Professor William Bain (National University of Singapore) is author of 'Political Theology of International Order' (OUP, 2020) and 'Between Anarchy and Society: Trusteeship and the Obligations of Power' (OUP, 2003).

Recent work has suggested that when voters are less partisan, legislators engage in more personal vote-seeking. This has potentially important implications, given the widespread decline of partisanship in many countries, and the well-noted consequences of personal vote-seeking for policy-making, election results, and accountability. However, existing tests of this argument use either aggregate-level measures of partisanship, or constituency-level proxy measures. We thus lack direct evidence linking constituency-level partisanship to MPs’ parliamentary behaviour.

All welcome / bring lunch!

Can myths explain Brexit? A discussion with Professor Kalypso Nicolaïdis about her recently published book 'Exodus, Reckoning, Sacrifice - Three meanings of Brexit', in Saint John's College, Wednesday, second week, 7-8.15pm. Free refreshments provided. Open to all.

Guerrilla warfare has earned a reputation of near invincibility, driving great powers out of their former colonial empires during the twentieth century and frustrating military interventions during the twenty-first century, even where the asymmetry in regular force capability is the starkest. Why have mighty powers that proved capable of crushing the strongest of opponents failed to defeat the humblest of military rivals in some of the world’s poorest and weakest regions? How do the weak defeat the strong?