Other News

We are delighted to announce that PAIS and the Department of Economics are once again hosting a Warwick Question Time to debate current affairs. It will take place on Wednesday 2nd October, 6-7.30pm, in the Butterworth Hall, Warwick Arts Centre.

The event is very similar in format to the popular BBC television show, and will form part of our induction activities for PAIS and Economics students to start the new academic year in style and is an excellent opportunity for students to engage with politicians, policy makers and academics on major issues and questions that concern the world.

The panellists will be:

• Rachana Shanbhogue - Business correspondent, The Economist
• Stephen Kinnock MP - Labour Member of Parliament for Aberavon and member of the Select Committee on Exiting the European Union
• Alicia Kearns - Former Conservative Parliamentary Candidate and expert in National Security and Counter-Terrorism
• Remi Trovo - Year 2, BA Hons Politics and International Studies
• Paula Bejarano Carbo - Year 3, BA Hons Philosophy, Politics and Economics

The panel will be chaired by Professor Chris Anderson, Professor in European Politics and Policy at the European Institute, London School of Economics and a former Professor of Politics and Economics at Warwick.

More details and a registration form can be found here. Please do register ASAP to ensure your place. We look forward to seeing you there!

Together with Ferdi De Ville (Ghent University), PAIS academic Gabriel Siles-Brügge has co-edited a new Special Issue on the impact of Brexit on EU policies. While the effects of Brexit on the UK have been the subject of extensive scholarly engagement, this Special Issue tries to plug the gap when it comes to the study of Brexit's impact on the EU and its policies. In doing so, it features contributions from leading EU Studies scholars on the impact of the UK's departure on the EU's Single Market, the EU's approach to climate change governance and the EU's foreign and security policy.

The Special Issue also features an article by Ferdi De Ville and Gabriel Siles-Brügge on the impact of Brexit on EU trade policy, which challenges received wisdom by arguing that the UK's exit will not necessarily push the EU in a more protectionist policy direction. It is available for free from: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2102 

The whole Special Issue has been published in open access format and can be downloaded for free from: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/issue/view/146

Dr Tom Long has published a new article in Perspectives on Politics, a journal of the American Political Science Association. The article, "The Promise of Precommitment in Democracy and Human Rights: The Hopeful, Forgotten Failure of the Larreta Doctrine," draws on multinational archival research to contribute to ongoing debates over how to square the protection of human rights and democracy with sovereign protections against intervention in Latin America. The article is coauthored with the historian Max Paul Friedman of American University. Tom's underlying research was funded by the British Academy, British Council, Truman Library Institute, and Fulbright Commission.

The article can be accessed for free via PDF: The Promise of Precommitment in Democracy and Human Rights: The Hopeful, Forgotten Failure of the Larreta Doctrine.

Vincenzo Bove has published a column on VoxEU summarising his recent research on immigration, fear of crime, and public spending on security. Using data on more than 8,000 Italian municipalities from 2003 to 2015, the study finds that immigration led to increased spending on police due not to higher crime rates but to unfounded fears of criminality. The relation between immigration and municipal spending on police protection was particularly pronounced for immigrants from culturally distant societies.

The column is available here: https://voxeu.org/article/immigration-fear-and-public-spending-security

The Department of Politics and International Studies (PAIS) at the University of Warwick is delighted to announce that Dr Charlotte Heath-Kelly, Reader in Politics and International Studies, has been awarded a €1.5M Starting Grant by the European Research Council in recognition of, and support for, her pioneering research.

Dr Heath-Kelly will investigate how and why national security has become part of the professional duties of healthcare and social security workers in her project, 'Neoliberal Terror: The Radicalisation of Social Policy in Europe'.

Dr Heath-Kelly said: “Across Europe, health and social care workers have been made responsible for identifying and reporting radicalising persons to the security services, even though there exists no scientifically valid method to predict who will become a terrorist.

“There are also no studies which can validate the impact of counter-radicalisation programs on the prevention of terrorist attacks.

“What purpose do these policies serve, if we have no evidence they prevent terrorism? Quantitative and qualitative methods will be used to explore whether neoliberal economic and social policies are responsible for the expansion of counter-radicalisation programs - refocusing the welfare state on preventing 'risks' rather than meeting needs.”

Case study research will take place in the UK, France, Finland, Lithuania, Norway and Croatia with counter-radicalisation teams in health and social care, to better understand their work.

The project will conclude by making a documentary film on the effects of counter-radicalisation referrals on referred persons, medical ethics, and society.

Congratulating Dr Heath-Kelly on her success, Professor Nick Vaughan-Williams, Head of the Department of Politics and International Studies, said: “This award not only reflects Charlotte’s brilliance as a leading international researcher in politics and international studies, but also the strength of the University of Warwick’s research infrastructure and the dedicated support of our specialist colleagues who supported and assisted with the application.”