Geir's book, which discussed what the Nobel Peace Prize can realistically achieve.
Jesse Norman, MP for Hereford and South Herefordshire, delivered a lecture entitled ‘What does the failure of the Lords Bill 2012 tell us about the British Constitution?’ Dr Norman graduated in classics from Merton College and twelve years later continued on to University College London, where he earned his MPhil and DPhil in philosophy. He is the author of numerous books in political theory, including a biography of Edmund Burke.
Félix Krawatzek and Andy Eggers present a new podcast series in which they discuss Text in the Social Sciences.
[Please scroll down for podcast recordings.]
Language is essential to human interaction, and so is essential to understanding politics and society.
Researchers in many disciplines now employ a variety of methods to analyse large bodies of text in more systematic and reliable ways. These techniques are complementary to conventional reading techniques and may generate new insights for understanding texts or using text as data.
The social sciences have been heavily influenced by modernization theory, focusing on issues of economic growth, political development and social change, in order to develop a predictive model of linear progress for developing countries following a Western prototype. Under this hegemonic paradigm of development the world tends to get divided into simplistic binary oppositions between the ‘West’ and the ‘rest’, ‘us’ and ‘them’ and ‘self’ and ‘other’.
Glenda Cooper shared her insights on the power dynamics of reporting a humanitarian crisis in a digital age, and raised several pertinent questions, including: do social media really allow diverse points of view? Cooper has studied the news reportage during the earthquake in Japan (2011), the Hudson plane crash, Oklahoma tornado and Bangkok bomb blasts (2015) from an anthropological lens.