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Revolutions and world order: still the 'Sixth Great Power'?

Hosted by the Department of International Relations

In-person and online public event (Sheikh Zayed Theatre, Cheng Kin Ku Building)

Speakers

Professor George Lawson

Dr Jasmine K Gani

Discussant

Chair

Professor Toby Dodge

This lecture, held in honour of the renowned scholar Fred Halliday, will explore the relationship between revolutions and world order in contemporary geopolitics.

It will revisit Halliday’s argument that revolutions have, as much as war and nationalism, shaped the development of international politics and order. It will examine whether revolutions can still be thought of as the ‘sixth great power’ at par with the states that dominate and play a definitive role in shaping the international system. It will thus assess the continuing relevance of revolutionary movements to geopolitics.

Meet our speakers and chair

George Lawson (@GeorgeLawsonIR) is a professor in the Department of International Relations at the Australian National University. His work is oriented around the relationship between history and theory, with a particular interest in global historical sociology. He applied this interest to the study of revolutions in three books: Anatomies of Revolution, Negotiated Revolutions: The Czech Republic, South Africa and Chile, and On Revolutions: Unruly Politics in the Contemporary World, co-authored with Colin Beck, Mlada Bukavansky, Erica Chenoweth, Sharon Nepstad and Daniel Ritter.

Jasmine Gani is Assistant Professor in International Relations Theory at LSE. She specialises in anti-colonial theory and history, and the politics of empire, race and knowledge production. Her research has been published in International Studies Quarterly, Security Dialogue, International Affairs, Postcolonial Studies, and Millennium, among others. She is writing a book on ‘Racial Militarism’, using a postcolonial framework to analyse the relationship between race, militarism, and the state in both imperial metropoles and post-colonies. 

Toby Dodge is a professor in the Department of International Relations. He is also Kuwait Professor and Director of the Kuwait Programme, Middle East Centre. Toby currently serves as Iraq Research Director for the DFID-funded Conflict Research Programme (CRP). From 2013–18, Toby was Director of the Middle East Centre.

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The Department of International Relations (@LSEIRDept) at LSE is now in its 97th year, and is one of the oldest as well as largest IR departments in the world, with a truly international reputation. The Department is ranked 2nd in the UK and 5th in the world in the QS World University Ranking by Subject 2024 tables for Politics and International Studies.

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This public event is free and open to all. This event will be a hybrid event, with an in-person audience and an online audience.

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For the online event: Registration for this event via LSE Live will open in mid April.

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