Britain’s upcoming referendum on the EU, democracy in Thailand, a discussion based around a new book and much more: these are just some of the topics and opportunities included in our calendar of events for the next academic term.
Since moving into our new home, we are keen to share our spaces and give something back to our local Oxford community. So as we prepare to start the new term, we want to highlight some of the upcoming seminars, talks and debates that everyone can attend.
We kick off next week with Maria Elena Boschi, Italian Minister for Institutional Reforms and Relations with Parliament, who will talk about “Institutional changes in Italy”. The event is co-hosted with the Oxford University Italian Society and the Italian Embassy in London and moderated by our dean Ngaire Woods.
Towards the end of the month, we turn our attention to democracy in Thailand after the military regime. In this talk, moderated by Professor Nick Rawlins, the leader of the Democrat Party of Thailand and former Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva will discuss Thailand’s role in the Asean Economic Community (AEC) as well as the AEC’s position as a force of the global stage.
Times columnist and author David Aaronovitch will be with us soon after to talk about his new book “Party Animals: My Family and Other Communists” and the modern resurgence of radical politics. The event is particularly promising, not least because it will be moderated by MPP student Diwakar Kishore. There will also be the opportunity to purchase a copy of the book thanks to Blackwell’s bookshop and maybe event have it signed by the author.
With recent polls showing that only 1 in 6 Brits feel they know enough about the EU referendum, more opportunities to hear to both sides of the argument are needed. We’ve organised a public debate on the EU referendum that will take place on 3 May: still a few weeks away from the vote, the debate will be a chance for everyone to hear the political and economics arguments, ask their questions and also discover the perspectives of other countries thanks to our students who hail from all around the world.
Other events include the “Democracy and difference” seminar series coordinated by associate professor Maya Tudor which will take on amongst other topics, the quota system in India and “the puzzle of non-Western democracies” and the Challenges of Government Conference 2016 which will tackle some of the biggest challenges of recent years – public service reform.
More public events will be announced as the term continues so please keep checking our website. For those who are not in Oxford, the good news is that we live stream most of our events on our YouTube channel (and the recording will appear soon afterwards).
See all of our events and register to attend on our Events page
Image: John Cairns
