How do women claim rights against violence in India and with what consequences? In this talk, Poulami Roychowdhury, Assistant Professor at McGill University, will provide a unique lens on rights negotiations in the world’s largest democracy. In her book Capable Women, Incapable States, Roychowdhury observes how women navigate the Indian criminal justice system, and finds that women interact with the law not by following legal procedure or abiding by the rules but by deploying collective threats and doing the work of the state themselves.

Air pollution is now the world’s leading environmental risk factor. It reportedly causes 5 million deaths globally, India and China alone contributing 1.2 million deaths each. With increased inconveniences and suffering on account of the poor quality of outdoor and indoor air in India, it is imperative to look at how air is impacted by our activities, how it is regulated, and how it affects spaces and bodies across class and gender.

In the last thirty years, the developing world has undergone tremendous changes. Overall, poverty has fallen, people live longer and healthier lives, and economies have been transformed. And yet many countries have simply missed the boat. Why have some countries prospered, while others have failed? Stefan Dercon argues that the answer lies not in a specific set of policies, but rather in a key ‘development bargain’, whereby a country’s elites shift from protecting their own positions to gambling on a growth-based future.

In April 2012, the escape of a Chinese dissident from house arrest in Dongshigu Village, Linyi City to the US embassy in Beijing put the Obama administration’s diplomacy skills to the test. Chen Guangcheng is a human rights organiser whose activism around China’s family planning policies landed him in prison between 2006 and 2010. After he was released, Chen Guancheng and his family were placed under house arrest.

Do international courts protect democracy?

Or do they threaten it by judicialising political issues?

What is their actual authority in the era of backlash against multilateralism?

Join a panel discussion with:

Mikael Rask Madsen, Director of iCourts: The Centre of Excellence for International Courts at the University of Copenhagen.

Theresa Squatrito, Assistant Professor in International Organizations at LSE.

Ezequiel Gonzalez Ocantos, Associate Professor, Department of Politics and IR, Professorial Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford.

The next session in DPIR’s Alumni Career Conversation series will focus on careers in policy analysis. It will take place virtually via Zoom on Wednesday 25 May, 13:00-14:30 GMT. The talk will be chaired and moderated by Jane Green, Professor of Political Science and British Politics at DPIR.