Computer algorithms shape our lives and increasingly control our future. They have crept into virtually every aspect of modern life and are making life-changing choices on our behalf, often without us realising. But how much power should we give to them and have we let things go too far? Joanna Bale talks to Ken Benoit, Andrew Murray, Seeta Peña Gangaradhan, Alison Powell and Bernhard Von Stengel.
Research links: Hello World by Hannah Fry; 
Information Technology Law: The Law and Society by Andrew Murray; 
Explanations as Governance? Investigating practices of explanation in algorithmic system design by Alison Powell (forthcoming).

LSE iQ is a university podcast by the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Do algorithms have too much power?

What does the post-pandemic future hold for office workers? Will we drift back to old ways of working, or continue with hybrid/remote working? What do the experts advise on how best to adapt?

Joanna Bale talks to LSE’s Connson Locke, Grace Lordan and Carsten Sorensen, as well as Hailley Griffis, a social media management company executive, who believes that offices will soon become extinct.

LSE iQ is a university podcast by the London School of Economics and Political Science.

LSE IQ podcast

Has COVID killed the office?

This episode of LSE iQ asks do we need the arts to change the world?  

As the UK government looks to recover from the costs of the pandemic its decision to cut funding for creative higher education courses could be seen as a pragmatic response to the changed world or a short-signted move. LSE IQ talks to researchers who have used the creative arts to communicate their findings, and the President of the British Academy, about why the SHAPE (the Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts for People and the Economy) campaign is so important for today’s world.  

We’ll be hearing from Dr Alexandra Gomes, co-creator of Kuwaitscapes (More on the research project that inspired the game, and to download the Kuwaitscapes game), Professor Patrick Wallis, who created an audio drama from the records of a historical document discovered about the Lock Asylum, a home for down-and-out women, Professor Emily Jackson, whose work on fertility has led to a change in the law, and British Academy President and LSE Professor Julia Black, who is spearheading the SHAPE campaign.  

 
Dr Alexandra Gomes, Research Fellow, LSE Cities and co-creator of the Kuwaitscapes card.   

Professor Patrick Wallis, Professor of Economic History, Department of Economic History, LSE  

Professor Emily Jackson, Professor of Law, LSE Law School 

Professor Julia Black, Head of Innovation, LSE, and President, the British Academy.

LSE iQ is a university podcast by the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Do we need the arts to change the world?

11 Who is leading Europe’s cities?  Catarina Heeckt

Speaker(s): Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs | In this public lecture Professor Sachs will talk about his upcoming book, The Age of Sustainable Development, which explains the central concept for our age, which is both a way of understanding the world and a method for solving global problems - sustainable development. Sustainable development tries to make sense of the interactions of three complex systems: the world economy, the global society, and the Earth's physical environment. It recommends a holistic framework, in which society aims for environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive development, underpinned by good governance. It is a way to understand the world, yet is also a normative or ethical view of the world: a way to define the objectives of a well-functioning society, one that delivers wellbeing for its citizens today and in future generations. This book describes key challenges and solutions pathways for every part of the world to be involved in problem solving, brainstorming, and determining new and creative ways to ensure inclusive and sustainable growth. Jeffrey D. Sachs (@jeffdsachs) is a world-renowned professor of economics, leader in sustainable development, senior UN advisor, best selling author, and syndicated columnist whose monthly newspaper columns appear in more than 100 countries. He has twice been named among Time Magazine's 100 most influential world leaders. He was called by the New York Times, "probably the most important economist in the world," and by Time Magazine "the world's best known economist." A recent survey by The Economist Magazine ranked Professor Sachs as among the world's three most influential living economists of the past decade. Professor Sachs serves as the Director of The Earth Institute, Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development, and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University. He is Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the Millennium Development Goals, having held the same position under former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. He is Director of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. He is co-founder and Chief Strategist of Millennium Promise Alliance, and is director of the Millennium Villages Project. Sachs is also one of the Secretary-General's MDG Advocates, and a Commissioner of the ITU/UNESCO Broadband Commission for Development. He has authored three New York Times best sellers in the past seven years: The End of Poverty (2005), Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet (2008), and The Price of Civilization (2011). His most recent book is To Move the World: JFK's Quest for Peace (2013). His upcoming book The Age of Sustainable Development will be published by Columbia University Press on March 10, 2015. Jonathan Leape is the Executive Director of the International Growth Centre (IGC) at LSE. The International Growth Centre (@The_IGC) aims to promote sustainable growth in developing countries by providing demand-led policy advice based on frontier research. Based at LSE and in partnership with Oxford University, the IGC is initiated and funded by DFID. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).

The Age of Sustainable Development [Audio]

In an article in the July/August edition of Foreign Affairs magazine, “Might Unmakes Right: The Catastrophic Collapse of Norms Against the Use of Force”, Oona Hathaway and Scott Shapiro look at the history of the prohibition of the use of force between states and discuss what they see as the current assault on this prohibition.

To discuss her article, in July 2025 the Phelan US Centre spoke to Professor Oona Hathaway, the Gerard C. and Bernice Latrobe Smith Professor of International Law at Yale Law School. They spoke about the shift in US foreign policy since the return of the Trump administration, the historic move from war being a legitimate diplomatic tool to being constrained by law, and the role of sanctions in enforcing international norms about the use of force.

This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Luke Digweed.  

Further reading and resources

•	Follow Professor Oona Hathaway on X (@oonahathaway), Bluesky (‪@oonahathaway.bsky.social‬‬) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/oona-hathaway) 
•	“Might Unmakes Right: The Catastrophic Collapse of Norms Against the Use of Force”, Oona Hathaway and Scott Shapiro, Foreign Affairs, 24 June 2025
•	“The Dangerous Rise of “Dual-Use” Objects in War”, Oona A. Hathaway, Azmat Khan & Mara R. Revkin, The Yale Law Journal, June 2025
•	“War Unbound Gaza, Ukraine, and the Breakdown of International Law”, Foreign Affairs, Oona Hathaway, 23 April 2024
•	The Internationalists: How a Radical Plan to Outlaw War Remade the World Oona Hathaway and Scott Shapiro (Simon and Schuster, 2017)


LSE: The Ballpark | Might unmakes right with Professor Oona Hathaway

Across the world, far right ideas, once confined to the political fringe, have entered the mainstream. They spread through social media feeds and dominate tabloid headlines. Many fear they’re transforming politics, threatening democracy and tearing at the fabric of society. 
Joanna Bale meets Imam Adam Kelwick, whose Liverpool mosque was surrounded by an angry mob after the murders of three young girls in nearby Southport. He tells an extraordinary story of bravery and reconciliation. She also talks to Tim Bale, Professor of Politics at Queen Mary University of London, about the booming popularity of Nigel Farage. Marta Lorimer, Visiting Fellow at LSE’s European Institute and Lecturer in Politics at Cardiff University, discusses how millions are voting for far right parties across Europe. And Michael Vaughan, Research Fellow at LSE’s International Inequalities Institute, dissects Elon Musk’s far right political agenda. 
Contributors: Professor Tim Bale, Imam Adam Kelwick, Dr Marta Lorimer, Dr Michael Vaughan.
Research links: 
Tim Bale: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0263395718754718
https://theloop.ecpr.eu/why-we-need-to-halt-hard-right-in-its-tracks/
https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/reform-members
Marta Lorimer: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/europe-as-ideological-resource-9780198892366?cc=gb&lang=en&
 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00323217251346639
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nana.13001
Michael Vaughan: https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/22639
LSE iQ is a university podcast by the London School of Economics and Political Science.


How is the far right shaping our future?

With the growth of the capability of artificial intelligence (AI), there is growing concern that this technology could make millions of jobs – and their workers – obsolete. 

In the third episode of The Ballpark’s miniseries on AI and the US, the Phelan US Centre explored the impacts AI is already having on the workforce with Baobao Zhang, Maxwell Dean Associate Professor of the Politics of AI in the Political Science Department at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. Professor Zhang’s research and work focuses on trust in digital technology and the governance of artificial intelligence  

The discussion covers how recent advances in AI have shifted the landscape when it comes to labor automation, the anxiety that many people are feeling about the potential for AI to affect jobs and industries through automation, and what students should be doing to best prepare for a career in workplaces that will be affected by AI in the coming decades. 

This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Luke Digweed.   

Further reading and resources 

Lee, Y.S, Soroushian, J., Bullock, J., Carroll, M., Dokko, J., Dominski, J., Hinds, R., Holzer, H., Horrigan, M., Munyikwa, Z., Oschinski, M., Radsch, C., Rock, D., Rossi, M., Seamans, R., Zhang, B. (2025). “Proactively Developing and Assisting the Workforce in the Age of AI.” Americans for Responsible Innovation and the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame. 

Zhang, Baobao and Dafoe, Allan, Artificial Intelligence: American Attitudes and Trends (January 9, 2019).  

Zhang, B., Anderljung, M., Kahn, L., Dreksler, N., Horowitz, M.C. and Dafoe, A. (2021). Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence: Evidence from a Survey of Machine Learning Researchers. Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research,  

Baobao Zhang. 2022. No Rage Against the Machines: Threat of Automation Does Not Change Policy Preferences. In Proceedings of the 2022 AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society (AIES '22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 856–866. https://doi.org/10.1145/3514094.3534179 

LSE: The Ballpark | AI automation and the workforce with Dr Baobao Zhang

AI has legal consequences. Who is responsible when AI makes a mistake which causes harm or financial loss? What role does government regulation play, and do we need to revise our legal frameworks in the face of increasingly capable AI?

To talk about these issues, in July 2025, the Phelan US Centre spoke to Dr Anat Lior, an assistant professor at Drexel University’s Thomas R. Kline School of Law. Her research interests include AI governance and liability, quantum computing policy, the intersection of insurance and emerging technologies, and intellectual property law.

This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Luke Digweed.  

Further reading and resources

•	Lior, Anat, AI Entities as AI Agents: Artificial Intelligence Liability and the AI Respondeat Superior Analogy (August 31, 2019). 46 Mitchell Hamline Law Review (2020).
•	Lior, Anat, Insuring AI: The Role of Insurance in Artificial Intelligence Regulation (August 10, 2021). Harvard Journal of Law & Technology, Vol. 35, No. 2, 2022.
•	Lior, Anat, E/Insuring the AI Age: Empirical Insights into Artificial Intelligence Liability Policies. 31 Conn. Ins. L.J. (forthcoming, 2025)
•	Unveiling the Quasi-Regulatory Landscape: Empirical Insights into AI Liability Policies - By Dr. Anat Lior, Sonal Madhok and Stuart Calam | April 30, 2025 

Take the Ballpark Listener survey and enter the prize draw for £250 in vouchers!

The Ballpark will be ten years old in 2026, and we want to hear from you to make the podcast even better, so we’re running a listener survey until 2 February 2026. 

•	Fill in our listener survey – it only takes 15 minutes – here: https://forms.office.com/e/Vcj8V8uGM1 
•	Voucher prize draw terms and conditions are available here: https://www.lse.ac.uk/united-states/the-ballpark/ballpark-listener-survey-prize-terms-conditions-2025

LSE: The Ballpark | Who is liable for AI? With Dr Anat Lior

AI is now increasingly playing a role in many parts of our lives, and the workplace is no exception. AI is now being used by employers to help them to recruit new staff and by jobseekers in their applications. But AI is also now present when we work. It’s used by employers to manage their employees, from monitoring what they are doing during the day, to what they post on social media. 

To talk about the rise of AI in the workplace, and what it means for workers and employers, in August 2025, the Phelan US Centre spoke to Professor Ifeoma Ajunwa, Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law at Emory University. Professor Ajunwa is also the Founding Director of the AI and Future of Work Program at Emory University School of Law. Her research interests are at the intersection of law and technology with a particular focus on the ethical governance of workplace technologies. 

This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Luke Digweed.  

Further reading and resources
•	Ajunwa, Ifeoma, A.I. and Captured Capital (June 30, 2024). 134 Yale L. J. Forum (2025).
•	Ajunwa, Ifeoma, Artificial Intelligence, Afrofuturism, and Economic Justice, 112 Geo. L.J. 1267 (2024). (November 01, 2023). Georgetown Law Journal, volume 112, pg 1267, 
•	Ajunwa, I., (2023). The quantified worker: law and technology in the modern workplace. Cambridge University Press. 
•	Ajunwa, Ifeoma, Automated Video Interviewing as the New Phrenology (July 19, 2021). 36 Berkeley Tech. L.J. 101 (2022).
•	Does ‘Bossware’ Boost Worker Productivity? It’s Far From Clear – Wall Street Journal Tech Briefing
•	Protecting Employees’ Health Data – New York Times - 27 March 2016

Take the Ballpark Listener survey and enter the prize draw for £250 in vouchers!

The Ballpark will be ten years old in 2026, and we want to hear from you to make the podcast even better, so we’re running a listener survey until 2 February 2026.

•	Fill in our listener survey – it only takes 15 minutes – here: https://forms.office.com/e/Vcj8V8uGM1 
•	Voucher prize draw terms and conditions are available here: https://www.lse.ac.uk/united-states/the-ballpark/ballpark-listener-survey-prize-terms-conditions-2025

LSE: The Ballpark | AI and the workplace with Professor Ifeoma Ajunwa

Exploring the reasons people might find themselves with problematic levels of debt, the options open to those in financial trouble and how bankruptcy laws could be used more impactfully to the benefit of both individuals and society; this month we revisit an episode from 2023 which asks, “Do we always need to pay our debts?” 

It's a question that has come back into focus recently as the UK continues to grapple with elevated interest rates and the lingering effects of inflation, putting increasing pressure on household budgets and reigniting debates around debt and repayment. 

Jess Winterstein talks to: Dr Joseph Spooner, Associate Professor in the LSE Law School and author of Bankruptcy: the case for relief in an economy of debt, and Sara Williams, founder of debt advisory website Debt Camel. https://debtcamel.co.uk/

LSE iQ is a university podcast by the London School of Economics and Political Science. We’re keen to find out more about our audience so we can better tailor our content to suit your interests. With this in mind, we would be grateful if you could please take the time to fill out this short survey and share your feedback.

https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=_epnVXfnpUKRu5RA_UO4k9i3ygPzxbNDuStfrFFNRBNUMzYxS1BITDlHTkdYMVhaVE9LRDhNQkxaVC4u

Do we need to pay our debts?

The LSE Phelan US Centre's regular podcast, The Ballpark, will be 10 years old in 2026. Ahead of our anniversary, and after more than 140 episodes speaking to academic experts on topics from across the social sciences, we'd like to find out what you think about the podcast with a listener survey.  

It only takes 10-15 minutes, and you'll have the chance to enter a prize draw to win £250 in vouchers.  

The Ballpark brings academic commentary to a wide audience, including to students, policymakers and a global community of academics. Recent highlights include The US’ changing relationship with NATO and Europe with Dr Celeste Wallander and an ongoing mini-series on AI and the US covering topics including AI’s effects on the workplace and the US-China AI race. 

Fill in our listener survey, here: https://forms.office.com/e/Vcj8V8uGM1  

Voucher prize draw terms and conditions are available here: https://www.lse.ac.uk/united-states/the-ballpark/ballpark-listener-survey-prize-terms-conditions-2025  

Thanks for listening! 

Take our Ballpark podcast survey and you could win £250 in vouchers!

To talk about social media and politics, and how AI can help spread – or tackle – disinformation, the Phelan US Centre spoke to Dr Josephine Lukito, Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Journalism and Media. Her research specializes in malicious political language in the public sphere, focusing on cross-platform flows of messages and frames about global economic and political issues. 

The discussion covers how social media and AI are influencing political communication, disinformation, and election strategies in the US and globally and about the evolving role of platforms, algorithms, and AI tools in shaping elections and democratic governance.

This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Avan Fata.  

Further reading and resources
•	Lukito, J., & Pevehouse, J. C. (2022). Competing for attention on Twitter during the 2012 and 2016 U.S. presidential debates. Journal of Information Technology & Politics, 20(2), 125–138. 
•	Rodarte, A. K., & Lukito, J. (2024). Does Social Media Level the Political Field or Reinforce Existing Inequalities? Cartographies of the 2022 Brazilian Election. Political Communication, 42(3), 382–404. 
•	Lukito, J., Lee, T., Martin, Z., Glover, K., Hu, A., & Cui, Z. (2023). Connective action in Myanmar: a mixed-method analysis of Spring Revolution. Information, Communication & Society, 27(7), 1422–1440. 
•	Candidata - https://www.candidata24.org/ 

Take the Ballpark Listener survey and enter the prize draw for £250 in vouchers!

The Ballpark will be ten years old in 2026, and we want to hear from you to make the podcast even better, so we’re running a listener survey until 2 February 2026.

•	Fill in our listener survey – it only takes 15 minutes – here: https://forms.office.com/e/Vcj8V8uGM1 
•	Voucher prize draw terms and conditions are available here: https://www.lse.ac.uk/united-states/the-ballpark/ballpark-listener-survey-prize-terms-conditions-2025

LSE: The Ballpark | AI, social media, and political disinformation with Dr Josephine Lukito

In August 2025, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization held its 25th annual summit in Tianjin, China, with the country’s leader Xi Jinping, hosting representatives from more than 20 countries including Russia’s Vladimir Putin and India’s Narendra Modi. The absence of the United States in this gathering of global leaders may tell us about how China is competing with the US and building its own global order.

To discuss China’s strategic competition with the US, and how it is evolving under the Trump administration, in September 2025, the Phelan US Centre spoke to Professor Evan Medeiros, the Penner Family Chair in Asian Studies and the Cling Family Senior Fellow in US-China Relations at Georgetown University.

This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Avan Fata.  

Further reading and resources

•	“China and Russia Will Not Be Split”, Michael McFaul and Evan S. Medeiros, Foreign Affairs, 4 April 2025
•	Medeiros, E. S., & Polk, A. (2025). China’s New Economic Weapons. The Washington Quarterly, 48(1), 99–123. 
•	“U.S.-China Relations for the 2030s: Toward a Realistic Scenario for Coexistence”, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace”, 17 October 2024
•	“The Delusion of Peak China”, Evan S. Medeiros, Foreign Affairs, 24 April 2024

Take the Ballpark Listener survey and enter the prize draw for £250 in vouchers!

The Ballpark will be ten years old in 2026, and we want to hear from you to make the podcast even better, so we’re running a listener survey until 2 February 2026.

•	Fill in our listener survey – it only takes 15 minutes – here: https://forms.office.com/e/Vcj8V8uGM1 
•	Voucher prize draw terms and conditions are available here: https://www.lse.ac.uk/united-states/the-ballpark/ballpark-listener-survey-prize-terms-conditions-2025

LSE: The Ballpark | US-China strategic competition with Professor Evan Medeiros

Will artificial intelligence cause huge unemployment? Will it free us from working? Will it replace us? In this special edition of LSE iQ, Sophie Mallett sits down with Professor Judy Wajcman, LSE’s Emeritus Professor of Sociology and one of the world’s leading voices on technology and society. Together, they explore one of the biggest questions of our time: what does artificial intelligence really mean for the future of work? 
 
In this wide-ranging conversation, Judy shares what really saves people time, talks about the fear of job replacement, and warns of the dangers of letting the most powerful tech companies design the future 
From Silicon Valley boardrooms to everyday lives, Judy challenges us to think differently about progress, productivity, and what we truly value as work. 
Contributors: Judy Wacjman  
Research links:  
From connection to optimisation 
How Silicon Valley sets time 
Feminism confronts AI: the gender relations of digitalisation 
LSE iQ is a university podcast by the London School of Economics and Political Science. 


Will AI free us from work?

The last three decades have seen China’s economic rise. Alongside this, China has become much more influential on the global stage, emerging as a competitor to the United States in many arenas, including as a technology and innovation leader. China has accomplished all this while continuing to be an authoritarian state, which is at odds with many conventional ideas about the relationship between autocracies and technology. 

To discuss China’s technological rise in the context of its autocratic government, in October 2025 the Phelan US Centre spoke to Dr Jennifer Lind, Associate Professor of Government at Dartmouth College and a leading expert on the international relations of East Asia, about her new book, Autocracy 2.0 How China's Rise Reinvented Tyranny.

This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Avan Fata.  

Further reading and resources

•	Autocracy 2.0 How China's Rise Reinvented Tyranny by Jennifer Lind (Cornell University Press, 2025)
•	Jennifer Lind and Michael Mastanduno. Hard Then, Harder Now: CoCom’s Lessons and the Challenge of Crafting Effective Export Controls Against China - Texas National Security Review (2025)
•	Blue Blaze on Substack

Take the Ballpark Listener survey and enter the prize draw for £250 in vouchers!

The Ballpark will be ten years old in 2026, and we want to hear from you to make the podcast even better, so we’re running a listener survey until 2 February 2026.

•	Fill in our listener survey – it only takes 15 minutes – here: https://forms.office.com/e/Vcj8V8uGM1 
•	Voucher prize draw terms and conditions are available here: https://www.lse.ac.uk/united-states/the-ballpark/ballpark-listener-survey-prize-terms-conditions-2025

LSE: The Ballpark | Autocracy 2.0: How China’s Rise Reinvented Tyranny with Dr Jennifer Lind

As long as there has been photographic and video imagery, there have been manipulated videos and photos. But only in the last decade or so have the public become aware of what are known as “deepfakes”, computer or AI generated fake images, often of celebrities. The spread of deepfake imagery raises questions about truth and authenticity online – can we still trust what we see on screen?

To discuss deepfakes, and the idea of trust and authenticity in the digital sphere more broadly, the Phelan US Centre spoke to Dr Gili Vidan, Assistant Professor of Information Science at Cornell University’s Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science.

This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Avan Fata.

Further reading and resources

•	Robert Chesney & Danielle K. Citron, Deep Fakes: A Looming Challenge for Privacy, Democracy, and National Security,107 California Law Review 1753 (2019).
•	Habgood-Coote, Joshua (2023). Deepfakes and the epistemic apocalypse. Synthese 201 (3):1-23.

Take the Ballpark Listener survey and enter the prize draw for £250 in vouchers!

The Ballpark will be ten years old in 2026, and we want to hear from you to make the podcast even better, so we’re running a listener survey until 2 February 2026. 

•	Fill in our listener survey – it only takes 15 minutes – here: https://forms.office.com/e/Vcj8V8uGM1 
•	Voucher prize draw terms and conditions are available here: https://www.lse.ac.uk/united-states/the-ballpark/ballpark-listener-survey-prize-terms-conditions-2025

LSE: The Ballpark | AI and deepfakes with Dr Gili Vidan

It seems every week we hear a new report of a cyber-attack. Recent examples include the hacks on Marks and Spencer's, Jaguar Land Rover, and the Co-op, all causing massive economic disruption.    

While these attacks seem to have come from cyber criminals working within the UK rather than other nation states, they highlight the destruction that cyber-attacks can wreak. What if those attacks were on our critical infrastructure? Our national grid? Our water supply? Is the UK prepared? 

Charlotte Kelloway meets former Director of Operations and Intelligence for the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Nigel Inkster, who discusses when a cyber-attack could constitute a declaration of war.  

She also talks to former Director Cyber in the Foreign Office and Associate Dean for Strategic Development at the LSE School of Public Policy Professor Alexander Evans about what the UK is doing defensively and offensively to prevent cyber-attacks.  

Dr Lauren Sukin from Nuffield College at the University of Oxford explains why there is a lack of regulation in the cyberwar space and explores if depictions of cyberwar in the media are realistic.  

Contributors: Professor Alexander Evans, Dr Lauren Sukin, Nigel Inkster    

Research links:  

Lauren Sukin: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00220027231153580  

Nigel Inkster: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Great-Decoupling-Struggle-Technological-Supremacy/dp/1787383830  

LSE iQ is a university podcast by the London School of Economics and Political Science.  

Will the next World War be a cyberwar?

Since returning to the White House for his second term in January 2025, Donald Trump has renewed his “America First” agenda by pursing a transactional approach to diplomacy and a desire to limit the US’ involvement overseas. This in turn is remoulding the global order.

To discuss Donald Trump’s “America First” foreign policy and the US’ place in the changing world order, in October 2025 the Phelan US Centre spoke to Professor Charles Kupchan, Professor of International Affairs in the School of Foreign Service and Government Department at Georgetown University, and Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Avan Fata.  

Further reading and resources
•	Charles A. Kupchan., No One's World: The West, the Rising Rest, and the Coming Global Turn (Oxford Academic, 2012),
•	Charles A. Kupchan, Isolationism: A History of America’s Efforts to Shield Itself from the World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020).
•	The promise and peril of Trump's America first – LSE Phelan US Centre event, including links to event video and podcast recording

Take the Ballpark Listener survey and enter the prize draw for £250 in vouchers!

The Ballpark will be ten years old in 2026, and we want to hear from you to make the podcast even better, so we’re running a listener survey until 2 February 2026.

•	Fill in our listener survey – it only takes 15 minutes – here: https://forms.office.com/e/Vcj8V8uGM1 
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LSE: The Ballpark | The promise and peril of Trump’s America First with Professor Charles Kupchan

This year LSE is celebrating its 130th anniversary, and how it has shaped history and driven change across the world. Much of LSE’s history is linked to the United States, from philanthropic support from the US in LSE’s early days to famous alumni and American directors of the School.

To talk about the LSE’s long and close relationship with the United States, in October 2025, the Phelan US Centre spoke to Professor Michael Cox. Professor Cox is a Founding Director of LSE IDEAS, LSE's foreign policy think tank, and was its Director between 2008 and 2019. He is also Emeritus Professor of International Relations at LSE and has been writing a history of LSE.

This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Avan Fata.  

Further reading and resources

•	Cox, Michael, John Ikenberry, and Takashi Inoguchi (eds), American Democracy Promotion: Impulses, Strategies, and Impacts (Oxford University Press, 2000)
•	Cox, M., & Stokes, D. (Eds.), US Foreign Policy (Oxford University Press, 2026)
•	Celebrating LSE's 130th anniversary

Take the Ballpark Listener survey and enter the prize draw for £250 in vouchers!

The Ballpark will be ten years old in 2026, and we want to hear from you to make the podcast even better, so we’re running a listener survey until 2 February 2026. 

•	Fill in our listener survey – it only takes 15 minutes – here: https://forms.office.com/e/Vcj8V8uGM1 
•	Voucher prize draw terms and conditions are available here: https://www.lse.ac.uk/united-states/the-ballpark/ballpark-listener-survey-prize-terms-conditions-2025

LSE: The Ballpark | LSE at 130 and the United States with Professor Michael Cox

Speaker(s): John Milbank | After the collapse of modern quasi-religions, religions themselves have been ideologised, while at the same time atheism has become a politics and genuine religious elements challenge secular legitimacy. Once religion returns to influence, liberal religious tolerance is exposed as an attempt to marginalise religion. Decisions about what type and range of religion to allow and favour, if any at all, have now become inescapable. The new political fault lines are metaphysical, but we must strive to shape subtler metaphysical options as expressed by our practices of order, which now, as ever (following Eric Voegelin) ultimately claim to represent reality. John Milbank (@johnmilbank3) is Research Professor of Religion, Politics and Ethics and Director of the Centre of Theology and Philosophy at the University of Nottingham. He is the founder of the radical orthodoxy movement and author of many books, including Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason. Matthew Engelke is Professor of Anthropology at LSE. Religion and the Public Sphere (@LSE_RPS) is a research project hosted by The Institute of Public Affairs and supported by the LSE Annual Fund.

The End of Religious Freedom and the Return of Religious Influence [Audio]

For more episodes visit http://lse.ac.uk/iq. To subscribe on iTunes visit http://apple.co/2r40QPA or search for 'LSE IQ' in your favourite podcast app.

Welcome to LSE IQ, a new monthly podcast from the London School of Economics and Political Science. This is the podcast where we ask some of the smartest social scientists - and other experts - to answer pressing questions about economics, politics or society. 

In this episode, Jo Bale investigates how big company bosses continue to command ever increasing salaries despite shareholder rebellions, government intervention and public criticism. She talks to Sir Vince Cable of LSE's Institute of Global Affairs, Deborah Hargreaves of the High Pay Centre, Dr Dirk Jenter, Associate Professor of Finance at LSE, Professor Sandy Pepper of LSE's Department of Management and Max Steuer of LSE's Centre for Philosophy. 

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Why is CEO pay so high?

To subscribe on Apple podcasts please visit http://apple.co/2r40QPA or search for 'LSE IQ' in your favourite podcast app or visit http://lse.ac.uk/iq

Welcome to LSE IQ, a new monthly podcast from the London School of Economics and Political Science. This is the podcast where we ask some of the leading social scientists - and other experts - to answer intelligent questions about economics, politics or society. 

It is with alarming regularity that reports of prison violence, overcrowding and concerns over the impact of funding cuts are hitting the headlines. With 46% of all prisoners reoffending within a year of release last year, the system could be considered not just expensive and unpleasant, but failing. In this episode, Jess Winterstein takes a look at the prison system in England and Wales and asks, is our prison system broken?   

This episode features: Dr Simon Bastow, LSE Fellow, Department of Management; Professor Nicola Lacey, School Professor of Law, Gender and Social Policy at LSE; and Dr Sharon Shalev, a fellow of the Mannheim Centre for the Study of Criminology and Criminal Science at LSE and founder of SolitaryConfinement.org

For further information about the podcast and all the related links visit http://lse.ac.uk/iq and please tell us what you think using the hashtag #LSEIQ.

Is our prison system broken?

Speaker(s): Professor John Mearsheimer, Professor Stephen Walt | A look at the nature and activities of the 'Israel lobby' in the United States, and how various groups and individuals have encouraged policies that are unintentionally harmful to both US and Israeli interests. John Mearsheimer is at the University of Chicago. Stephen Walt is at the John F Kennedy School of Government. Tue, 6 Nov 2007 18:30:00 GMT

The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy [Audio]

Speaker(s): Professor Daniel Kahneman, Professor Lord Richard Layard | Two systems drive the way we think and make choices: System One is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System Two is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. Over many years, Daniel Kahneman has conducted groundbreaking research into this – in his own words – "machinery of the mind". Fast thinking has extraordinary capabilities, but also faults and biases. Intuitive impressions have a pervasive influence on our thoughts and our choices. Only by understanding how the two systems work together, Kahneman shows, can we learn the truth about the role of optimism in opening up a new business, and the importance of luck in a successful corporate strategy, or the difficulties of predicting what will make us happy in the future, and the psychological pitfalls of playing the stock market. Kahneman shows where we can trust our intuitions and how we can tap into the benefits of slow thinking. He offers practical and enlightening insights into how choice are made in both our business and personal lives – and how we can guard against the mental glitches that often get us into trouble. This public conversation between Professor Kahneman and Professor Lord Layard celebrates the publication of Kahneman's new book Thinking, Fast and Slow. Daniel Kahneman is Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology Emeritus at Princeton University and a Professor of Public Affairs Emeritus at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. The recipient of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics for his seminal work in psychology that challenged the rational model of judgment and decision making, his ideas have had a profound and widely regarded impact on many disciplines – including economics, business, law and philosophy. Until now, he has never brought together his many years of research and thinking in one book. Richard Layard is Emeritus Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics, where he was, until 2003, the founder-director of the Centre for Economic Performance. He now heads the Centre's Programme on Well-Being. Since 2000 he has been a member of the House of Lords. Tue, 15 Nov 2011 18:30:00 GMT

Thinking Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman in conversation with Richard Layard [Audio]

Speaker(s): Eric Ries | Most new businesses fail. But most of those failures are preventable. The Lean Startup is a new approach to business that's being adopted around the world. It is changing the way companies are built and new products are launched. The Lean Startup is about learning what your customers really want. It's about testing your vision continuously, adapting and adjusting before it's too late. Now is the time to think Lean. This event marks the publication of Eric Ries new book The Lean Startup. Eric Ries is an entrepreneur and author of the New York Times bestseller The Lean Startup and the popular entrepreneurship blog Startup Lessons Learned.He co-founded and served as CTO of IMVU, his third startup. In 2007, BusinessWeek named him one of the Best Young Entrepreneurs of Tech. In 2009, he was honored with a TechFellow award in the category of Engineering Leadership. He serves on the advisory board of a number of technology startups, and has consulted to new and established companies as well as venture capital firms. He is currently serving as an entrepreneur-in-residence at Harvard Business School and a Fellow for IDEO, the design consulting firm. His Lean Startup methodology has been written about in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Harvard Business Review, the Huffington Post, and many blogs. Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:30:00 GMT

The Lean Startup [Audio]

Speaker(s): Rahul Gandhi | Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi), President of the Indian National Congress and member of the Parliament of India will be in conversation with LSE’s Mukulika Banerjee (@MukulikaB), Director of the South Asia Centre, and Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at LSE. This event is in collaboration with the National Indian Students and Alumni Union (UK) and marks the launch of the NISAU India Perspective Townhall. Established in June 2015, the South Asia Centre (@SAsiaLSE) harnesses LSE's research & academic focus on South Asia, whose particularities constantly challenge conventional thinking in the social sciences.

In Conversation with Rahul Gandhi [Audio]

Speaker(s): Professor Jonathan Haidt | A timely investigation into the new safety culture in universities and the dangers it poses to free speech, mental health, education, and ultimately democracy. This event marks the launch of Jonathan's new book, The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure. Jonathan Haidt (@JonHaidt) is a social and cultural psychologist and the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University's Stern School of Business. He is the author of The Righteous Mind and The Happiness Hypothesis. Paul Dolan (@profpauldolan) is currently Professor of Behavioural Science at the LSE. He is Head of Department in Psychological and Behavioural Science and Director of LSE's Executive MSc Behavioural Science. LSE's Behavioural Science Hub (@LSEBehavioural) is a collaboration across the School in all things behavioural. Its two main goals are to provide a platform to highlight existing behavioural science related activities at LSE and further develop the capacity for top quality research into human behaviour. Twitter Hashtag for this event: #LSEHaidt Video The recording of the Facebook Live of this event is available to watch at The Coddling of the American Mind. Podcasts and videos of many LSE events can be found at the LSE Public Lectures and Events: podcasts and videos channel.

The Coddling of the American Mind [Audio]

Sean Michael Morris, Sara Camacho Felix, Dustin Hosseini, and Lee-Ann Sequeira further explore the uncertainties faced by staff and students in the shift towards online learning and assessment

The Common Room | More Than A Pivot

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Welcome to LSE's award-winning podcast, LSE IQ, where we ask leading social scientists - and other experts - to answer an intelligent question about economics, politics or society.

This episode is dedicated to David Graeber, LSE professor of Anthropology, who died unexpectedly in September this year. David was a public intellectual, a best-selling author, an influential activist and anarchist. 
He took aim at the pointless bureaucracy of modern life, memorably coining the term ‘bullshit jobs’. And his book ‘Debt: The First 5000 years’ was turned into a radio series by the BBC. 
But David started his academic career studying Madagascar. Anthropology interested him, he said, because he was interested in human possibilities - including the potential of societies to organise themselves without the need for a state - as he had seen in his own research. 
He was also a well-known anti-globalisation activist and a leading figure in the Occupy Wall Street Movement.  
David was generous enough to do an interview for us in 2016 when LSE iQ was in its infancy. That episode asked, ‘What’s the future of work?’  and in his interview he reflected on the disappointments of technology, pointless jobs and caring labour. 
David was such an interesting speaker that we would have liked to use more of it at the time, but we didn’t have the space. Now, it feels right to bring you a lightly edited version of the interview. 

Contributors
David Graeber

Research 

The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy, published by Melville House.  
 
‘On the Phenomenon of Bullshit jobs: A work rant’, STRIKE! Magazine 

Bullshit Jobs: A theory, published by Allen Lane

LSE iQ is a university podcast by the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Bullshit jobs, technology, capitalism

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