OxPol Blogcast

How can we ensure that displaced people live in safety and dignity and create a policy that is sustainable at the same time? In this episode, we speak to Dr. Alexander Betts, the Leopold Muller Professor of Forced Migration and International Affairs at the Refugee Studies Centre, and the Director of the Refugee Economies Programme, both at the University of Oxford. Alexander has written extensively on the political economy of refugee protection — highlighting how displaced people can access and contribute to economies worldwide.

Politics, Re-Imagined is a series by the Department of Politics and International Relations (DPIR) at the University of Oxford focused on exploring tangible and sustainable solutions to the most pressing challenges facing humanity today.

What does security mean to different people, in different places, under different circumstances? And what do academics view as the most pressing security issues for the future? In this bonus episode, Eden Raviv speaks to Dr. Edward Howell, Lecturer in Politics at Christ Church at the University of Oxford, to try to understand the concept. Dr. Howell's research focuses on the politics and international relations of North Korea, the Korean Peninsula and East Asia.

Join them as they discuss his latest book, North Korea and the Global Nuclear Order: When Bad Behaviour Pays (2023) and talk about North Korea, nuclear proliferation and bridging the divide between academia and policy.

As we witness a rise in radical right politics in Europe and beyond, our host Cassandra van Douveren speaks to Dr. Vicente Valentim, a Postdoctoral Prize Research Fellow at Nuffield College at the University of Oxford. Vicente's work focusses on the role of social norms in normalising the expression of views and behaviours associated with authoritarianism. Join us as we discuss his upcoming book, The Normalisation of the Radical Right: A Norms Theory of Political Supply and Demand (forthcoming: September 2024), pathways to restore democratic norms and Vicente's hopes for the future.

Politics, Re-Imagined is a series by the Department of Politics and International Relations (DPIR) at the University of Oxford focused on exploring tangible and sustainable solutions to the most pressing challenges facing humanity today.

How can media organisations reach those who feel the news is not for them? And, is our current age of fake news and Big Tech's hold on the media fundamentally different from the past? Tune in as our host Cassandra van Douveren speaks to Dr. Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, the Director of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and a Professor of Political Communication at the University of Oxford to discuss these questions.

Rasmus' work focusses on the changing role of the news and media in our societies. His recent book, Avoiding the News: Reluctant Audiences for Journalism (2023), written with Benjamin Toff and Ruth Palmer, explores why particular audiences are reluctant to follow the news and how this can be addressed. He has also written award-winning books on the growing influence of technology platforms over the media (The Power of Platforms), and on the significance of personalised political communication in American elections (Ground Wars), as well as dozens of articles and the annual Reuters Institute Digital News Report.

Politics, Re-Imagined is a series by the Department of Politics and International Relations (DPIR) at the University of Oxford focused on exploring tangible and sustainable solutions to the most pressing challenges facing humanity today.

Why were the contributions of some thinkers in the field of International Relations erased from history, while others became prominent enough to reach the reading lists of today? Many of those thinkers, whose perspectives never got to see the light of day, happen to be women. On this episode of the OxPol Blogcast, host Anastasia Bektimirova is joined by Dr. Patricia Owens, a Professor of International Relations at the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford, who is recovering the thinkers lost in the 20th century by writing a gendered history of the intellectual field. Drawing on the multi-award winning Leverhulme Project on Women and the History of International Thought, where she is the principal investigator, as well as on her individual research, Patricia introduces us to the many thinkers whose works she and colleagues have recovered, and discusses the related challenges and creative methodological approaches that archival research can entail. We also address the present state of affairs in academia to see if the practices and politics of the past, that have contributed to some voices being silenced, are echoed today.

This episode is part of the series Women in Politics: Perspectives from the Field and Academia which explores a feminist turn in Political Science and International Relations research, and tries to better understand women’s experiences in politics.

Are women taken less seriously than men in politics? What causes the authority gap, and how is it manifested? On this episode of the OxPol Blogcast, host Anastasia Bektimirova welcomes Mary Ann Sieghart, the author of the best-selling book The Authority Gap: Why Women Are Still Taken Less Seriously Than Men, and What We Can Do About It. Having spent three decades covering British politics as a journalist, Mary Ann draws on her observations and interviews with fifty of the world’s most powerful, successful and authoritative women to discuss the experiences and causes of the authority gap. We also reflect on the leadership of the recent two former British Prime Ministers Theresa May and Liz Truss to understand if the authority gap played a part in their political downfall.

This episode is part of the series Women in Politics: Perspectives from the Field and Academia which explores a feminist turn in Political Science and International Relations research, and tries to better understand women’s experiences in politics.

Are masculine behaviour and appearance indeed among the prerequisites for electoral success, in line with popular belief? On this episode of the OxPol Blogcast, host Anastasia Bektimirova is joined by Dr. Rachel Bernhard, an Associate Professor at the University of Oxford’s Department of Politics and International Relations (DPIR), to put the view of the political arena as a place favouring conventionally masculine traits to a test. Focusing on the United States, Rachel explains what is understood as masculinity and femininity in political leadership, and guides us through the observed variation in voters’ response to those cues. We also discuss how visual conjoint experiments, an advancement in experimental methodology that Rachel is working on, promises to help us better understand appearance-based discrimination in politics.

This episode is part of the series Women in Politics: Perspectives from the Field and Academia which explores a feminist turn in Political Science and International Relations research, and tries to better understand women’s experiences in politics.

With Dr. Malu Gatto, an Associate Professor of Latin American Politics at the Institute of the Americas at University College London (UCL), we are zooming into gender quotas, a policy that is supposed to assist in achieving a greater balance in legislatures. Malu helps us understand why in some Latin American countries gender quotas are implemented more effectively than in others, and what the so-called informal political institutions have to do with this. Malu is drawing on the insights from her co-authored article published in Party Politics.

With Dr. Anna Petherick, an Associate Professor in Public Policy and Director of the Lemann Foundation Programme for the Public Sector at the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford, we are focusing on corruption as a barrier to women’s political representation. Anna takes a comparative approach, allowing us to place the observations from Latin America into a broader perspective. You can further consult Anna’s report on the gender dimensions of corruption prepared for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

With Dr. Julia Zulver, a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow at the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies at the University of Oxford and UNAM in Mexico, we are turning to civil society politics. We are discussing how the challenges and risks associated with this form of political participation compare to those facing the traditional political elite. Later on, we are covering the rise to power of Francia Márquez, a recently elected Vice President in Colombia, to illustrate a path from civil society activism to elected office. Julia is drawing on her new book High-Risk Feminism in Colombia: Women’s Mobilization in Violent Contexts.

This episode is part of the series Women in Politics: Perspectives from the Field and Academia which explores a feminist turn in Political Science and International Relations research, and tries to better understand women’s experiences in politics.

On this episode of the OxPol Blogcast, host Anastasia Bektimirova is joined by Faye Curtis, a DPhil International Relations researcher at the University of Oxford’s Department of Politics and International Relations (DPIR), to discuss the effects of integration of women into previously all-male military units. Faye guides us through the ongoing debates over the risks and opportunities of such policy change, and discusses the contribution of her research which addresses the lifting of the ban on women in ground close combat roles in the British Armed Forces. In the second half of the episode, we get a glimpse of another dimension of military operation. By drawing on her experience of working for the UK diplomatic service at NATO, Faye gives us a sense of the culture of work at the organisation.

This episode is part of the series Women in Politics: Perspectives from the Field and Academia which explores a feminist turn in Political Science and International Relations research, and tries to better understand women’s experiences in politics.

With Reem Alsalem, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, we discuss violence against women in politics as a human rights issue, and the activities that are part of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur that contribute to the global goal of eliminating violence against women. You can further consult this report on violence against women in politics which Reem mentions, as well as the United Nations Broadband Commission report on cyber violence against women and girls mentioned by the host.

With Dr. Michael Drolet, Senior Research Fellow in the History of Political Thought at Worcester College, University of Oxford, we dive into awareness-raising efforts within the academic community that can help to bring about a change. As such, Michael tells us about the special issue of The Political Quarterly 'Women and the Politics of Incivility and Discrimination' which he guest-edited with Dr. Agnès Alexandre-Collier (University of Burgundy).

With Dr. Sofia Collignon, Lecturer in Political Communication at the Royal Holloway, University of London, we turn to the issue of violence against women in British politics, cover various forms of abuse and intimidation, how those are experienced differently by candidates and serving parliamentarians, and how women’s experiences compare to those of men. In this conversation, Sofia draws on the insights from her co-authored papers recently published in the aforementioned special issue of The Political Quarterly and the Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties. 

The episode concludes with a conversation with Dame Laura Cox, a former English High Court judge of the Queen's Bench Division, who led an independent inquiry into the culture of inappropriate workplace behaviour in the House of Commons, focusing on the experiences of staff members supporting the work of the Members of the Parliament and the functioning of Westminster. The subsequent report has informed the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme that is currently in place in Westminster. We cover the report's findings, recommendations, impact, and challenges faced during the investigation and the implementation of the scheme.

This episode is part of the series Women in Politics: Perspectives from the Field and Academia which explores a feminist turn in Political Science and International Relations research, and tries to better understand women's experiences in politics.