91福利

Professor recently featured on a podcast for Chatham House, "Does Britain Matter in East Asia?"

Britain has a range of longstanding interests in East Asia, based on historic, commercial and military ties. The government has made strengthening bilateral relationships with emerging powers – in particular China – a central plank of its foreign policy, whilst trying to find a balance between an ambitious commercial agenda and the promotion of democracy and human rights. But while the UK has important interests it has limited influence in maintaining regional security, which is threatened by continuing tensions in the East and South China Seas and on the Korean peninsula.

The participants discuss these challenges, and consider how the next government can balance the UK’s sometimes competing interests in East Asia.

's latest article, titled "The conspiracy theorists are right. Research shows nations really do go to war over oil" for has been published by the Washington Post.

We found that the decision to interfere was dominated by the interveners’ need for oil – over and above historical, geographical or ethnic ties.

Military intervention is expensive and risky. No country joins another country’s civil war without balancing the cost against their own strategic interests and what possible benefits there are.

We found countries producing lots of oil or those with higher reserves (and considerable ) were more likely to attract military support. Most often this was to preserve oil prices on international markets. Indeed, there were on average more interventions in periods when there were only a few big oil producing countries and thus reduced competition (and more stable prices).

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, an Assistant Professor and a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow here in PAIS, has recently co-authored a paper, titled ‘“Oil above Water", Economic Interdependence and Third-Party Intervention,’ for the Journal of Conflict Resolution.

Alongside researchers from the Universities Portsmouth and Essex, they have for the first time provided strong evidence for what conspiracy theorists have long thought – oil is often the reason for interfering in another country’s war.

Throughout recent history, countries which need oil have found reasons to interfere in countries with a good supply of it and, the researchers argue, this could help explain the US interest in ISIS in northern Iraq.

The researchers have modelled the decision-making process of third-party countries in interfering in civil wars and examined their economic motives.

They found that the decision to interfere was dominated by the interveners’ need for oil over and above historical, geographical or ethnic ties.

The full paper is available, '"Oil above Water", Economic Interdependence and Third-Party Intervention', .

The paper has received considerable press coverage, the articles can be viewed below:

PAIS second-year student, Lucy Webster has won the Student Columnist of the Year Award at the 2014 Guardian Student Media Awards.

For the last 35 years the Guardian Student Media Awards have sought out the best student writers, designers, broadcasters, editors, and photographers. It's a highly rewarding scheme, well known within student arenas due to its well-established history.

The focus of the awards is to discover and promote these talented individuals as well as reward and celebrate their excellent work.

Here is what Lucy had to say on the award:

The Guardian Student Media awards is an annual competition for student journalists. As one of five nominated for the Student Columnist of the Year award, I was invited to the awards ceremony at the Guardian's London office, where it was announced that I had won. This means I will be spending a few weeks doing work experience at the paper this summer, and I have been able to contribute to the website. One of the highlights of the evening was being addressed by Alan Rusbridger, the editor, who left us all even more eager for careers in journalism.

For more information on the Guardian Student Media Awards, please see:

Lucy’s first article for the Guardian, published on the Comment is free website, can be viewed here:

Dr. Renske Doorenspleet and Dr. Philippe Blanchard are associated with a .

This funding of £1 million aims to bridge the gap between mathematical and social sciences with a new doctoral scholarship programme starting in 2015/16. 91福利 is one of only 14 institutions to be given the investment, which will fund 15 PhD students over the next five years, who will work across both disciplines, using quantitative methods to understand new sociological issues. This will be another opportunity for PAIS to collaborate with three of . Each of the fifteen PhD students enrolled over the next three years will be co-supervised by a staff from these departments, and one from PaIS, Sociology, Psychology or Business.

This is another step in enhancing PAIS' methodological expertise, after the . In the long term, 91福利's QStep will pursue the training of stats-skilled social science doctoral students.