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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.