From 2010 to 2016, then President, Benigno Aquino balanced China’s expansive maritime claim in the South China Sea. President Aquino challenged China by shifting the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ (AFP) focus from domestic security to territorial defence, bolstering closer Philippine-U.S. security relations; acquiring American military equipment; seeking from Washington an explicit security guarantee under the 1951 Mutual Defence Treaty (MDT); and promoting a strategic partnership with Japan.

The seminar will showcase the Polish Ministry of Digital Affairs’ role in transforming the state into a modern public service provider. It will briefly go through the flagship e-Gov projects, including cybersecurity, and outline the Ministry’s responsibilities regarding the coordination of Poland’s Digital Single Market Strategy.

At a time of spiraling political turmoil and rising threats of war, can we find new methods to enact
global transformation? How can we rehumanize international affairs and redefine prevailing
paradigms of power, using testimonies, stories and artistic expressions? Can we vivify our efforts to
envision and enact change in response to current threats, drawing on creativity and the arts?
This timely gathering of eminent scholars and practitioners from around the globe, will engage in

Abstract: This book explores organized labor's role in the rapid trade liberalization pursued by developing countries since the 1980s. It argues that labor unions opposed liberalization, and where labor rights were well protected, they effectively slowed down the rate of trade policy reform. Labor unions were particularly influential when democratization opened up public debates about economic policy. Unions called general strikes and pushed back against the liberalization demands of export-oriented businesses and pro-reform technocrats.

Speaker(s):
Vladimir Mau (Rector of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration); Andrey Kazmin (former Chairman of Sberbank); Peter Tabak (Lead Economist, EBRD); Richard Luddington (Vice Chairman of Morgan Stanley) and others

Convenor:
Professor Roy Allison (St Antony's) & Professor Paul Chaisty (St Antony's)

There will be two panels:

‘Recent developments in the Russian and post-Soviet economies: performance, challenges and reforms’;