Other News

Dr Steven Kettell has been shortlisted for the National Secular Society's Secularist of the Year Award

The award, which comes with a £5000 prize recognises a campaigner or group for an outstanding contribution to the secularist movement.

Following nominations from their members and supports, the elected council of management of the National Secular Society selects a shortlist, with the winner due to be announced at the event on 18 March.

He was nominated for co-ordinating a secular response to the Commission on Religion and Belief. His work helped rebut calls for more religious privilege, and set out the urgent case for a new secular constitutional settlement in the UK.

Dr Kettell said it was "a great surprise and a genuine honour to be shortlisted for the Secularist of the Year Award." He said his own research had convinced him that "secularism is the best means of ensuring equal rights and freedoms for all citizens, regardless of their religion or belief."

More information can be found on their website.

Maria Koinova and Dzeneta Karabegovic are organizing a workshop “Diasporas and Transitional Justice” on 21 February, 2017 in Baltimore, MD.

The workshop is conducted within the framework of the European Research Council Starting Grant “Diasporas and Contested Sovereignty,” and will take place prior to the annual convention of the International Studies Association 2017. It will discuss a novel research line to study the involvement of diasporas and other non-state actors in transitional justice processes in deeply divided societies. The workshop will gather established and early career scholars working on issues of reconciliation and remembrance of the past, genocide recognition, and mobilization activities such as competition, cooperation, and coalition-building through offline and online activism. Empirical cases are derived from all parts of the world, with specific references to Armenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Haiti, Ukraine, Kurdish areas in the Middle East, Palestine, Sri Lanka, Syria, and Vietnam, among others.

A follow-up workshop with a different group of scholars will take place at Warwick University on 3 April, 2017.

Jennifer Philippa Eggert has written a blog post on Donald Trump's visa ban / Muslim ban and the reasons why, as a Muslim woman, she is still planning to attend the upcoming ISA conference in the US.

Jennifer's blog, for the LSE Gender Institute, can be read here: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/gender/2017/02/09/when-attendance-is-resistance-why-as-a-muslim-woman-i-am-not-going-to-boycott-isa2017/

In an article for openDemocracy, PAIS PhD researcher Ragnar Weilandt argues that US president Trump is poised to repeat some of the Bush administration’s most fatal errors.

Dr Trevor McCrisken has been quoted in a number of articles recently discussing United States President, Donald Trump.

In an article on Friday February 3rd, titled "Donald Trump not in Situation Room for 'botched' Yemen raid that killed up to 30 civilians and one US Navy SEAL," Dr McCrisken is quoted saying:

“Some presidents are very hands-on and very keen to be present in the Situation Room as major operations are being carried out. Obama and Bush were fairly regular there.” He added: “My sense is that some presidents have been less enamoured with the idea of always being there.”

And in an article on Sunday February 5th, "US would go into any war with China with 'unparalleled violence', warn experts," Dr McCrisken's quotes are used heavily.

Trevor McCrisken, associate professor of politics and international studies at the University of Warwick, said that if war broke out "we would be looking, I would imagine, at World War Three".

He said: "I really do think that would be the end of life as we know it on Earth.

"From a global strategic risk level I would say the last thing you want is war between the United States and any of the major powers because of the risks of escalation, obviously the potential for nuclear weapons to be used. The likelihood of nuclear exchange between the two principals involved is high."

But, he added, the "overwhelming view of most policy-makers in Washington since at least the late 1970s" favours a form of "cooperative, if competitive" relationship with China.

The comments have also been picked up by The Sun.