Politics & International Relations NEWSLETTER

December 2017

Festival of Politics & International Relations 2017 The Festival, organised by Dr Paul Wetherly each November, is a series of events outside the normal curricu-lum where students engage with a range of speakers. This year, sessions were led by local MPs and Trade Union leaders, business and NGO workers, and external academics as well as by our own staff and alumni.

A series of topical political debates be-gan with Is a ‘progressive Brexit’ possi-ble? led by Hilary Benn MP (Labour MP for Leeds Central and Chair of the House of Commons Committee on Exiting the European Union) and Jon Bloom-field (Birmingham University, and author of ‘The Left and Brexit: Facing up to the realities of an interdependent world’).

Which political party, if any, represents the working class today? was debated by Alec Shelbrooke MP (Conservative MP for Elmet and Rothwell, and Vice Chairman (International) of the Con-servative Party), and Joanne Thomas, Divisional Officer (North Eastern Divi-sion) Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (USDAW).

Finally, Leeds North West MP Alex Sobel (Labour) spoke on ‘Lessons from the 2017 General Election’.

Talks by PIR staff included Dr Tom Purcell on What lies between 21st Century Socialism and Authoritarianism? Making sense of the crisis in Venezuela, and Dr Sophia Price discussed The Politics of Star Wars.

There was a session for final year students to discuss their disser-tation proposal (with free biscuits and cake!), and staff led a visit to the People’s History Museum, Manchester, which incorpo-rated discussion sessions on the political issues represented.

Dr Steve Wright organised a panel of speakers debating ‘Emerging weapons technologies and their human rights implications’. Speakers included Jamie Woodruffe on Vulnerabil-ities in Cyber Security – An Ethical Hackers Perspective; Emeritus Pro-fessor Dave Webb on Advances in Nuclear Weapons doctrine, tar-geting and technologies; Ralph Dinsley (MA Peace & Development 2015, and now Director of Northern Space & Security Ltd.) on Is Con-flict In Space Inevitable? Threats and Risks for Global Connectivity; Prof Alistair Hay (Leeds University) on Threats From Advances in Chemical Weapons Technology; former PIR student April Humble (BA Peace Stud-ies & International Relations 2012, and now Director Borderland (SW Ltd) Bristol) New Border-Controls, Technologies, Climate Change & Mi-gration; Dr Stuart Parkinson (Director, Scientists For Global Responsibil-ity) Military Research On Future Weapons at British Universities and Dr Steve Wright on Challenging Deployment of Autonomous Weapons.

Student delegation

Final-year International Relations & Global Development student Lucy Adams trav-elled to Bosnia as part of the Remembering Srebrenica delegation. This raises awareness of the events that took place in Bosnia in 1995, where the failure of the UN and international community to intervene led to the brutal murder of 8372 Muslim men. Lucy describes the trip as a harrowing experience, and learned about events first-hand from Hasan Havanovic who survived the death march and now educates people about the genocide through his work at the memorial centre. The group also learned about the process of identification of the remains which have been found in mass graves. Around 1500 men are still missing and their remains have not yet been found, or some have been found but not yet identified due to multiple burials in attempts to hide the evidence. The trip also included visits to the Child-hood War Museum, the Tunnel Museum and the Crimes Against Humanity Museum. As a result of the experience, Lucy has pledged to run a number of workshops with young people on the impact of hate and ignorance, and is planning a memorial event in July in partnership with Gateshead Youth Council. She is now part of the Remem-bering Srebrenica Community Champions Network, and continues to work to raise awareness of the genocide, and to remember the innocent men who lost their lives.

Visiting speakers

In October Dr Rachel Julian organised a series of events on peace and non-violence. There was a workshop for A Level and university students by Marie Dennis, author and Co-President of Pax Christi International, and Maria Stephen, Senior Policy Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) on ‘Non-violence works! An opportunity for the Christian community to engage in creative peacemaking.’ There also followed a talk by George Lakey, American activist and writer on non-violence, who presented the first annual How-ard Clark Memorial Lecture on Non-Violence: ‘A divided Britain: What can we learn from the Nordics?’

Staff news

Two new members of staff have joined the Politics & International Relations Group this year.

Dr Or Raviv joins us from Durham University, and is a specialist in globalisation, political economy and crisis. His most recent publication in 2017 is Europe's Mea Cul-pa: A Global Economy Gone Mad or a Crisis of Our Own Making? Global Policy 8(2): 159-169.

Dr Maria O’Reilly was working most recently as a postdoctoral fellow in the School of Politics and International Relations at Queen Mary, University of Lon-don. Maria has just authored a new book on Gendered Agency in War and Peace: Gender Justice and Women’s Activism in Post-Conflict Bosnia-Herzegovina, pub-lished by Palgrave Macmillan.

Student news

John Brellisford (BA International Relations & Global Development 2015) is now working for the UK Ministry of Justice in London as a communica-tion and content producer.

Holly Radbourne (BA International Relations & Global Development 2017) is working for the Ma-rie Curie Foundation in Edinburgh.

Dilly Hartley (BA International Relations & Global Development 2015) works as Programme Assistant for Y Care International, an NGO promoting youth employment opportunities in the world’s poorest countries.

Stella McLeod McKenna (MA Peace & Develop-ment 2017) has a new position as a Consultant at Future First Global, an education NGO in London.

Final-year Politics student Samuel Coe has had an article published in an academic journal: Economic Objectivity and Its Discontents: Reflections on Marx, Adorno and Utopia appears in Sociologija. Mintis ir veiksmas 2017 40: 67-79, which is an out-standing achievement for an undergraduate stu-dent.