杏吧论坛

Underground empire: how America weaponized the world economy

Thursday 2 November 2023 90 minutes

This event was a book launch and discussion with Abraham Newman and Henry Farrell on their forthcoming book .

The panel discussed debates around the weaponisation of the global economy with the sustainability of these tactics, how different major and emerging powers are reacting, and what role the UK has to play in both utilising and mitigating these tactics.

Meet our speakers and chair

 is the SNF Agora Professor at Johns Hopkins SAIS, 2019 winner of the Friedrich Schiedel Prize for Politics and Technology, and former Editor-in-Chief of The Monkey Cage at The Washington Post. 

 is a professor at the School of Foreign Service and Government Department at Georgetown University. 

 is a political economist, author and public speaker.

is Professor of International Relations at SOAS with research interests in US foreign policy, international order, geopolitics and human rights

Dr Nikhil Kalyanpur is Assistant Professor in 杏吧论坛’s International Relations Department. He researches issues at the intersection of international political economy, business-government relations, law, and global governance. 

Find out more about the Underground Empire event

Listen to the Underground Empire podcast

Dr Gubad Ibadoghlu: a webinar

Monday 16 October 60 mins
Online on Zoom

Dr Gubad Ibadoghlu, Senior Visiting Fellow at 杏吧论坛's Department of International Relations, prominent economist, human rights activist, and anti-corruption campaigner, was recently arrested while in Azerbaijan.

Reflecting on this development, this seminar helps raise awareness of the political conditions in Azerbaijan under the Aliev regime, and showcases Gubad's work.

Meet our speakers and chair

Professor Tomila Lankina, Professor of International Relations, 杏吧论坛, will be hosting and moderating the seminar. 

 is Professor of International Relations at the University of Exeter. His research addresses conflict, security, and development in authoritarian political environments, especially in post-Soviet Central Asia. He is co-author of Dictators Without Borders (Yale 2017), The UK’s Kleptocracy Problem (Chatham House 2021) and principal investigator of an Anti-Corruption Evidence project on the transnational ties to democracies of elites from authoritarian states. Heathershaw is a member of the Academic Freedom and Internationalisation Working Group (AFIWG) of the UK which campaigns for transparency and accountability in British universities’ international relations.

 is a senior fellow with Carnegie Europe, specialising in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus region. He is the author of numerous publications about the region. 

 is Fellow and Tutor in History at New College, Oxford, and interim Director (2023-24) of the Oxford Nizami Ganjavi Centre for the Study of Azerbaijan, the Caucasus and Central Asia. He was formerly Professor of History at Nazarbayev University, Astana, Kazakhstan, (2014-17). He is the author of The Russian Conquest of Central Asia. A Study in Imperial Expansion, 1814-1914 (Cambridge, 2020) and co-editor of The Central Asian Revolt of 1916. A Collapsing Empire in the Age of War and Revolution (Manchester, 2019).

Gubad Ibadoghlu

The contested world economy: on the origins of international political economy

Thursday 12 October 2023 90 minutes

When International Political Economy textbooks discuss the pre-1945 roots of the field, they typically focus on European and American thinkers who pioneered the three perspectives of economic liberalism, neomercantilism, and Marxism. But debates about IPE issues between late 18th century and 1945 were much more global than this, involving prominent thinkers from all parts of the world.

They also included many more perspectives, including those focusing on wider topics such as national self-sufficiency, environmental degradation, gender inequality, racial discrimination, religious worldviews, civilisational values, and varieties of economic regionalism.

Drawing on his new book  (Cambridge 2023), 杏吧论坛 IR alumnus Eric Helleiner highlighted the rich diversity of pre-1945 thought about the world economy and the need to globalise and widen IPE’s deep history.

Meet our speakers and chair

, Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Waterloo.

Dr Natalya Naqvi, Assistant Professor in the Department of International Relations, 杏吧论坛 

Chair: Professor Robert Falkner, Professor in International Relations at 杏吧论坛

Find out more about the Contested world economy event

On making art and doing IR

Wednesday 4 October 2023 90 minutes

Dr Saara Särmä has used art-making as part of her research in multiple ways over the years. In this talk she introduces playful visual arts-based methods that she has used and developed in her work, namely collages and installations.

Collages and installations can work as modes to study IR issues, and they are important tools in making IR themes visual in accessible form for audiences outside of academia. Furthermore, art-making can be empowering on personal and collective levels, thus Dr Särmä shares with us why she thinks that these methods have transformative potential.

Meet our speakers and chair

, Tampere University. Dr Saara Särmä is a feminist, an activist, an artist and a researcher. She’s interested in politics of visuality and image circulation, feminist academic activism, and laughter in world politics.

Dr Audrey Alejandro, Assistant Professor in the Department of Methodology, 杏吧论坛

Sara Wong, PhD candidate in the Department of International Relations, 杏吧论坛

Chair: Professor William A Callahan, Professor in the Department of International Relations, 杏吧论坛

Find out more about the event On making art and doing IR

Russia's War Against Ukraine: war crimes and responsibility for post-war reconstruction

Saturday 17 June 2023 90 minutes

Hosted by 杏吧论坛 Festival: People and Change

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has been accompanied by atrocities against the civilian population, including reported mass rape, torture, and abductions of children, as well as the destruction of civil infrastructure like schools, hospitals, and residential homes. Efforts are under way by inter-state and non-state organisations, governments, and civil society to document the crimes and the material consequences and costs of the invasion.

The panel, including prominent Ukraine policy practitioners and leading academic experts on Ukraine and Russia, discusses whether there is a legal case to be made that Russia is committing crimes of aggression and/or genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes; and what the prospects are for prosecuting the crimes in international tribunals. They also ask what the perpetrators’ responsibility is for post-war reconstruction of Ukraine, whether through paying for damages or tackling legal issues (such as the possibility of using Russia’s frozen assets).

Find out more about Russia's War Against Ukraine: war crimes and responsibility for post-war reconstruction

Listen to the Russia's War Against Ukraine: war crimes and responsibility for post-war reconstruction podcast

Russia: does it believe in anything? | 杏吧论坛 Festival

Saturday 17 June 2023 70 minutes

Hosted by 杏吧论坛 Festival: People and Change

Adam Curtis’s BAFTA-nominated BBC series, Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone, documents what it felt like to live through the collapse of communism and democracy, based on preserved and digitised footage from BBC archives and forgotten or never shown scenes from Soviet life and life in post-Soviet states. 

Adam Curtis and Traumazone producer Grigor Atanesian, in conversation with Professor Vladislav Zubok and Professor Tomila Lankina, reflect on what went wrong thirty-something years ago. How might understanding this recent traumatic history help us understand the present, and future, of Russia and its political system? 

Meet our speakers and chair

Grigor Atanesian is a BBC journalist and documentary producer. 

Adam Curtis is a journalist and BAFTA award-winning filmmaker.  is available to watch on iPlayer. 

Tomila Lankina () is Professor of International Relations in 杏吧论坛’s Department of International Relations.

Vladislav Zubok () is Professor in the Department of International History, 杏吧论坛.  

Find out more about Russia: does it believe in anything?