Other News

On 22nd January 2018 we held our annual Students’ Question Time event, which follows on from our main Question Time held in October, when we invite politicians and policy makers to discuss topical issues. The panel members were students from PAIS, PPE, Economics, Economic and History, with the debate being moderated by Chair Dr Claudia Rei.

The topics tackled by our student panelists ranged from whether social media was the root cause for intolerance to other cultures and religions, the rise of populism on both sides of the Atlantic and its effect on neo-liberal world order and whether the UK government should withdraw Trump's invitation for a state visit.

Claudi Rei, the Chair, has summed up the event:

"Engaging topics and fruitful discussion on issues of interest to students ranging from the economics of social media to international politics"

The National Student Survey (NSS) is now open at the link below. In partnership with our students, we have built the department together. Thank you! We’d love your feedback on the three or four years you have spent with us.

TAKE THE SURVEY – DIRECT LINK TO COMPLETE THE NSS

Why else complete the survey?

• Treat Yourself – each online participant will receive £5 Eating at Warwick credit, as a thank you
•  Help Someone Else – for each response, PAIS will donate £5 to the Warwick Cancer Research Centre, our finalists chosen charity
• Shape the Department - your feedback will help shape the future of the PAIS department

It will take just 5 minutes to complete. Your feedback matters and makes a huge difference as shown on our You Said We Did page.

Please remember the £5 credit only applies to those who complete online so please complete early to ensure you do not lose out.

Simply send your confirmation email – after completing the survey - to NSS-Promotion@warwick.ac.uk to receive your £5.

The results are highly visible, often reported in the media and used by prospective students to help make their university choices. Their high profile has delivered positive, progressive change for PAIS students.

Last year PAIS achieved 94% for overall satisfaction. In recent years PAIS has often had the highest participation rate across the University.

Dr Ben Richardson addressed the European Parliament Subcommittee on Human Rights on 25^th January on the topic of labour rights and trade. The presentation followed on from Dr Richardson’s report on the effectiveness of the EU’s GSP+ trade scheme and was followed by comments from MEPs and European Commission officials. The report and presentation have been timed to feed into reform debates regarding the EU’s trade policy toward developing countries.

Dr. Maria Koinova published an article "Beyond Statist Paradigms: Sociospatial Positionality and Diaspora Mobilisation in International Relations" in the December 2017 issue of International Studies Review. The article develops a new positional theory for the analysis of diaspora mobilisation in IR, seeking to shift debates beyond realist, liberalist, and constructivist thinking, and speaking to a cluster of socio-positional theories in IR. The piece provides a conceptual discussion and empirical illustrations of diaspora positionality, and its utility to account for different diaspora mobilisation trajectories across the globe. In the development of a comprehensive theory, she focuses on the agency of diasporas and their moderate and transgressive behaviors. Empirically, it discusses diaspora mobilization of Armenians for genocide recognition and of Palestinians for an emerging statehood.

This article is open access: https://academic.oup.com/isr/article/19/4/597/4732605 

You can watch a short video on the article here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYSR6ErgOUM

Professor Ben Clift has been awarded a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship for a project entitled ‘The OBR and the Politics of UK Growth amidst Brexit, Uncertainty and Austerity’. This will run from October 1st 2018 to September 30th 2021. The trust noted that ‘The competition for these Fellowships has been particularly keen. The Trust received 186 applications and awarded 33 Fellowships. More importantly, the quality of the applications was extremely high and the Trust Board has been gratified both by the outcome and by the distinction of the successful scholars.’

Ben’s Major Research Fellowship will draw back the veil on how UK growth assessments are constructed amidst pervasive uncertainty to explore the implications of Brexit and the British model of capitalism. The project penetrates the world of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) in path-breaking fashion to reveal an under-appreciated politics of economic forecasting, and to analyse the political economy of Brexit. The analysis will explore how economic concepts used to frame and pilot economic policy, even when advanced by technocratic bodies like the OBR, are political constructions, always founded upon contestable and contested normative assumptions. Growth forecasts crucially mediate the politics of austerity through their implications for the tax take, and in assumptions they make about effects of government policy (and shocks like the GFC or Brexit) on actual and potential growth. Government policy options are opened up or closed off by particular renderings of Britain’s growth trajectory and their assumptive foundations (notably about Brexit effects).

This hugely impressive achievement means that the Department of Politics and International Studies now holds a record four Leverhulme Major Research Fellowships — the others being held by Professors Richard Aldrich, Shaun Breslin, and Mike Saward.