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Begin New Search Content Type Commentary and Analysis Publishing Institution LSE IDEAS Publication Year within 25 Years Publication Year within 10 Years

1. Reflections on WTO Reform: Lecture series by Ignacio Garcia Bercero

Author:
Ignacio Garcia Bercero
Publication Date:
01-2025
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
LSE IDEAS
Abstract:
This special edition of our Expert Analysis presents four lectures (edited for publication) on World Trade Organization reform delivered by the author at LSE IDEAS during June-November 2022 and concluding in May 2023. The paper ends on a postscript reflecting on the perspectives on the different issues discussed in the lectures following the outcome of the 13th Ministerial Conference of the WTO in February-March 2024, as well as the November 2024 re-election of Donald Trump—on the basis of a disruptive trade policy agenda.
Topic:
Reform, Trade Policy, Donald Trump, and WTO
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2. Is the G7 still relevant?

Author:
Raffaele Trombetta
Publication Date:
03-2024
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
LSE IDEAS
Abstract:
In the first of our new Expert Analysis series, former Italian Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Raffaele Trombetta, draws on his career experience to answer the question of whether the G7 is still relevant in today’s international order. Detailing a narrative of the G7’s history, confronting its challenges, and addressing its common criticisms, this paper deals with the alternatives (G20 and BRICS), as well as where the G7’s interests should lie in future relations with China and the African nations.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, G20, G7, BRICS, and International Order
Political Geography:
Africa, China, Europe, and Asia

3. Five years after Maidan: Toward a Greater Eurasia?

Author:
LSE Ideas
Publication Date:
05-2019
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
LSE IDEAS
Abstract:
This report, building on a workshop held at LSE IDEAS in December 2018 and supported by the Horizon 2020 UPTAKE and Global Challenges Research Fund COMPASS projects, brings together some of the UK’s foremost scholars on Russia, the EU and the post-Soviet space to evaluate the challenges and opportunities facing Russia’s 'Greater Eurasia’ foreign policy concept.
Topic:
International Relations, International Political Economy, and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4. Ireland-UK Relations and Northern Ireland after Brexit

Author:
LSE Ideas
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
LSE IDEAS
Abstract:
This report explores the impact of Brexit from an Irish perspective, explaining Europe’s role in improving Ireland-UK relations since 1970s and outlining the threat posed by Brexit to the political settlement in Northern Ireland. In April 2019, LSE IDEAS produced a second edition of this report, containing a new contribution from Michael Burleigh, important updates from Paul Gillespie and Adrian Guelke, and a refreshed introduction from Michael Cox.
Topic:
International Political Economy, International Affairs, and Brexit
Political Geography:
Ireland and Global Focus

5. China in the 2020s: a more difficult decade?

Author:
George Magnus
Publication Date:
10-2019
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
LSE IDEAS
Abstract:
The conventional narrative is that China is, or will, by 2030, be the largest economy in the world. Based on commonly held expectations historically about prewar Germany, the USSR and Japan, greater humility would not go amiss. It is not preordained that past economic trends will continue, especially in view of a much compromised outlook for both China and the rest of the world in the 2020s
Topic:
International Political Economy and International Affairs
Political Geography:
China and Global Focus

6. Refining Britain's Economic Diplomacy

Author:
Linda Yueh
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
LSE IDEAS
Abstract:
The EU referendum has thrown up many questions around globalisation as well as how to reposition Britain in the world after Brexit. The UK government’s professed intent to leave the European Union and negotiate its own free trade agreements means that Britain would be setting its own trade policies for the first time since 1973, and would need to explicitly set out the aims of British trade and associated foreign investment policies for the first time in four decades. With this in mind, clearly defining the UK’s economic diplomacy is crucial. Current global and domestic conditions are politically challenging. However, this offers an opportunity for the UK to take a lead in setting a helpful direction for the rest of the world, and ensuring that trade and investment policies benefit all in society.
Topic:
International Political Economy
Political Geography:
Global Focus

7. Making the 'Special Relationship' Great Again?

Author:
Tim Oliver and Michael Williams
Publication Date:
01-2017
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
LSE IDEAS
Abstract:
Even before Donald Trump won the US presidential election he left an indelible mark on US politics and on views of the US in Britain and around the world. his victory means those views will now have to be turned into policy towards a president many in Britain feel uneasy about. Current attitudes to Trump can be as contradictory and fast changing as the president-elect’s own political positions. They can be a mix of selective praise and horror. he has in the past been criticised by British political leaders from the Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson to the Mayor of london Sadiq khan. In early 2016 a petition of over half a million signatures led Parliament to debate (and reject) banning Trump from entering the Uk. Yet he has also drawn the support of politicians such as UKIP leader Nigel Farage, and polling showed support amongst the British public for his 2015 proposal to ban Muslims from entering the US. After the presidential election British ministers were quick to extend an olive branch. Johnson himself refused to attend a hastily convened EU meeting to discuss Trump’s election. Instead he called on the rest of the EU to end its collective ‘whinge-o-rama’.
Topic:
International Relations, Political stability, Post Truth Politics, and Populism
Political Geography:
Britain and America

8. The Greek Euro Tragedy

Author:
John Ryan
Publication Date:
10-2016
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
LSE IDEAS
Abstract:
This Strategic Update discusses the most recent problems for the Eurozone, namely the Greek crisis and how the European Central Bank’s (ECB) lack of democratic accountability has contributed to the instability of the Eurozone.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

9. The Greek Euro Tragedy

Author:
John Ryan
Publication Date:
11-2016
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
LSE IDEAS
Abstract:
On 4 February 2015, the European Central Bank (ECB) unexpectedly and suddenly cancelled acceptance of Greek bonds as collateral for liquidity funding unless Greece obeyed the Troika agreement. The ECB’s irresponsible and incompetent actions call into question their respect for the Greek government’s attempts to resolve its debt crisis in a sustainable way. The ECB may or may not have good reasons to cut off Greece, depending on your point of view, but it is clear that such a move would be political. A central bank that is supposed to be the lender of last resort and guardian of financial stability would be taking a deliberate and calculated decision to undermine the Greek banking system. The ECB is now seen in some quarters as arrogant, unaccountable and authoritarian.1 This Strategic Update discusses the most recent problems for the Eurozone, namely the Greek crisis and the European Central Bank’s (ECB) lack of democratic accountability which has contributed to considerable difficulties for the stability of the Eurozone.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
Greece

10. ASEAN: In or Out? No Way…Not yet?

Author:
Tan Sri Munir Majid
Publication Date:
10-2016
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
LSE IDEAS
Abstract:
While the close British decision to get out of the European Union was made in a referendum a while ago on 23 June, there is still the feeling in the UK: What have we done? Where do we go? How do we get there? Questions that should have been asked at the referendum, rather than after it. But there you are. When raw emotion and shallow argument reign, profound decisions are made without proper reflection or preparation. Since then the question has also been raised whether or not such a thing could occur in ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. It won’t but then again it may. First of all, let’s be clear. It is not likely there will ever be such a surplus of democracy in ASEAN, whether among individual member states or as a group, that there could be an ‘In or Out’ referendum like the one which resulted in Brexit.
Topic:
International Cooperation, International Affairs, Global Markets, and Global Political Economy
Political Geography:
Southeast Asia

11. Brexit: What Happens Next?

Author:
Tim Oliver
Publication Date:
06-2016
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
LSE IDEAS
Abstract:
A British withdrawal from the EU would be a process not an event. This Strategic Update sets out the nine overlapping series of negotiations that would be triggered and the positions the 27 remaining EU countries and the EU’s institutions would take, gathered from a network of researchers across the continent.
Topic:
Brexit
Political Geography:
Britain and European Union

12. A EU without the UK: The Geopolitics of a British Exit from the EU

Author:
Tim Oliver
Publication Date:
02-2016
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
LSE IDEAS
Abstract:
A vote by the British people to withdraw from the EU – also known as a ‘Brexit’ – will have significant implications for the EU, the ideas and structures of European integration, and European geopolitics. Opinion polls show that a vote to withdraw is a distinct possibility. The EU, the rest of Europe, allies around the world and the UK itself need to prepare for the wider international implications of such a move. This Strategic Update examines how likely a Brexit is and explores what it could mean for the EU, European integration, and Europe’s economics and security.
Topic:
Geopolitics and Brexit
Political Geography:
Britain and European Union

13. The Long Road to Tehran: The Iran Nuclear Deal in Perspective

Author:
Brian Gibson
Publication Date:
01-2015
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
LSE IDEAS
Abstract:
This Strategic Update traces the story of this major diplomatic breakthrough, through the historical context of long term US-Iran relations and the tireless international effort to prevent domestic political crises from derailing the negotiations.
Topic:
International Political Economy and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

14. The Long Road to Tehran: The Iran Nuclear Deal in Perspective

Author:
Bryan R. Gibson
Publication Date:
12-2015
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
LSE IDEAS
Abstract:
After nearly 20 months of near continuous negotiations, in 2015 Iran and the P5+1 reached a deal designed to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons capability in exchange for relief from the sanctions that have been crippling its economy over the course of the past decade. How was this momentous agreement reached? This Strategic Update traces the story of this major diplomatic breakthrough, through the historical context of long term US-Iran relations and the tireless international effort to prevent domestic political crises from derailing the negotiations.
Topic:
International Affairs and Nuclear Power
Political Geography:
Iran

15. China-EU Relations and the Future of European Soft Power

Author:
Karine Lisbonne-de Vergeron
Publication Date:
07-2015
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
LSE IDEAS
Abstract:
espite obvious differences, the EU’s most comprehensive partnership with an emerging power has been with China. This Strategic Update argues that this is partly due to China's identification with Europe's ancient culture and summarises current 'soft power' diplomacy.
Topic:
International Affairs and Political Power Sharing
Political Geography:
China and European Union

16. Paving the Road to Paris? What the EU Can Do to Facilitate A Political Climate Deal

Author:
Olivia Gippner
Publication Date:
10-2015
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
LSE IDEAS
Abstract:
On the road to the Paris climate change conference in December 2015, what are the prospects for a deal among the key international players - the United States, China, and India? This Strategic Update asks what the EU can do to influence a higher level of ambition and continue to have a leadership role in the global climate community.
Topic:
Climate Change
Political Geography:
European Union

17. Common EU Policies on Authorised Immigration

Author:
Georgia Mavrodi
Publication Date:
10-2015
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
LSE IDEAS
Abstract:
The idea of 'Fortress Europe' has dominated debates on EU immigration policies from the 1990s to current concerns in the Mediterranean. However, this focus on security and illegal migration has obscured important developments in EU policy on authorised migration. This strategic update analyses the construction of common EU policies that recognise the need for particular categories of international migrants.
Topic:
International Cooperation and International Affairs
Political Geography:
European Union