Summer 2013 | Public lectures and events | Audio and pdf London School of Economics and Political Science

Contributor(s): Professor Robert Cooper | Robert Cooper joined the Foreign Office in 1970. He served in several posts including Japan and Germany. In 1989 he was appointed Head of the Policy Planning Staff at the Foreign Office. He was later made the UK's Special Representative in Afghanistan, before taking up a post in the European Union in 2002. Here he was responsible to Javier Solana and assisted with the implementation of European strategic, security and defence policy. A well-known public intellectual, he is the author of two influential studies on the modern world: The Post-Modern State and the World Order (2000) and The Breaking of Nations: Order and Chaos in the Twenty-First Century (Atlantic Press, 2003). From September 2012 he has been a Visiting Professor in IDEAS at LSE.

Contributor(s): Lord Meghnad Desai | Lord Desai is an Indian-born British economist and Labour politician. He unsuccessfully stood for the Speaker in the British House of Lords in 2011, the first ever non-UK born candidate to do so. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian award in the Republic of India, in 2008. Starting as an economics lecturer at LSE, in 2003 he retired as Director of the Centre for the Study of Global Governance, which he had founded in 1992, and remains Professor Emeritus at LSE. Desai has written extensively, publishing over 200 articles in academic journals, writing a number of books, and he still writes regularly for two leading Indian newspapers. He published a biography of Indian film star Dilip Kumar entitled Nehru’s Hero: Dilip Kumar in the life of India in 2004, which he has described as his “greatest achievement”.

Contributor(s): Professor Craig Calhoun | Professor Calhoun is a world-renowned social scientist whose work connects sociology to culture, communication, politics, philosophy and economics. He took up his post as LSE Director on 1 September 2012, having left the United States where he was University Professor at New York University and director of the Institute for Public Knowledge and President of the Social Science Research Council. Professor Calhoun took a D Phil in History and Sociology at Oxford University and a Master's in Social Anthropology at Manchester. He co-founded, with Richard Sennett, Professor of Sociology at LSE, the NYLON programme which brings together graduate students from New York and London for co-operative research programmes. He is the author of several books including Nations Matter, Critical Social Theory, Neither Gods Nor Emperors and most recently The Roots of Radicalism (University of Chicago Press, 2012).

Contributor(s): Professor David Webb, Dr Sushil Wadhwani | Professor David Webb is Head of the Department of Finance at LSE. Specialising in financial economics and monetary theory, specifically the analysis of bankruptcy and financial contracts, David has made notable contributions to the field over the past 25 years, publishing in a range of Economic journals. He has held an editorship of Economica since 1988 and Associate Editorship of the Journal of Banking and Finance since 1995. Having obtained a BA and MA in Economics from the University of Manchester, David completed a PhD in Economics at LSE in 1979. Following lectureships at City and Bristol University, he returned to LSE in 1984 as a lecturer in the Department of Economics. In 1991 David became the LSE’s first ever Professor of Finance and has since been key to the growth of the Finance Faculty at LSE, to where in 2007 the Department of Finance became a stand alone department within the School, with David taking over as its Head in January 2009. Dr Sushil Wadhwani is currently CEO of Wadhwani Asset Management LLP, a London-based fund management company and a partner of Caxton Associates. Sushil was a full-time external member of the Monetary Policy Committee at the Bank of England between June 1999 and May 2002. From 1995-1999 Dr Wadhwani was Head of the Quantitative Systems Group, a member of the Management Committee and Partner at Tudor Proprietary Trading LLC, a fund management company. He was previously Director of Equity Strategy at Goldman Sachs International (1991-95) and before that Reader/Lecturer in Economics at LSE (1984-91). Dr Wadhwani was educated at LSE, where he obtained a BSc (Econ), MSc (Econ) and PhD (Econ). He has published a number of articles in academic journals. His past research includes work on financial markets, and the determinants of unemployment and inflation.He was designated a Commander of the British Empire in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List in 2002.

Contributor(s): Thomas Hale, Professor David Held, Kevin Young | This event grapples with the causes and consequences of the failure of leadership and negotiations across leading sectors of international concern: security, the economy and environment. It examines worrying scenarios of continuing gridlock and pathways that might lead beyond it. Thomas Hale is a postdoctoral research fellow, Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford University. Professor David Held is master of the University College, Durham and Professor of Politics and International Relations at Durham University. Kevin Young is an Assistant Professor, University of Massachusetts Amherst. This events marks the publication of Gridlock: Why Global Cooperation is Failing When it's Most Needed.

Contributor(s): Professor Mick Cox, Professor Danny Quah | Professor Danny Quah (LSE) and Professor Mick Cox (LSE) will debate this question in a public lecture hosted by LSE Summer School. Danny Quah is Professor of Economics and International Development, and Kuwait Professor at LSE. Professor Mick Cox is one of Europe’s leading commentators on the United States. He holds a Chair in International Relations and is also Co-Director of IDEAS, a Centre for the Study of Diplomacy and Strategy at LSE.