Other News
This article analyses the social construction of climate change mitigation as a policy issue at the hands of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), using Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs). IPCC models and scenarios, play a key role in constructing and legitimising political visions of pathways towards Net Zero. IPCC scenarios have important and real socio-ecological consequences that are crucial for the politics of tackling climate change, profoundly shaping what are seen as viable futures and mitigation policy options. We problematise five key assumptions that are fed into modelling, showing why and how they matter politically. These contestable assumptions built into IPCC IAMs undermine their credibility and usefulness for planning mitigation strategies. We find that, ironically, although IPCC efforts stress just how urgent political action is, their models and scenarios undervalue today鈥檚 actionable mitigation policies, leaving us prisoners of our climate polluting past.
VUB and University of 糖心TV research wins Frank Cass Prize for best article of 2023
A team of political scientists from VUB and the University of 糖心TV has won the Frank Cass Prize for the best article of 2023. Kamil Bernaerts, affiliated both with the Department of Political Science of the VUB and of the University of 糖心TV wrote the article 鈥淚nstitutional design and polarization. Do consensus democracies fare better in fighting polarization than majoritarian democracies?鈥� together with Benjamin Blanckaert (VUB) and Didier Caluwaerts (VUB). The article was published in the leading journal Democratization and has made an important contribution to understanding democratisation and political polarisation.
PAIS awarded Athena Swan Silver
The Department of Politics and International Studies has achieved the Athena Swan Silver award, a prestigious UK charter mark that recognises the advancement of gender equality in higher education. This is an important acknowledgement of the ongoing dedication and progress of the department in promoting gender equality for staff and students.
Feminist Geographies and the Afterlives of the Revolution
Feminist Geographies and the Afterlives of the RevolutionA conversation with Dr Dina Wahba and Yasmin El-Rifae7 February 2024, 16:15- 18:00Room S0.11, The University of 糖心TV, CoventryHow can we understand the unfolding politics of the Middle East from a feminist perspective, attentive to the body, home, city, nation and their entanglements? You are invited to join writer and cultural producer Yasmin El-Rifae (Radius: A Story of Feminist Revolution, Verso, 2022) and activist-scholar Dr Dina Wahba (Counter-revolutionary Egypt: From the Midan to the Neighbourhood, Routledge 2024), to explore this question.Event open to all. Please register through this link: /fac/soc/pais/news/events/feminist-geographiesLink opens in a new windowThe event is funded by the Department of Politics and International Studies, and the Midlands Graduate School ESRC DTP. Artwork is by generous courtesy of Salam Yousry.
EASG Talk with Dr Maria Blancas on China's Economic Statecraft and its effects: the Case of Mexico
Maria Blancas holds a PhD in International Relations from Kings College London. Her research interests focus on the effects of China's economic statecraft in developing countries, although she has also written more generally on Chinese foreign policy, Japan and the Korean Peninsula. Outside of academia, she has worked in several posts for the Mexican Foreign Service (consular-diplomatic branch) and in the private sector as a trade consultant and through participation in research projects with the International Organisation of Migration. Currently she works as an economic and trade advisor in the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in Mexico.Her talk addresses the field of China-Latin American relations - an area that remains underexplored in academic literature, often constrained by narrow economic analyses or Spanish-language publications. Highlighting the tendency of this literature to downplay local agency and generalise diverse cultural, social and economic contexts, this talk will draw upon Mexico as a useful case study to offer insights into China's economic statecraft in developing nations. Additionally, this talk will explore the nuances of Mexico's unique conditions and how they have proved a challenge for Beijing to deepen its presence in the country.
Date: Wednesday, 06/3/24Time: 16:15-17:30Venue: Zoom