LSE IDEAS

01/10/2026

Taiwan and Japan have no formal diplomatic relationship. Yet the substance of their ties has changed considerably.

In a new China Dialogues piece, Yu-Hua Chen traces this evolution from the post-1972 framework of unofficial relations, through growing social affinity, to today's expanding cooperation on regional security, drones and semiconductors.

Chen argues that these developments are gradually changing Taiwan’s place in Japanese strategic thinking — from a like-minded friend towards an increasingly important partner — even as longstanding diplomatic constraints remain

⬇️Read the full piece
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/cff/2026/09/23/taiwan-japan-relations-strategic-partnership/

30/09/2026

📣FREE EVENT | Sea change: the new great game in the Arctic circle | Hosted by the Department of International Relations

📆 Thursday 22 October 2026 | 6.30pm - 8pm
📌LSE Campus

Join award-winning journalist and Financial Times columnist Rana Foroohar as she discusses her latest book, Sea Change: The New Great Game in the Arctic.

In the 19th century, the British and Russian empires battled for primacy in Central Asia, in a multi-decade struggle that became known as ‘The Great Game’. The territorial lines drawn across Persia, Afghanistan, Tibet and India over this time defined the geopolitics and economics of the next century.

Today, there is a new Great Game being played not in Central Asia, or even in modern hot zones like Ukraine, Gaza, or the South China Seas, but rather in the frigid waters of the Arctic. Dominance in this region will be crucial to control of the entire Western hemisphere.

America, which has always been an Arctic nation, but only peripherally so, must now face the fact that Russia and China together are challenging its territorial primacy in the Western Hemisphere.

Can America wrest back enough maritime capacity and control to counter Beijing? What will happen if it can’t? These are two of the many crucial questions Sea Change strives to answer.

The discussion will be followed by an audience Q&A and a book signing.

⬇️Register Here

6.30pm Thurs 22 Oct | Rana Foroohar | Free public event at LSE

29/09/2026

🍃FREE EVENT: Green Political Economy

In this latest event organised by the Geopolitics of Climate Change project, LSE IDEAS proposes to examine the ongoing impact of the energy transition through a series of events aimed at unpacking key features of this world in the making and the role that the energy transition has in that process.

The de-carbonisation of industrial economies is moving apace and bringing with it a silent transition, a phenomenon ‘hiding in plain sight’, in the foundational structures of the international political economy. New sources of energy are not only propelling the adoption of green technologies and reconfiguring global supply and production chains but are also reshaping centres of global power in unexpected ways. At the same time, polarising political narratives surrounding climate action are complicating the development of coherent environmental policies and intensifying geopolitical frictions, influencing how states position themselves within the emerging energy landscape. Join Professor Robert Falkner for the conversation.

📆 October 13th 2026, 6pm-7pm

⬇️ Register Here
https://www.lse.ac.uk/ideas/events/green-political-economy

28/09/2026

⛓️Geopolitics of the AI Supply Chain: Control, Dependency, and National AI Ecosystems in the US, EU, China, and the UAE | By Kenddrick Chan, Songruowen Mar and Ce Hao

Our latest research report examines national AI policy environments, as well as cross-border dependencies and forms of control within the AI supply chain, through a comparative framework spanning the United States, the European Union, the People’s Republic of China, and the United Arab Emirates.

⬇️Read Here

This research report examines national AI policy environments, as well as cross-border dependencies and forms of control within the AI supply chain, through a comparative framework spanning the United States, the European Union, the People’s Republic of China, and the United Arab Emirates. Firstly...

24/09/2026

📰"Europe on High Alert As Russia Sows Panic With Hybrid Attacks" | Newsweek

Matthew Arnold, programme director of LSE IDEAS’ Democratic Resilience in a New Age of War Program comments on Russia's increasing threats to Europe, quoted in Newsweek's recent piece.

“The intent is very simple- to cause a pervasive, intensifying sense among European publics that insecurity is increasing,” Arnold told Newsweek.

⬇️Read the full article

By Brendan ColeSenior Reporter0ShareNewsweek is a Trust Project memberSee more of our trusted coverage when you search.Prefer Newsweek on Googleto see more of our trusted coverage when you search.Russia is stepping up hybrid attacks against Europe, French President Emmanuel Macron has said in the la...

23/09/2026

🌏FREE EVENT | LSE Global South Dialogue Series: "Active Non-Alignment and the Global South"

Over the past few years, impelled by the wars in Iran, Ukraine, and Gaza as well as by BRICS expansion , non-alignment is back with a vengeance, albeit in a new incarnation, as Active Non-Alignment (ANA). In this event Jorge Heine will discuss the significance of ANA for the future of world order.

📆23 September 2026 | 2pm - 3pm
📌Online

⬇️Register Here

Over the past few years, impelled by the wars in Iran, Ukraine, and Gaza as well as by BRICS expansion , non-alignment is back with a vengeance, albeit in a new incarnation, as Active Non-Alignment (ANA). Though originated in Latin America in 2019-2020, as the region faced the triple whammy of the p...

22/09/2026

Last week, LSE researcher Dr Matthew Benson-Strohmayer presented oral amicus observations before the International Criminal Court in The Hague during the reparations proceedings in The Prosecutor v. Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman (‘Ali Kushayb’), concerning atrocities committed in Darfur.

Matthew co-authored expert economic evidence submitted by the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN). The research examines the economic and institutional consequences of the violence in Darfur, including the long-run fiscal structures through which predatory forms of rule developed, and considers the implications for collective and programmatic reparations, particularly in areas such as education and healthcare.

The intervention draws directly on Matthew’s research at LSE on the economic history and political economy of Sudan, including his book project, Of Rule Not Revenue: Predation, State-Unbuilding, and Conflict in Sudan and South Sudan, 1821-2023, for Cambridge University Press’s African Studies Series, as well as his wider work on fiscal governance, predatory rule, the political economy of conflict and crisis, and the relationship between war, humanitarian intervention, peace and economic institutions. It also builds on his published research on Sudan and South Sudan, including articles in Comparative Studies in Society and History and the Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding.

⬇️Watch the full hearing online here

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22/09/2026

Can an officially atheist state take a fundamentalist turn?

In this new China Dialogues piece, Gerda Wielander challenges the familiar assumption that religion and politics occupy entirely separate spheres in contemporary China.
She argues that under Xi Jinping, the promotion of state morality, traditional culture and the Sinicisation of religion has increasingly blurred the boundaries between the political, the moral and the spiritual.

From the socialist core values and the revival of folk religion to the Party’s concern with faith, social cohesion and “traditional values”, Wielander asks whether China’s current trajectory is best understood not simply as tighter religious control, but as a distinctly Chinese form of fundamentalist politics.

⬇️Read the full piece
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/cff/2026/09/17/has-china-taken-a-fundamentalist-turn/

17/09/2026

🍃FREE EVENT: Green Political Economy

In this latest event organised by the Geopolitics of Climate Change project, LSE IDEAS proposes to examine the ongoing impact of the energy transition through a series of events aimed at unpacking key features of this world in the making and the role that the energy transition has in that process.

📆 October 13th 2026, 6pm-7pm
🎤 Professor Robert Falkner, chaired by Professor Christopher Alden

⬇️ Register Here

The de-carbonisation of industrial economies is moving apace and bringing with it a silent transition, a phenomenon ‘hiding in plain sight’, in the foundational structures of the international political economy. New sources of energy are not only propelling the adoption of green technologies and...