When the British Academy organised a discussion on the current state of British democracy on 2 March 2009, no one could have predicted the storm that was about to overwhelm the political establishment. Martin Kettle discusses how the current furore highlights some deeper failings in our democratic system.
Dr Colin Irwin explains how public opinion polls can be used in long-running conflicts to help the pursuit of peace.
On 20 March 2009, the British Academy held a workshop to consider continuity and change in the socio-political roles of voluntarism and voluntary associations in British society. The convenor of the event, Professor Pat Thane FBA, charts the history of the voluntary sector from Victorian times to the present day.
Short notices about 2009 British Academy events on: Language matters; Rescuing the housing market; Civil war and foreign intervention in Spain.
The industrial strife that beset the Callaghan government in the winter of 1978–79, the ‘winter of discontent’, was seen at the time as a key factor in Labour’s defeat in the 1979 general election. On 22 January 2009 – the 30th anniversary of that winter’s first public sector ‘day of …
Professor Bruce Baker explains how one small nation’s approach to government has lessons for the rest of Africa.
As part of a wider British Academy-funded project on democracy in the Arab-Mediterranean world, Dr Michelle Pace conducted a number of interviews in Palestine, including with representatives of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas). Here Dr Pace provides an account of those interviews, and goes on to discuss ways in …
The Bentham Project is one of 50 longstanding endeavours that bear the title ‘British Academy Research Project’. The Director is Professor Philip Schofield. Members of the Bentham Project at University College London describe their work to promote the study of a profoundly influential political thinker.
At the British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship Symposium on 22 April 2009, Dr Alice Forbess contributed to a discussion on how scholarship can offer perspectives on ‘global interactions’. Here she describes how a failure to understand local culture has complicated a well-intentioned initiative aimed at fostering reconciliation in Kosovo.
On a wintry 4 February 2009, Sir Mark Allen, one of the world’s leading Arabists and a special adviser for BP, gave the third in the series of ‘Politics and Energy’ lectures, at the Royal United Services Institute in London.
In 2008–09, the British Academy, the Science Museum and the Mile End Group of Queen Mary, University of London have jointly sponsored a series of lectures on ‘Politics and energy’. On 6 May 2008 at the Science Museum, Professor Sir Roger Williams began the series – listing the lessons to …
On 6 November 2008 at the British Academy, Sir Crispin Tickell gave the second in the series of ‘Politics and Energy’ lectures, jointly sponsored by the British Academy, the Mile End Group of Queen Mary, University of London, and the Science Museum.