In 1964, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) was born with an ambitious objective: convincing UN member states to lower or remove all barriers to the free circulation of goods and commodities worldwide. According to the liberal convictions of UNCTAD founders, free trade was the best tool to boost development in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and reduce the inequality gap with the “Global North”. The Soviet Union and most of the socialist world jumped on the UNCTAD bandwagon immediately.

Throughout the last years all the states in South East Europe at some point or another experienced mass protests and rallies some of which had a severe impact on the stability of the political systems and even led to the fall of governments. The panellists will be discussing the importance of protests, social movements and broader public discontent as reactions to state incompetence, authoritarianism, elite corruption, neoliberal state building or the handling of crises, from a regional and comparative country perspectives.

The People's Republic of China has recently overtaken the United States to become the top trading partner of the European Union. China and the EU increasingly work together across a number of policy areas and are constantly seeking to deepen their dialogue. Having said that, the interdependence between these two economic giants cannot fully disguise the presence of deep-seated problems, mistrust and rivalries in the broader relationship between Brussels and Beijing.

Unravelling the life, character and motivations of the last known Cold War double agent, George Blake, The Happy Traitor paints a chilling portrait of a thoughtful and idealistic man, responsible for passing on key intelligence, including the identities of hundreds of British agents, to the Soviets. George Blake was the last remaining Cold War spy. As a Senior Officer in the British Intelligence Service who was double agent for the Soviet Union, his actions had devastating consequences for Britain.

Populism is often defined as an ideology that opposes two homogeneous and antagonistic camps, ‘the common people’ versus ‘the corrupt elite’. Populists are seen as a negative image of what liberal democracy is supposed to be: intolerant and refusing pluralism. Other definitions insist on the mobilization and empowerment of the people that populist politics makes possible. The well-known scholar Chantal Mouffe, the leading theoretician of left-wing populism, will debate with Federico Taragoni, who has recently published a book on the issue (L'esprit démocratique du populisme, 2019).

The panel will focus on the shrinking role of the Parliament and Judiciary vis-à-vis the executive power in the context of Turkey’s ‘new constitution’. Panellists will be treating the following questions: What is Turkey’s current constitutional system? What has been the impact of the ‘new constitution’ upon parliamentary politics in Turkey? Do the courts, and especially the Constitutional Court, play any role in checking and balancing the use of power by the President?

In this talk, James Mahoney discusses a conjuctural theory of revolutions. Political revolutions are defined as rapid transformations of a sovereign territory’s political order, including its national government, political regime, and state institutions.

The replacement of Apartheid-style government with multi-racial democracy in South Africa constituted one of the most profound, challenging and celebrated regime changes of the late 20th century. Unfortunately, a majority of citizens and most local commentators now characterize the past quarter century of democratic government as highly disappointing. When seen in the context of a global retreat of democracy, such views may contribute to growing skepticism about the viability of democratic government, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.

This talk will be based on a book project, in which I theoretically and empirically investigate the link between state-implemented Internet controls and state-sanctioned violent repression. I identify two main forms of control, which are the restriction (or disruption) of the Internet on the one hand, and digital surveillance on the other hand. Governments face a trade-off: they can either restrict access to the Internet and with it diminish opposition groups’ capabilities, or they can permit the digital exchange of information and monitor it to their own advantage.

Decentralization is thought to facilitate poverty reduction by giving power over resource distribution to officials with local knowledge about where resources are most needed. However, decentralization also implies less oversight and greater opportunities for local officials to divert resources for political or personal ends. We investigate this tradeoff by exploring the degree to which Kenya’s premier decentralized development program—the Constituency Development Fund—targets the poor.