LSE IDEAS

Foreign policy think tank at LSE, focusing on international affairs and global governance through research, events and policy dialogue.

[LSE IDEAS @lseideas]

🍃FREE EVENT: Green Political Economy

Join Professor Robert Falkner for a conversation examining the ongoing impact of the energy transition. This series of events, hosted by the Geopolitics of Climate Change project, aims to unpack key features of this world in the making and the role that the energy transition has in that process.

📆 October 13th 2026, 6pm-7pm

⬇️ Register Here
https://t.co/5ti8EMBZd4

[LSE IDEAS @lseideas]

🌏The end of humanitarian aid (as we know it)? | Project Report

The report examines whether humanitarian aid is entering a new phase amid declining funding, growing politicisation, weakening respect for international humanitarian law and diversification of actors. Drawing on a roundtable held in collaboration with LSE IDEAS, the report discusses the current status of the humanitarian system and its implications.

⬇️Read Here
https://t.co/U9k4qZGiFR

[LSE IDEAS @lseideas]

Taiwan and Japan have no formal diplomatic relationship. Yet the substance of their ties has changed considerably.

In a new China Dialogues piece, Yu-Hua Chen traces this evolution from the post-1972 framework of unofficial relations, through growing social affinity, to today's expanding cooperation on regional security, drones and semiconductors.

Chen argues that these developments are gradually changing Taiwan’s place in Japanese strategic thinking — from a like-minded friend towards an increasingly important partner — even as longstanding diplomatic constraints remain.

⬇️Read the full piece https://t.co/WkUFyNTBDe

#Taiwan #Japan #IndoPacific #Semiconductors #ForeignPolicy

[LSE IDEAS @lseideas]

📣FREE EVENT | Sea change: the new great game in the Arctic circle | Hosted by the Department of International Relations

📆 Thursday 22 October 2026 | 6.30pm - 8pm
📌LSE Campus

Join award-winning journalist and Financial Times columnist Rana Foroohar as she discusses her latest book, Sea Change: The New Great Game in the Arctic.

In the 19th century, the British and Russian empires battled for primacy in Central Asia, in a multi-decade struggle that became known as ‘The Great Game’. The territorial lines drawn across Persia, Afghanistan, Tibet and India over this time defined the geopolitics and economics of the next century.

Today, there is a new Great Game being played not in Central Asia, or even in modern hot zones like Ukraine, Gaza, or the South China Seas, but rather in the frigid waters of the Arctic. Dominance in this region will be crucial to control of the entire Western hemisphere.

America, which has always been an Arctic nation, but only peripherally so, must now face the fact that Russia and China together are challenging its territorial primacy in the Western Hemisphere.

Can America wrest back enough maritime capacity and control to counter Beijing? What will happen if it can’t? These are two of the many crucial questions Sea Change strives to answer.

The discussion will be followed by an audience Q&A and a book signing.

⬇️Register Here
https://t.co/QCKxuZgkHt

[LSE IDEAS @lseideas]

⛓️Geopolitics of the AI Supply Chain: Control, Dependency, and National AI Ecosystems in the US, EU, China, and the UAE | By Kenddrick Chan, Songruowen Ma and Ce Hao

Our latest research report examines national AI policy environments, as well as cross-border dependencies and forms of control within the AI supply chain, through a comparative framework spanning the United States, the European Union, the People’s Republic of China, and the United Arab Emirates.

⬇️Read Here
https://t.co/hUrZUN7LFw

[LSE IDEAS @lseideas]

🍃FREE EVENT: Green Political Economy

In this latest event organised by the Geopolitics of Climate Change project, LSE IDEAS proposes to examine the ongoing impact of the energy transition through a series of events aimed at unpacking key features of this world in the making and the role that the energy transition has in that process.

The de-carbonisation of industrial economies is moving apace and bringing with it a silent transition, a phenomenon ‘hiding in plain sight’, in the foundational structures of the international political economy. New sources of energy are not only propelling the adoption of green technologies and reconfiguring global supply and production chains but are also reshaping centres of global power in unexpected ways. At the same time, polarising political narratives surrounding climate action are complicating the development of coherent environmental policies and intensifying geopolitical frictions, influencing how states position themselves within the emerging energy landscape. Join Professor Robert Falkner for the conversation.

📆 October 13th 2026, 6pm-7pm

⬇️ Register Here
https://t.co/5ti8EMBZd4

[LSE IDEAS @lseideas]

📰"Europe on High Alert As Russia Sows Panic With Hybrid Attacks" | Newsweek

Matthew Arnold, programme director of LSE IDEAS’ Democratic Resilience in a New Age of War Program comments on Russia's increasing threats to Europe, quoted in Newsweek's recent piece.

“The intent is very simple- to cause a pervasive, intensifying sense among European publics that insecurity is increasing,” Arnold told Newsweek.

⬇️Read the full article
https://t.co/BDDKFSyNfp

[LSE IDEAS @lseideas]

🌏FREE EVENT | LSE Global South Dialogue Series: "Active Non-Alignment and the Global South"

Over the past few years, impelled by the wars in Iran, Ukraine, and Gaza as well as by BRICS expansion , non-alignment is back with a vengeance, albeit in a new incarnation, as Active Non-Alignment (ANA). In this event Jorge Heine will discuss the significance of ANA for the future of world order.

📆23 September 2026 | 2pm - 3pm
📌Online

⬇️Register Here
https://t.co/g4PQK1JQeF

[LSE IDEAS @lseideas]

Last week, LSE researcher Dr Matthew Benson-Strohmayer presented oral amicus observations before the International Criminal Court in The Hague during the reparations proceedings in The Prosecutor v. Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman (‘Ali Kushayb’), concerning atrocities committed in Darfur.

Matthew co-authored expert economic evidence submitted by the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN). The research examines the economic and institutional consequences of the violence in Darfur, including the long-run fiscal structures through which predatory forms of rule developed, and considers the implications for collective and programmatic reparations, particularly in areas such as education and healthcare.

The intervention draws directly on Matthew’s research at LSE on the economic history and political economy of Sudan, including his book project, Of Rule Not Revenue: Predation, State-Unbuilding, and Conflict in Sudan and South Sudan, 1821-2023, for Cambridge University Press’s African Studies Series, as well as his wider work on fiscal governance, predatory rule, the political economy of conflict and crisis, and the relationship between war, humanitarian intervention, peace and economic institutions. It also builds on his published research on Sudan and South Sudan, including articles in Comparative Studies in Society and History and the Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding.

⬇️Watch the full hearing online here
https://t.co/UpiO7odQ0u

[LSE IDEAS @lseideas]

Can an officially atheist state take a fundamentalist turn?

In this new China Dialogues piece, Gerda Wielander challenges the familiar assumption that religion and politics occupy entirely separate spheres in contemporary China.
She argues that under Xi Jinping, the promotion of state morality, traditional culture and the Sinicisation of religion has increasingly blurred the boundaries between the political, the moral and the spiritual.

From the socialist core values and the revival of folk religion to the Party’s concern with faith, social cohesion and “traditional values”, Wielander asks whether China’s current trajectory is best understood not simply as tighter religious control, but as a distinctly Chinese form of fundamentalist politics.

⬇️Read the full piece
https://t.co/T4RQ6Tuhzk

#China #Religion #XiJinping #ChinesePolitics #CCP

[LSE IDEAS @lseideas]

🌏FREE EVENT | LSE Global South Dialogue Series: "Active Non-Alignment and the Global South"

Over the past few years, impelled by the wars in Iran, Ukraine, and Gaza as well as by BRICS expansion , non-alignment is back with a vengeance, albeit in a new incarnation, as Active Non-Alignment (ANA). In this event Jorge Heine will discuss the significance of ANA for the future of world order.

📆23 September 2026 | 2pm - 3pm
📌Online

⬇️Register Here
https://t.co/g4PQK1JQeF

[LSE IDEAS @lseideas]

🍃FREE EVENT: Green Political Economy

In this latest event organised by the Geopolitics of Climate Change project, LSE IDEAS proposes to examine the ongoing impact of the energy transition through a series of events aimed at unpacking key features of this world in the making and the role that the energy transition has in that process.

📆 October 13th 2026, 6pm-7pm
🎤 Professor Robert Falkner, chaired by Professor Christopher Alden

⬇️ Register Here
https://t.co/5ti8EMBZd4

[LSE IDEAS @lseideas]

🎞️Why has the small-budget Teochew-language film Dear You travelled where many Chinese blockbusters have not?

In this new (In)Visible China piece, Xiaoning Lu argues that the film’s success across parts of Southeast Asia cannot be understood simply as Chinese national soft power.
Instead, Dear You resonates because it draws on something older and more intimate: Chaoshan culture, Teochew language, qiaopi remittance letters, diasporic memory, and the social networks created by generations of migration across the South China Sea world.
The piece also complicates the controversy over whether the film should be read as “united-front” cultural work. Cultural affinity, Lu argues, should not be too quickly collapsed into political allegiance.

⬇️Read the full piece:
https://t.co/DJ5jgIq2zN

#China #SoftPower #ChineseCinema #SoutheastAsia #Diaspora #Culture

[LSE IDEAS @lseideas]

🍃FREE EVENT: Green Political Economy

In this latest event organised by the Geopolitics of Climate Change project, LSE IDEAS proposes to examine the ongoing impact of the energy transition through a series of events aimed at unpacking key features of this world in the making and the role that the energy transition has in that process.

The de-carbonisation of industrial economies is moving apace and bringing with it a silent transition, a phenomenon ‘hiding in plain sight’, in the foundational structures of the international political economy. New sources of energy are not only propelling the adoption of green technologies and reconfiguring global supply and production chains but are also reshaping centres of global power in unexpected ways. At the same time, polarising political narratives surrounding climate action are complicating the development of coherent environmental policies and intensifying geopolitical frictions, influencing how states position themselves within the emerging energy landscape. Join Professor Robert Falkner for the conversation.

📆 October 13th 2026, 6pm-7pm

⬇️ Register Here
https://t.co/5ti8EMBZd4

[LSE IDEAS @lseideas]

🌏FREE EVENT | LSE Global South Dialogue Series: "Active Non-Alignment and the Global South"

Over the past few years, impelled by the wars in Iran, Ukraine, and Gaza as well as by BRICS expansion , non-alignment is back with a vengeance, albeit in a new incarnation, as Active Non-Alignment (ANA). In this event Jorge Heine will discuss the significance of ANA for the future of world order.

📆23 September 2026 | 14:00
📌Online

⬇️Register Here
https://t.co/g4PQK1JQeF

[LSE IDEAS @lseideas]

📝From Ukraine’s Wartime Adaptation to Europe’s Defence Readiness: Learning from Ukraine’s Adaptive Governance in the Defence Sector | by Matthew B. Arnold, Viktoriia Roller, Khrystyna Zhyvogliad

Europe’s defence challenge is more than drones and budgets; it is about whether the defence institutions of states and their wider security apparatuses can keep pace with modern warfare and increasing hybrid threats. This Research Report uses Ukraine’s wartime experience to develop a holistic concept of adaptive defence governance and explores its lessons for enhancing Europe’s defence readiness during peacetime.

This report was produced in partnership with the Better Regulation Delivery Office (BRDO), an NGO registered in Kyiv, Ukraine.

⬇️Read Here
https://t.co/z1Dgk6BG58

[LSE IDEAS @lseideas]

China is often described through two competing climate stories. In one, it is the indispensable engine of global decarbonisation: dominating solar panels, batteries, electric vehicles and renewable-energy deployment. In the other, it remains the world’s largest coal consumer and a major obstacle to climate progress.

In this new China Dialogues piece, Destiny Kassa argues that both narratives miss something important. China’s climate policy is not a fixed blueprint, but a contested bargain shaped by domestic political economy.

Central agencies, provincial governments, state-owned enterprises, energy-security planners and clean-tech industries do not always share the same priorities. Coal, renewables, EVs, grid reform and industrial policy all sit inside that bargaining process.
The result is not a simple story of sincerity or hypocrisy, but a political struggle over which sectors, regions and institutions gain from the transition.

⬇️ Read the full piece:
https://t.co/hY4j0U4ExQ

#China #ClimatePolicy #EnergyTransition #Renewables #Coal #CleanTech

[LSE IDEAS @lseideas]

🎧Si Vis Pacem Podcast, Episode 2: Diplomacy in an Age of Conflict Diplomacy in an Age of Conflict: Dialogue, Prevention and the Search for Peace

In this episode, former British diplomat Peter Jones reflects on the changing nature of diplomacy in an increasingly fragmented international order. The conversation explores the relationship between diplomacy, dialogue and peace, asking whether preventative diplomacy can still help avert conflict in an age of geopolitical rivalry, polarization and declining trust.

⬇️ Listen Here
https://t.co/R9D5N1qNSL

[LSE IDEAS @lseideas]

📣Book Launch - Coker on War: Strategic Thinking for Uncertain Times

We are delighted to announce the publication of Coker on War: Strategic Thinking for Uncertain Times.

The volume - edited by Michael John Williams and Christopher Ankersen, and published by Hurst - brings together reflections on the work of Professor Christopher Coker, former Director of LSE IDEAS and one of Britain’s most distinctive thinkers on war, strategy and international affairs.

Through his twenty-seven books, Coker’s ideas - and his captivating writing - have influenced politicians, generals and generations of scholars. This volume is an extended examination of the man and his oeuvre, written by those who worked with him, learned from him, and were intellectually inspired by him.

⬇️Read the full announcement here
https://t.co/Bwnqf5p39M

[LSE IDEAS @lseideas]

🌏LSE Global South Dialogue Series: "Active Non-Alignment and the Global South"

Over the past few years, impelled by the wars in Iran, Ukraine, and Gaza as well as by BRICS expansion , non-alignment is back with a vengeance, albeit in a new incarnation, as Active Non-Alignment (ANA).

Though originated in Latin America in 2019-2020, as the region faced the triple whammy of the pandemic, the ensuing recession and pressures from the Trump administration, ANA has quickly spread to the rest of the Global South. ANA takes a page from the Non-Aligned Movement of yesteryear, but adapts it to the realities of the new century, one in which the Global South has emerged as a force to be reckoned with.

In their agenda-setting book, The Non-Aligned World: Striking Out in an Era of Great Power Competition ( Polity Press, 2025), Jorge Heine, Carlos Fortin and Carlos Ominami explain the origins, dynamics and significance of ANA for the future of world order.

🎤Prof. Gregory T. Chin, Professor Alvaro Mendez, Jorge Heine
📆 23 September 2026, 14:00

⬇️Register Here
https://t.co/g4PQK1JQeF