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How do conspiracies happen, how can historians use them to understand more about the past, and where do they begin and cease to be relevant to the study of history? 

Conspiracy and Democracy

lecturas

lectures

work 2

0811

Lectures etc

philosophy

Today, more people live in cities than in rural areas and, by 2050, this ratio is predicted to rise to 7 out of every 10 people. Can we rethink how we design and live in cities? What will the impact of increasing numbers of people living in cities be on society, or biodiversity, or on food, water and energy security? A panel of distinguished speakers focuses on some of these most pressing challenges faced by our cities. 

Sustainable Cities

Professor Henrietta Moore is William Wyse Chair of Social Anthropology and is the Chair and co-founder of SHM Productions Ltd, a strategy and insight consultancy based in central London. She is co-editor of Global Civil Society 2012: Ten Years of Critical Reflection.

The future of civic activism

Jonathan Haslam, Professor of the History of International Relations
The history of Russia’s Secret Services from the Revolution to the Fall of the Wall: the Military Intelligence, the codes and ciphers and the KGB. 

Near and Distant Neighbours 1917–1989

Dr Girard will describe how the “red scare” greatly varied depending on the period, the political affiliation or the country; and the main long-lasting conspiracy theory actually concerned the threat of the far-right and, to a certain extent, of the government itself. 

Conspiracy Theories in France and Italy during the Cold War and Decolonization

In this inaugural episode of the Democratic Audio podcast, we rummage through some boxed sets and revisit some old television favourites to bring you an expert’s guide to political fiction. Four academics and writers: Steve Fielding, Ruth Wodak, Chris Mullin, Anders Lustgarten, offer their critique of some of the most watched shows from past and present like The Thick of It, Black Mirror, House of Cards, and Borgen. How do these programmes shape our views of politics and politicians? And do they in anyway resemble the real world politik? The podcast provides an invaluable educational tool for voters trying to interpret what is real, imagined or exaggerated in political fiction today. 

Presented by Sean Kippin and Richard Berry. Produced by Cheryl Brumley. Other contributors: Steve Fielding, Ruth Wodak, Chris Mullin, Anders Lustgarten.  Clips were used from the following shows: The West Wing: “Shutdown”; The Thick of It: Various; A Very British Coup, House of Cards: “Chapter One”, Black Mirror “The National Anthem”. Additional music and sound used: Funky Fierce – “ Radio Sound” via Freesound.org; “Democracy”, Encyclopaedia Britannica Films via the Prelinger Archives; and the following songs from The Free Music Archive: Frenic – “Get Out of Dodge”, Revolution Void – “Biomythos”, and Revolution Void — “You Constellate the Good in Me”. DA Channel Image: Takver: Refugees are welcome protests.

Democratic Audio Episode 1: Political Fiction

Speaker(s): Professor Conor Gearty | One of the aims of LSE Summer School is to bring the LSE experience to all those attending its many courses between July and August. Five years ago we launched our first full programme of Lectures. These have been an immense success. All lectures are exclusively for LSE Summer School students, and are given by top flight speakers talking on the big issues of the day. The events begin at 5.30pm and take place in the Old Theatre, located in the Old Building on Houghton Street. Lectures will be followed by a reception where students will be able to speak to the lecturers. Thu, 10 Jul 2014 17:30:00 GMT

Human Rights, Security and the Rule of Law after Snowden [Audio]

A Public Lecture by Conspiracy & Democracy Visiting Fellow Professor Cornel Zwierlein (Ruhr-Universität Bochum). 

It seems as if Conspiracy Theories are a particularly modern phenomenon. By relying on some examples and cases, this lecture gives a long-term overview of what they looked like and when they appeared. We possess full-fledged conspiracy theory texts only since the 16th century. While examples may have existed already in Antiquity, we do not possess any textual evidence for them. The lecture tries to develop an explanation for why conspiracy theories emerged only at this point in European history. In order to do so, it is necessary to distinguish between conjurations, any kind of revolts, conspiracies and conspiracy theories. We will show how their coming into being is linked to the emergence of the ‘Information Public Sphere’, as a by-product of the early inter-state diplomatic communication (which has, first, little to do with the later famous ‘Enlightenment Public Sphere’), and how those narratives filled in where knowledge gaps existed. In a hasty run through history, we will distinguish several phases or ‘epochs’ of Conspiracy (theory) communication. Finally, we will ask how Democracy comes in: ‘Real’ democracies were practiced rather nowhere after Ancient Europe, and were rare even during the 19th century. So, in pre-modern times, often it was ‘democracy’ or ‘democrats’ that were ‘conspiring’ against the good order of the commonwealth – not vice versa.

Cornel Zwierlein is Associate Professor at the University of Bochum, Germany. Currently, he is on leave as a Visiting Fellow at Harvard University. His research focuses on the intersection of political, religious and scientific knowledge. Cornel is the author of ‘Discorso und Lex Dei die Entstehung neuer Denkrahmen im 16. Jahrhundert und die Wahrnehmung der französischen Religionskriege in Italien und Deutschland’ (Göttingen, 2006), and, more recently, ‘Der gezähmte Prometheus. Feuer und Sicherheit zwischen Früher Neuzeit und Moderne’ (Göttingen, 2011). 

The Early Modern Foundations of Conspiracy & Democracy

Mr Dwight Smith Jr will speak about ‘The Mafia & Conspiracy’. Mr Smith’s paper will explore how the idea of the mafia and conspiracy emerged in America, developed and became entangled in very different contexts.

Mr Smith will describe the ideas, experiences, and events through which his book, ‘The Mafia Mystique’ (1975), took shape; the consequences of those events that have led to contemporary public understanding and use of ‘Mafia’ in the United States; and the consequences in a democracy of strategies that were developed for organized crime control. 

The Mafia & Conspiracy

A Public Lecture by Conspiracy & Democracy Visiting Fellow Stef Aupers (Erasmus University of Rotterdam).

In the social sciences, a conspiracy theory is often disqualified as ‘irrational’ superstition or religious belief. In defense, conspiracy theorists present their methods of inquiry as utterly rational – often even more scientific than ‘dogmatic’ institutionalized science. In this lecture, it is argued that both definitions of conspiracy theories are inadequate: they are basically moral labels and informed by a power struggle over ‘true’ knowledge. At closer empirical inspection, conspiracy theorists combine aspects of science and religion to find the ‘truth out there’. On the one hand, they embrace modern skepticism about contemporary institutions, experts and the knowledge they produce. On the other, they are motivated by a desire to believe in a progressively ‘disenchanted world’: by making claims about invisible, yet powerful forces operating beyond the empirical surface of everyday life, they attribute ultimate meaning to a modern, rationalized and globalized society. Conspiracy culture is a complex constellation of skepticism and belief – a rational form of re-enchantment. 

Conspiracy theories between secular scepticism and religious salvation

A public talk by Professor Joseph Parent (University of Miami) & Professor Joseph Uscinski (University of Miami).

Are conspiracy theories overtaking deliberative societies, inflaming discourse and degrading democracy? How much more prone to violence are conspiracy theorists? Which political party is more likely to traffic in conspiratorial talk? Has the Internet ushered in a new era of conspiracy-fueled paranoia? Using original data sources spanning more than a century, Joseph E. Uscinski and Joseph M. Parent provide surprising answers. In taking stock of American conspiracy theories, Uscinski and Parent argue that much of what we thought we knew about conspiracy theories needs amending.

Joseph E. Uscinski is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Miami. He earned his Ph.D. in American Politics at the University of Arizona. Professor Uscinski teaches and studies mass media, public opinion, and campaigns.

Joseph M. Parent is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Miami. He received his bachelors from the University of Chicago and doctorate from Columbia University. Professor Parent teaches international relations theory, foreign policy, and security studies. 

American Conspiracy Theories

"Is Democracy Conspiratorial?: Koselleck, Furet, and the Debate on the French Revolution"

Since the time of the abbé Barruel, the French Revolution - the source of democratic claims eventually the world over - has been unmasked as the outcome of a dark conspiracy. This talk will examine some of the contemporary legacies of this claim about the secret agenda of democratic self-rule, with a focus on some famous main twentieth-century commentators like Reinhart Koselleck and François Furet who were insufficiently critical of the old allegation even in renovating our sense of where the Revolution fits in modern politics. Dwelling on some of the intellectual origins of Furet's "Interpreting the French Revolution," in which the conspiracy claim figured, the talk will distinguish that strand of the book from other and more valuable impulses, which had other sources, notably the view that democracy is the rule of no one, so that it is very hard to justify or even securely locate its legitimate authorities at any given time.

Samuel Moyn is James Bryce Professor of European Legal History at Columbia University, where he has been teaching since 2001. He is author of "The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History" (2010) and a new collection of essays entitled "Human Rights and the Uses of History" (2014). From July 1, 2014, he will take up a new position as professor of law and history at Harvard University. 

Is Democracy Conspiratorial?

Speaker(s): Professor Martin Loughlin | The Chorley Lecture is an annual lecture inaugurated in 1972 and named in honour of Lord Chorley of Kendal, the founding editor of The Modern Law Review. The Lecture, which is normally delivered in late May or early June at the London School of Economics & Political Science, is the most important occasion in the calendar of The Modern Law Review. A version of the lecture is subsequently published as the lead article in the January issue of the following year’s Review. Tue, 17 Jun 2014 18:00:00 GMT

The Constitutional Imagination [Audio]

Matt Daggett, Greenpeace International's global campaign leader for forests, visits with Amy Mount, Yale F&ES '15, about the organization's theory of change and climate policy in the US. 

Theory of Change: a Conversation with Greenpeace's Matt Daggett

It's a story war! In this episode, host Adam Tod Brown welcomes comics Cat Rhinehart and Dave Waite to share tales of their very worst day at work ever. Brett Rader, the Mayor of Podcast City, decides which awful story is the awful-est. Controversy ensues! 

Your Worst Work Story Ever

How do conspiracies happen, how can historians use them to understand more about the past, and where do they begin and cease to be relevant to the study of history? Such questions were the starting point for this panel debate, in which Professor Christopher Andrew and Dr Stephen Dorril examine cases from Stalinist Russia, Harold Wilson’s government in the 1960s, and Northern Ireland in the 1970s, to name but a few.

History and Conspiracy

Augustine’s Confessions details his personal struggles with morality, his spiritual crisis and the conversion to Christianity that ultimately led him to his major contribution to philosophy: the fusion of the doctrines of Christianity and Neoplatonism. This provided Christianity with a strong intellectual backing by tying it to the Greek tradition of philosophy. Augustine also produced important philosophic ideas of his own, including theories of time and subjective knowledge that anticipated by many centuries the work of Kant and Descartes.

Here is a concise, expert account of St Augustine’s life and philosophical ideas – entertainingly written and easy to understand. Also included are selections from St Augustine’s work, suggested further reading, and chronologies that place St Augustine in the context of the broader scheme of philosophy.

Conspiracy theories between secular scepticism and religious salvation

University of Cambridge