About the Talk In this episode of the Governance Podcast, CSGS Director Mark Pennington speaks with Dr Samuel Bagg about his recent book - The Dispersal of Power: A Critical Realist Theory of Democracy, published by Oxford University Press. The book presents an in depth consideration of the problem of 'elite capture' and the possible strategies to address this.  The Guest Samuel Bagg is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at University of South Carolina, where he...

About the Talk In this episode of the Governance podcast, our Director Mark Pennington speaks to Prof. William Easterly from New York University on liberal vs paternalist approaches to economic development policy. The Guest William Easterly is Professor of Economics at New York University and Co-director of the NYU Development Research Institute, which won the 2009 BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge in Development Cooperation Award. He is the author of three books: The Tyranny of Experts:...

About the Talk In this episode of the Governance podcast, our Director Mark Pennington interviews Dr. Matthew Mitchell on the socialist reality in Estonia’s history. This episode is part of Matthew’s co-authored publication as part of the Realities of Socialism series run by the Fraser Institute. The Guest Matthew D. Mitchell is a Senior Fellow in the Centre for Economic Freedom. Prior to joining the Fraser Institute, Mitchell was a long-serving senior fellow at the Mercatus Center at George...

About the Talk In this episode of the podcast, Prof. Mark Pennington interviews Prof. Adam Dixon on the contemporary relevance of the Scottish philosopher and political economist Adam Smith. The Guest Adam D. Dixon holds the Adam Smith Chair in Sustainable Capitalism at Adam Smith’s Panmure House, the last and final home of moral philosopher and father of economics Adam Smith. Professor Dixon is recognized as a world-leading scholar on the political economy of sovereign wealth funds, theories...

About the Talk In this episode of the podcast, Prof. Mark Pennington interviews Prof. Bruce Caldwell, one of the co-authors of this recently published book Hayek: A Life. Few twentieth-century figures have been lionized and vilified in such equal measure as Friedrich Hayek—economist, social theorist, leader of the Austrian school of economics, and champion of classical liberalism. Hayek’s erudite arguments in support of individualism and the market economy have attracted a devout following,...

About the Talk Can a moral or divine law independent of contingency accommodate the social and economic complexities of circumstance? Does a defense of custom necessarily repudiate the idea of immutable law applicable to all peoples and cultures? Is transcendent universality and spontaneous order reconcilable? This episode explores this age-old tension with reference to the intellectual origins of liberalism and conservatism. These ideologies are often said to derive from the French...

About the Talk Lawmakers, activists, and academics, often, presume that enacting a law sends a (powerful) message about what is socially desirable and acceptable. At worst, it is presumed that it will stay as ink on paper and not create any change. Therefore, it is considered as a cost-less endeavor with potential for creating great change at low costs. This has led for increase in demand for legislation, even ones that may be hard to enforce and even in countries which have limited state...

On this week’s episode of the Governance Podcast, Mark Pennington, the Director at the Study of Governance and Society here at King College London, interviews Andy Haldane. This episode is titled 'Complexity and the Politics of Regulation’, and discusses the governance of financial risk in conditions where it's hard to predict how agents will respond to a given situation and the possibility of error, whether by private agents or by those who regulate their behavior. The Guest Andy was...

On this week’s episode of the Governance Podcast, Mark Pennington, the Director at the Study of Governance and Society here at King College London, interviews Professor Terry Flew. This episode is titled "‘Too much’ and ‘too little’ content moderation", and discusses the question of content moderation on digital platforms as a case study in Foucauldian approaches to governmentality. The Guest Terry Flew is Professor of Digital Communication and Culture at the University of Sydney. He is the...

On this week’s episode of the Governance Podcast, Mark Pennington, the Director at the Study of Governance and Society here at King College London, interviews Professor Diane Coyle. This episode is titled "The data that is and that data the isn't: the pitfalls of using big data", and discusses the various uses and implications of big data in society, and the many pitfalls that may arise.  The Conversation ‘Big Data’ fuels AI models like ChatGPT and the machine learning systems that are...

Our ability to act on some of the most pressing issues of our time, from pandemics and climate change to artificial intelligence and nuclear weapons, depends on knowledge provided by scientists and other experts. Meanwhile, contemporary political life is increasingly characterized by problematic responses to expertise, with denials of science on the one hand and complaints about the ignorance of the citizenry on the other. Politics and Expertise offers a new model for the relationship between...

On this week’s episode of the Governance Podcast, Mark Pennington, the Director at the Study of Governance and Society here at King College London, interviews Professor Cass R. Sunstein. This episode is titled "The Use of Algorithms in Society", and discusses the various ethical and moral dilemmas and implications of increasing AI us in society, and its impact on both social and economic factors.    The Guest Cass R. Sunstein is currently the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard....

On this week’s episode of the Governance Podcast, Dr. Steven Klein interviews Prof. Martin Weale from the Department of Political Economy at King's College London. This episode is titled “UK Pensions Crisis and Central Banking”. This episode discusses the pension funds sell-off that occurred following the UK government's mini-budget in early October 2022 and which led to the Bank of England's intervention.    The Guest Martin Weale is Professor of Economics at King's Busines School. Martin...

This episode explores Prof McCloskey’s criticism of the way the discipline of economics has unfortunately been separated from matters of ethics, the importance of liberal values for human progress, and her calls for a human-centered approach to economics called ‘humanomics’.

On this week’s episode of the Governance Podcast, our Director Mark Pennington interviews Dr. Danielle Guizzo from University of Bristol. This episode is titled “Cultures of Expertise in Economics”. This episode explores the way in which the discipline of Economics has evolved over the years, the way economists achieved their status as scientific experts, and how pluralism and diversity may be promoted within the wider discipline.

On this week’s episode of the Governance Podcast, our Director Prof. Mark Pennington interviews Dr. Erwin Dekker from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. This episode is titled “Governing Markets as Knowledge Commons”, which features Erwin’s recently co-edited volume with Cambridge University Press, Governing Markets as Knowledge Commons. The Guest Dr. Erwin Dekker is senior fellow with the F. A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics and a...

On this week’s episode of the Governance Podcast, our Associate Director Dr. Samuel DeCanio interviews historian Niall Ferguson from the Hoover Institution. This episode is titled “Counterfactual History with Niall Ferguson”.

On this week’s episode of the Governance Podcast, our Director Prof. Mark Pennington interviews Prof. Carmen Pavel from the Department of Political Economy at King’s College London. This episode is titled “Sovereignty and International Law”, which features Carmen’s recently published book with Oxford University Press Law Beyond the State.

On this week’s episode of the Governance Podcast, our Director Prof. Mark Pennington interviews Prof. Will Davies from Goldsmiths, University of London. This episode is titled “How Neo-Liberal are Contemporary Modes of Governance?”

On this week’s episode of the Governance Podcast, our Director Prof. Mark Pennington interviews Prof. Michael Hulme from Cambridge University. This episode is titled “Culture, Science, and the Predicament of Climate Change”, where he suggests looking at climate change challenges as predicaments for human societies to cope with.

On this week’s episode of the Governance Podcast, our Assistant Director Dr. Bryan Cheang interviews Prof. Daniel Smith from Middle Tennessee State University. This episode features his latest book Money and the Rule of Law, published by Cambridge University Press and co-authored with Alexander Salter and Peter Boettke. Drawing on a wide body of scholarship, this volume presents a novel argument in favor of embedding monetary institutions into a rule of law framework. The authors argue for...

On this week’s episode of the Governance Podcast, our Director Prof. Mark Pennington, interviews Prof. Jennifer Murtazashvili from the University of Pittsburgh. This episode features her latest book Land, the State and War, published by Cambridge University Press. The book employs a historical narrative, extensive fieldwork and a national survey to explore how private property institutions develop, how they are maintained, and their relationship to the state and state-building within the...

On this week's episode of the Governance Podcast, our Director Prof. Mark Pennington, interviews Dr Mikayla Novak from the Australian National University. This episode features her latest book Freedom in Contention: Social Movements and Liberal Political Economy, which explores social movement activities and outcomes through the lens of liberal political economy. Using historical and contemporary case studies, this book illuminates how social movements fluidly organise in often repressive...

On this week's episode of the Counterintuitive Series on the Governance Podcast, Professor Mark Pennington (King's College London) argues that if not quite everything, then a great many things, ought to be legally for sale. From kidneys, to drugs, to sex, to votes, how much ought the market be allowed to freely trade in?