Contributor(s): Professor M V Lee Badgett | Same-sex couples on four continents—including eleven countries and six American states—can now legally marry. The experiences of these countries allow a glimpse into the future about what will happen if and when the UK opens marriage to same-sex couples. Will gay people change marriage? Will marriage change lesbian, gay, and bisexual people? Is the world moving too quickly to recognize same-sex couples, or should we have different legal institutions...

Contributor(s): Professor Perry Link | In this lecture, Professor Perry Link will discuss the thinking of Chinese dissident, Liu Xiaobo, and the prospects for political change in China. Liu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 for his long struggle on behalf of democracy in China while serving an 11-year prison sentence for "incitement to subvert state power". His main crime was to draft "Charter 08", a petition calling for an end to Communist Party rule, that was signed by a large...

Contributor(s): Professor Conor Gearty, Professor Francesca Klug, Dr Michael Pinto-Duschinsky | A debate on the value of the Human Rights Act against a British Bill of Rights. Conor Gearty is professor of law at LSE. Francesca Klug is a professorial research fellow at LSE and director of the Human Rights Futures Project. Michael Pinto-Duschinsky is a senior consultant on constitutional affairs at Policy Exchange and was formerly a member of the UK commission on a bill of rights.

Contributor(s): Professor Geir Lundestad | While the United States has been the world’s leading power from 1945 into the new millennium, it is now being challenged, primarily by China. In many respects the world is without a clear leader. Geir Lundestad is director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute. His new book is The Rise and Decline of the American “Empire”: power and its limits in comparative perspective.

Contributor(s): Martin Ravallion | Relative deprivation, shame and social exclusion matter to the welfare of people everywhere, but this fact is ignored by standard measures of economic performance, including poverty. The lecture will argue that such social effects on welfare call for a reconsideration of how we assess global poverty, but they do not support widely used measures of relative poverty. It is argued instead that a new class of measures is called for, and new estimates of global...

Contributor(s): Professor Frances Fox Piven | Professor Piven will examine a number of pivotal movements in American history, including the mobs of the revolutionary era, the abolitionists, and the labor, civil rights and feminist movements. Frances Fox Piven is distinguished professor of political science and sociology at The Graduate Center, CUNY

Contributor(s): Professor Gilles Kepel | Islamist movements have won most of the elections that took place in the aftermath of Arab revolutions. Have they hijacked the demonstrations and sacrifice of the youth that brought down the anciens régimes or have they truly espoused democracy? Gilles Kepel is professor and chair, Middle East and Mediterranean studies at the Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po).

Contributor(s): Dr Piers Brendon, Professor John Charmley, Professor David Edgerton, Lord Hurd of Westwell | Churchill was both a Liberal who championed social reform, and a Conservative who believed in Empire. This event will examine the contradictions inherent in the life of the man voted greatest Briton. Piers Brendon is a biographer, historian and former keeper of The Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge. John Charmley is a professor of modern British history and head...

Contributor(s): Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey | Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey is Reader in Political Science in the Government Department of the London School of Economics and Political Science, where she teaches courses in the politics of economic policy and legislative politics.

Contributor(s): Maurice Fraser, Polly Toynbee | ‘Progressive’ is a slippery term. Right (i.e. Left) - thinking people use it with casual abandon, to confer moral approval on a set of values which they regard as uncontroversial. But on close examination the meaning of the term appears contingent, historically-specific and eminently contestable. Who is to say what is ‘progressive’? Is it time to rescue it from political correctness? And can the Right lay at least as compelling a claim to it as...

Contributor(s): Anne Applebaum | We now understand far better what the gulag was, how it evolved, what purposes it served, how many people lived and died within it. Yet what do we really remember of the camp system? What do Russians remember? And how does that memory, or the lack of it, affect Russian politics today? Anne Applebaum is Philippe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs at LSE IDEAS for 2012-13.

Contributor(s): Giles Hedger | Giles Hedger joined Leo Burnett in September 2008 as Chief Strategy Officer. He leads one of the largest and most diverse planning departments in London and is helping the Leo Burnett Group realise its vision of being the destination agency for populist brands.This talk is about lessons from adland about intangible value, how it is created, and why it is key to economic recovery. Part of the Media Agenda 2012 series.

Contributor(s): Dr Nasser Saidi | As the Arab uprisings have unfolded, the need for economic reforms across the region has only become more urgent. But where are the road maps? Dr Nasser Saidi explores. Named among the 50 most influential Arabs in the world by The Middle East magazine this year for the fourth consecutive year, Dr Nasser Saidi is the former Chief Economist and Head of External Relations of Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) and Executive Director of the...

Contributor(s): Gillian Tett | Gillian Tett, a social anthropologist and one of the world’s leading financial journalists, will examine the current uncertain economic environment and how it emerged from the financial crisis, including the roles of institutional failings, culture and human choices. Gillian Tett is US managing editor of the Financial Times and the British Press Awards’ Journalist of the Year (2009).

Contributor(s): Dr Laura Valentini, Dr Lea Ypi | What does it mean to be a cosmopolitan? Does cosmopolitanism demand the creation of ‘global’ institutional structures transcending the state? Laura Valentini is lecturer in political philosophy in the Department of Political Science at University College London. Lea Ypi is lecturer in political theory in the Government Department, LSE.

Contributor(s): Julian Castro | The United States economy remains the worlds' largest. Demographic change is seeing Texas and other states increase their number of congressional seats and share of the US economy. Mayor Castro's SA 2020 programme details his vision for San Antonio. How does one of the US' young leaders see its place in the world? Julian Castro is the Mayor of San Antonio, the US' 7th largest city, one of the fastest growing cities in the country. He is a co-chair of the Obama...

Contributor(s): Dr Jean-Paul Faguet | Dr Faguet will speak about his new book Decentralization and Popular Democracy: governance from below in Bolivia. Jean-Paul Faguet is reader in the political economy of development at LSE.

Contributor(s): Professor Kellee Tsai | Comparisons of China and India’s economic development typically focus on either the nature of state intervention in the economy or the role of foreign direct investment (FDI). Yet this ignores a vast network of informal financial flows generated by remittances and ethnic investors residing abroad. Kellee Tsai is a professor in the Department of Political Science, Johns Hopkins University.

Contributor(s): Lord Heseltine | Part of the Future Of The Union series discussion on the future of each nation within the UK. Michael Heseltine is the former deputy prime minister and patron of the Tory Reform Group. He was an MP from 1966 to 2001.

Contributor(s): Professor Tim Allen, Dr Laura Bogart, Dr Heidi Larson, Professor Nicoli Nattrass, Dr Melissa Parker | This panel discussion will explore the challenges posed by distrust and conspiracy beliefs about public health programmes (schistosomiasis, lymphatic filariasis, polio and HIV/AIDS) in sub-Saharan Africa (Uganda, Tanzania, Nigeria and South Africa). The successful development of effective technologies to treat HIV and vaccinate against polio, lymphatic filariasis and...

Contributor(s): Professor Craig Calhoun | The university is an institution in upheaval. In his Inaugural Lecture as Director of LSE, Professor Craig Calhoun explores the options for the future. Professor Calhoun is a world-renowned social scientist whose work connects sociology to culture, communication, politics, philosophy and economics. He took up his post as LSE Director on 1 September 2012, having left the United States where he was University Professor at New York University and...

Contributor(s): Charles Arthur | Charles Arthur has been with The Guardian since 2005. His 2012 book “Digital Wars: Apple, Google, Microsoft and the Battle for the Internet” covers the business and technological competition between the three companies.It investigates Apple, Google, Microsoft and the battle for the internet. It reveals what to expect from the internet in the next five years, which company will ultimately be in the driving seat, and what the implications will be for us all....

Contributor(s): David Lipton | Almost two years after the start of the so-called "Arab Spring", the countries concerned are facing significant economic challenges, against the backdrop of a difficult global environment. While much attention is rightly being paid to near term economic stabilization, there is an historic opportunity for structural changes that would liberate economic forces, and allow these economies to generate the growth needed for increasing income and employment...

Contributor(s): Professor Anne Applebaum, Professor Craig Calhoun, Professor Michael Cox, Gideon Rachman | After a closely fought election, this highly topical LSE public debate will look ahead to Obama’s second administration and assess the challenges it faces at home and how it is likely to address them, as well as how its relationships with Britain, Europe and the rest of the world are likely to develop. Author and Pulitzer Prize winner Anne Applebaum has taken up the post of Philippe...

Contributor(s): Saba Mahmood | The relegation of religion and sexual reproduction to the private sphere is widely regarded as a key feature of modern secular societies. While postcolonial states of South Asia and the Middle East are heir to this arrangement, they are also distinct in that they retain religious laws for the regulation of family affairs. As a result, both minority and majority religious communities of these postcolonial polities continue to exert a fair degree of judicial...