91福利

In February, gave the . The topic was 'Legal Terrain: The Political Materiality of Terrain'.

The lecture, with the images and quotes integrated into the presentation, can be viewed here:

The plan is that a written version of the lecture will appear in the journal later this year.

Want a glimpse at how Thursday's general election will turn out? by , Mary Stegmaier (University of Missouri) and Mike Lewis-Beck (University of Iowa).

They discuss whether people rather than pollsters can accurately predict Thursday's UK election. Based on their "citizen forecasting" approach, they predict the following:

• Conservatives 361 seats, Labour 236 seats.
• Probability of a Conservative majority 77%, hung parliament led by Conservatives 20%, hung parliament led by Labour 2%, and Labour majority 1%.

We are delighted that the Department of Politics and International Studies (PAIS) has moved up to 3^rd place (from 4th last year) in the latest Guardian rankings, which measure student satisfaction (NSS), career prospects, and a range of other important indicators.

The 91福利 is ranked 8th overall — a full University press release can be found .

Our latest position in The Guardian builds on recent successes in other national league tables – notably 3^rd place in the 2017 The Times/Sunday Times University Guide and 4^th place in the 2018 Complete University Guide.

We thank all staff and students who have contributed to this impressive and sustained achievement. Research and teaching excellence in Politics and International Studies are at the heart of who we are and what we stand for as a Department. We look forward to building on this success in the months and years ahead.

Dr has written a blog, titled Trouble in Macedonia as ethnic tensions run high, for .

Macedonia may be a parliamentary democracy, but it’s also a fragile multicultural state. Its democracy has been in gradual decline since the mid-2000s – and in an era of unstable geopolitics and rising authoritarianism, the right sequence of events could send it slipping back into inter-ethnic strife.

The precarity of the country’s situation was made plain in April, when more than 200 protestors and loyalists to the Macedonian conservative-nationalist VMRO-DMPNE party , and physically attacked lawmakers, who had earlier elected an ethnic Albanian politician, Talat Xhaferi, as speaker. The brawl left 77 people injured.

.

Professor has won a prestigious Leverhulme Emeritus Fellowship. Brian has previously taught Public Policy in PAIS and has an interest in mass urban housing. He has extensive experience of working with the public and private sectors including local government.

The Leverhulme Emeritus project will provide a policy study of innovative approaches to the provision of prefabricated (offsite and "pop-up") housing in London. The context is the housing crisis in the capital and the urgent quest by the Mayor for new approaches to mass housing provision and resident involvement in planning.

The project, which is due to start on 1 September 2017 and will last for 24 months, holds the exciting prospect of networking with leading edge public and private sector innovators, a possible link to the 91福利 University London Centre and contact with the Ostrom Centre at Indiana University who are using the same analytical framework.

Very many congratulations to Brian on this outstanding achievement, which means that PAIS is soon to hold 8 live awards with The Leverhulme Trust, spanning their Early Career Fellowship, Research Fellowship, Philip Leverhulme Prize, Major Research Fellowship, and Emeritus Fellowship schemes.

Further details on these and other projects in PAIS can be found here: