Wednesday 15th March 2023, 5.00pm, S0.18.

Professor Conor Gearty (London School of Economics) will be speaking on “Homeland Insecurity: Why anti-terrorism laws are here to stay – and what to do about it”.

Professor Gearty’s seminar will be a joint PAIS/Law event.

Joseph Chan (Distinguished Research Fellow, Research Center for Humanities and Social Sciences, Academia Sinica, Taiwan), ‘What is wrong with social inequality (or hierarchy)?’

13 March 2023, 5-7pm, SO.11

All welcome.

As part of the AHRC-DFG funded project: Moral Obligation and Epistemology: The Case of Vaccine Hesitancy, we have launched a podcast series.

We will be interviewing academics in health psychology, philosophy, politics and public health, as well as professionals working in public health, government, and social media. Topics explored in the podcast include: the rationality of hesitancy, conspiracy theories, misinformation, and hesitancy among vulnerable communities.

The podcasts will appeal to academics interested in the causes of vaccine hesitancy, and in the tools and methods we can use to increase vaccine uptake.

Dr. Titipol Phakdeewanich is based at the Faculty of Political Science at Ubon Ratchathani University in Thailand. Previously, he has been a Visiting Research Fellow on Human Rights at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at Lund University, Sweden. His research is focused on finding actual solutions to problems experienced by the under-represented, marginalised, and disenfranchised groups within Thailand.

In this seminar, he discusses Thailand’s youth-led democracy movement, that escalated after the dissolution of the Future Forward Party in 2020. Despite government suppression, it continues to challenge aspects of the Thai cultural paradigm, specifically its embedded hierarchical structures, which they argue to be one of the main obstacles for an inclusive, equality-driven, participatory democracy. They claim that people’s fundamental human rights are not fully protected in Thailand.

To what extent has the youth-led democracy movement influenced the military-led government to promote inclusive, equality-driven, participatory democracy? How can the youth-led democracy movement effectively challenge embedded hierarchical structures in Thai society in order to promote inclusive, equality-driven, participatory democracy? Is there an increasing tension between generations when it comes to the question of cultural heritage being perceived to be a reimposition of cultural norms? What is the implication of Youth-led democracy movement on the scheduled 2023 Thailand General Election?

Date: Monday, 17th October 2022

Time: 16:15-17:30

Venue: A0.23, Social Sciences Building

The Department of Politics and International Studies (PAIS) is thrilled to announce that, for the third year in a row, we are placed 1^st for “overall student satisfaction” among Russell Group Politics Departments in the 2022 National Student Survey (NSS). This is a position that we are proud to have held for 5 out of the past 7 years.

In the NSS 2022, PAIS came top in every category among Russell Group Politics Departments for the second year in a row.

• 1^st for Teaching
• 1^st for Learning Opportunities
• 1^st for Assessment and Feedback
• 1^st for Organisation and Management
• 1^st for Learning Resources
• 1^st for Learning Community
• 1^st for Student Voice
• 1^st for Academic Support

The 2022 results show that we are 1^st in the Russell Group on 20 of the 27 NSS questions and in 2^nd place on a further 5 questions.

For seven years in a row, PAIS has ranked either 1^st or 2^nd on overall student satisfaction amongst the Russell Group. The 2022 outcomes reflect our best ever performance across all categories in our peer group; they demonstrate our close and effective partnership with the student body and our sustained commitment to the student experience.

Across all programmes with which we are involved - both single and joint honours - we achieved 87% overall satisfaction (an increase of 3% on last year). The Russell Group average for Politics was 73%.

These impressive outcomes are due to an outstanding team effort among our fantastic students, academics, and professional services colleagues, and demonstrate a partnership which we are extremely proud of. Thank you to everyone for all your hard work and support for our teaching and student experience during a very challenging few years for all concerned. We are pleased that our approach to blended delivery during restrictions arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, along with our move back to in person teaching, was appreciated by our students and we will continue to learn from student feedback to further enhance the student experience in 2022/23.

We look forward to continuing to work in partnership with our amazing students and dedicated staff to sustain and build on these strong results, which reflect our deep commitment to research-led teaching excellence. At the start of the new academic year, we will feed back in greater detail to all students and we will discuss and take forward ideas for further enhancement of the PAIS student experience via our Student Staff Liaison Committees (SSLCs).

In particular, we will intensify our work on liberating and decolonising the curriculum, employability and skills, and building a sense of community and belonging. We will work with partner Departments to ensure continued excellence across all programmes, in particular joint degrees.

*See the Office for Students websiteLink opens in a new window for more details and the full data. The results are based on the official Common Aggregation Hierarchy (CAH) subject breakdowns and the 21 Russell Group institutions which met the publications threshold for Politics.