The Academy

CSIS

Podcasts to make me think

Academy of Ideas

Aristotle’s ethics: on what constitutes the good life, Professor Joe Friggieri

An introduction to morality, Angus Kennedy

Lecture and discussion at The Academy 2014, a summer school organised by the Institute of Ideas, 18-21 July.

http://instituteofideas.com/events/archive/the_academy_2014

Morality, Politics and Religion in Euripidean Tragedy, Dr Jon Hesk

Lecture and discussion at The Academy 2014, a summer school organised by the Institute of Ideas, 18-21 July.

http://instituteofideas.com/events/archive/the_academy_2014

What is the truth about Love? Learning from Plato’s Symposium, Dr Armand D’Angour

Might and right in Thucydides’ Peloponnesian Wars, Professor Neville Morley

Globalists see themselves as the peacekeepers through their advocacy of the values of liberalism, free trade, democracy and internationalism. Yet the actions of the institutions over which they preside seem to bring the opposite. They generate division and conflict both within nations and also between them. So we have heightened polarisation within Brexit Britain, as well as within other leading European countries. Within the European Union, tensions have escalated both between north and south, and between west and east. And despite the claimed Macron-Trump bromance, trans-Atlantic conflicts are mounting too. Is all this an inevitable outcome of the globalist perspective that denies the effectiveness of national state policies? Is there a solution to the widely held ‘global trilemma’, suggested by the writer Dani Rodrik? This says that economic globalisation, democracy and national sovereignty are mutually incompatible: we can combine any two of the three, but never have all three simultaneously and in full.

The Academy 2018: Globalism and neo-liberalism - Phil Mullan

A recording of a lecture by Rachel Hammersley at The Academy 2018, a residential weekend organised by the Academy of Ideas. Find out more here: http://www.academyofideas.org.uk/events/archive/the_academy_2018#.W26sCOhKi3B

Rachel Hammersley is senior lecturer, intellectual history, Newcastle University; author, The English Republican Tradition and Eighteenth-Century France; editor, Revolutionary Moments: reading revolutionary texts

Introduction:

Popular sovereignty lies at the heart of our modern understanding of democracy government. But what does this concept mean and how did it emerge? In the large states of Northern Europe, for much of the medieval period and beyond, the term ‘sovereign’ was conventionally used to describe a monarch. Yet, from the sixteenth century onwards, the concept was being transformed. This lecture traces that transformation, taking in the influential distinction drawn by Jean Bodin between sovereignty and government and the practical and theoretical developments arising out of the English, American and French Revolutions.

TASCAM DR-07 

Academy 2018: The Transformation of the Concept of Popular Sovereignty in Early-Modern Europe

A recording of a lecture by Dr Jim Panton at The Academy 2018, a residential weekend organised by the Academy of Ideas. Find out more here: http://www.academyofideas.org.uk/events/archive/the_academy_2018#.W5ur3vlKiUl

Liberalism is generally, and many liberals are in particular, ambivalent about nationalism. On the one hand, early liberal and republican thinkers developed bold attempts to theorise sovereignty as the foundation of state legitimacy and unifying condition of the nation. On the other hand, liberal thinkers have struggled to justify the accidental character of national boundaries and the implications these have for inhabitants of different nations. Further, modern liberals disavow the chauvinism they believe to be inherent in nationalism, proposing instead a cosmopolitan ethics. This lecture considers the development of the liberal ideal of the state in the thought of Locke, Rousseau, and ultimately, Kant, and looks at the extent to which the Kantian model of sovereignty as the foundation of nation-statehood, is increasingly maligned.

The Academy 2018

Academy 2018: The ideal of the liberal nation state

In this episode, we discuss conflict resolution and development in the northeast Indian state of Nagaland. The long-running insurgency in Nagaland looks to be drawing to a close following conclusion of a framework for a peace agreement in 2015 between the government of India and the Naga rebels, but a final peace deal is still pending. For Nagaland's state government, the challenge for the future is solidifying good governance that will translate to development.

Joining the pod to provide an update on the peace process, state politics, and efforts to increase infrastructure and investment in Nagaland is Mr. Abu Metha. Mr. Metha is a journalist and political organizer who serves as the General Secretary of the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party in Nagaland. He recently sat down with CSIS Wadhwani Chair Research Associate Aman Thakker to share his insights on the current status of Nagaland. 

Audio edited by Ribka Gemilangsari. Written by Jeffrey Bean and Aman Thakker.  Produced by Jeffrey Bean.

Spotlight on Nagaland Post-Insurgency

Today, everything seems to be an expression of contemporary ‘narcissism’, from dismissing millennials as Generation Me to describing Donald Trump as the ‘narcissist in chief’. It seems your boss or co-workers, everyone on Tinder, celebrities, even your parents are all ‘narcissists’. But has it become a lazy cliché? Or is it an accurate diagnosis of today’s identity-driven politics, which puts
the self and self-esteem centre stage? Why do we reach so quickly for therapeutic categories to understand politics? Why has the idea of narcissism become so pervasive?

Me Me Me! Narcissism and the new politics of identity

Listen to the debate from the Battle of Ideas 2018.

In the past few years, remotely piloted air systems and unmanned air systems – commonly called ‘drones’ or ‘multicopters’ – have become widely popular. A relative lack of regulation until recently has meant that drones are still a controversial if exciting new technology, and society is undecided how best to deal with the challenges they pose. But will the danger of excessive regulation and the attention given to a new technology when problems arise mean we never get those benefits? How do we deal with concerns about safety and ethics, while ensuring we create an environment that allows the exciting promise of this technology to be implemented? Will a wider mood of risk-aversion keep drones firmly on the ground?

SPEAKERS

Dr Owen McAree
senior research officer with responsibility for drone-related research, Liverpool John Moores University; member, UK Governments Drone Industry Action Group

Dr Sophie Robinson
flight physicist; lead engineer, Kopter Group AG

Alastair Muir
safety director, NATS; chair, UN International Civil Aviation Organisation

Donald Clark
EdTech entrepreneur; CEO, WildFire

CHAIR: Timandra Harkness
journalist, writer and broadcaster; presenter, FutureProofing; author, Big Data: does size matter?

The session partners were NATS.

Drones: Will They Ever Take Off?

Listen to the debate from the Battle of Ideas 2018 festival at the Barbican in London on Sunday 14 October (www.battleofideas.org.uk).

Novelist Lionel Shriver isn’t afraid of speaking her mind. At the 2016 Brisbane Writers Festival, she caused a furore by calling into question the contemporary focus on identity politics, saying ‘I hope the concept of cultural appropriation is a passing fad’. More recently, she was accused of racism when arguing that diversity quotas in publishing mean literary excellence becomes secondary to ticking boxes. As well as a staunch defender of intellectual freedom, Shriver is perhaps better known as a multiple award-winning author. How difficult is it to criticise identity politics in today’s climate? Is diversity in the arts something to aspire to or should we focus on the content of what’s being published, rather than the writer?

CLAIRE FOX
director, Academy of Ideas; author, I STILL Find That Offensive!

IN CONVERSATION WITH:

LIONEL SHRIVER
award-winning novelist; novels include, We Need to Talk About Kevin (2005 Orange prize winner), The Mandibles: a family, 2029 – 2047 and The Post-Birthday World; her first short story collection, Property, was published this year

Is free speech a fiction? In conversation with Lionel Shriver

A recording of the debate at the Battle of Ideas 2018 festival on Saturday 13 October at the Barbican in London.

Language has always been a source of political controversy as much as a medium for discussing politics. Terms like ‘terrorist’ and ‘freedom fighter’ reveal the politics of the speaker as much as the nature of those described. But recent years have seen the proliferation of completely new terms: white Brexit voters are ‘gammons’, women critical of feminism have ‘internalised misogyny’, students are ‘snowflakes’. It can be hard to keep up. But is the way we talk about politics simply changing, or becoming impoverished? What’s the line between the natural evolution of political language, and its degeneration into trendy slurs?

SPEAKERS

Professor Frank Furedi
sociologist and social commentator; author, How Fear Works: culture of fear in the 21st century and Populism and the European Culture Wars

Sophia Gaston
director, Centre for Social and Political Risk, Henry Jackson Society; visiting research fellow, London School of Economics

Professor Dr Robert Pfaller
philosopher, University of Art and Industrial Design, Linz, Austria; author, (in German)

Battle of Ideas 2018

From SJW to gammon: weaponising political language

In the second of our end-of-year round-ups for 2018, the Academy of Ideas team - Claire Fox, Alastair Donald, Geoff Kidder, Rob Lyons, Jacob Reynolds and Ella Whelan - discuss a year of Brexit battles, the prospect of a second referendum and what the future holds for British democracy.

Podcast of Ideas - Brexit special

In the third of our end-of-year round-ups for 2018, the Academy of Ideas team - Claire Fox, Alastair Donald, Geoff Kidder, Rob Lyons, Jacob Reynolds and Ella Whelan - discuss everything non-Brexit in 2018. Is there a populist revolt spreading across Europe? What has happened in the gender wars of 2018? And is free speech still under threat?

Podcast of Ideas - the 2018 culture wars

Listen to recordings of our discussions and debates. Our aim is to expand the boundaries of public debate, to break out of today's echo chambers and challenge orthodoxies.