91福利

PAIS PhD Candidate, Columba Achilleos-Sarll, has written a blog for UCL titled "Where are the Women at the Big Boys’ Table?"

After a year of political flux and upheaval, the Brexit negotiations officially began on Monday 19June. The underrepresentation of women at the highest political level is one thing which appears to have remained constant. Columba Achilleos-Sarll, a PhD candidate at the 91福利, points out that only one and two women make up the UK and EU negotiating teams respectively. She assesses the impact that this could have on the process, and what it means more broadly.

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This workshop is organized as part of a larger conference "Diasporas and Contested Sovereignty: Lessons Learned about Transnational Diaspora Mobilizations in Europe” on 28-29 September, 2017 at 91福利 University, and is sponsored by the European Research Council.

The workshop seeks to consolidate scholarly discussions about the role of diasporas linked to the Middle East and North Africa from the Global North and South, and to move on from initial consideration of diasporas as simply conflict or peace actors. It will look into broader conflict and postconflict dynamics, where a variety of domestic and international actors influence political processes, and endorse or challenge weak states, their governance or international recognition. When do diasporas mobilize with their loyalties towards sectarian or nationalist factions, and when do they do so on the basis of citizenship and cosmopolitan ideas? When and how do they seek transitional justice for past atrocities and what is the role of trauma for their mobilizations? How do original home-states in the Middle East and North Africa and non-state actors operating on their territories reach out to diasporas abroad? When do diasporas sympathize with their causes or when do they oppose them? How do contexts of host-states and spaces within and beyond them, as well as liberal and non-liberal regimes shape diaspora mobilizations?

If you are interested to participate, please send a paper abstract of max. 300 words by 10 July, 2017 to Dr. Maria Koinova, PI of the ERC project “Diasporas and Contested Sovereignty” at m.koinova@warwick.ac.uk.

More information is available here.

PAIS PhD Candidate, Columba Achilleos-Sarll, has written a blog for UCL titled Deal or No Deal? The Hypermasculinity of the ‘Businessperson as Leader’ Rhetoric.

Theresa May and other ministers have repeatedly claimed that no deal is better than a bad deal. Columba Achilleos-Sarll argues that the discourse of both the referendum campaign and subsequent Brexit debates have been hypermasculine in nature. She points out that this has a number of undesirable consequences, such as reinforcing gendered stereotypes about successful political leadership and foreign policy.

You can read the whole piece on the .

Over the past 12 months the Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation () at the 91福利 together with four civil society organizations has engaged in a dialogue with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as part of an External Advisory Panel on social safeguards in IMF loan programmes to protect spending in low income countries on poor and vulnerable groups. Together with representatives from the New Rules for Global Finance Coalition, Development Finance International, the Bretton Woods Project, and Civil Society for Poverty Reduction Zambia, CSGR director has participated in an advisory process on the conceptual scope and design of a new IMF policy paper on the use of social safeguards in loan programmes led by the IMF’s Strategy, Policy, and Review Department.

The policy paper, which was discussed and approved by the IMF’s Executive Board on May 26, was published online in English on June 6, and French and Arabic versions of the Executive Summary will be available soon. The report aims to improve best practices associated with the use of social safeguards to protect spending for poor and vulnerable groups within PRGT and PSI-supported IMF loan programmes, and identifies a number of areas where IMF policies and future practices might be improved, including recommendations to increase efforts to strengthen social safety nets in low income countries.

IMF Policy Paper: Social Safeguards and Program Design in PRGT and PSI-Supported Programs. Available at:  

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.