Location: London, UK
The Government and Opposition Leonard Schapiro Memorial Lecture is given annually in honour of Leonard Schapiro, one of the journal's founding editors.
Follow @govandopp for information on the next Schapiro Lecture.
2023 Leonard Schapiro Memorial Lecture
Professor Desmond King of the University of Oxford delivered the 2023 Leonard Schapiro Memorial Lecture on 'American Politics and Political Violence: The best possible accommodation?'
The event took place on Thusday the 18th of May 2023 at the RSA in London and online. Click on the image shown to watch the 2023 Lecture
Abstract:
From its settler-colonial and constitutional foundation the United States has experienced periodic episodes and acts of political violence, including one internal civil war, bitter industrial conflicts, violence rooted in enslavement and segregation, people displacement from indigenous lands and riots. These acts of political violence are more persistent and widespread than in other liberal democracies. Charlottesville 2017 and January 6 2021 are powerful recent expressions of political violence in the American tradition. In this talk I ask, How is this political violence accommodated in the US’s political democracy? The answer identifies constitutional, ideological and historical sources of accommodation.
You can watch a recording of the lecture here.
Biography:
Desmond King is the Andrew W Mellon Professor of American Government at the University of Oxford, and author of several books and papers about U.S. politics, including Making Americans: Immigration, Race, and the Origins of the Diverse Democracy (Harvard University Press, 2002), Still a House Divided: Race and Politics in Obama’s America (Princeton University Press, 2012), and “Forceful Federalism Against American Racial Inequality,” Government and Opposition 52:2 (April 2017) pp. 356-382. He is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the British Academy and the American Philosophical Society.
2022 Leonard Schapiro Memorial Lecture
Professor Brigid Laffan gave the 2022 Schapiro Lecture on ‘The Emergence of Collective Power Europe (CPE)’. Her analysis was of significant contemporary significance, highlighting the cases of Brexit, the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
Read Professor Laffan's G&O paper based on the lecture here.
The Royal Irish Academy hosted the event in Dublin. It gave us an opportunity also to formally commemorate our G&O colleague and friend Professor Robert Elgie, who was also a member of the RIA, and to have his family present.
The lecture was opened by Dr Mary Canning, President of the Royal Irish Academy.
Professor Helen Thompson gave a short tribute to Robert Elgie on G&O’s behalf.
You can watch a recording of ‘The Emergence of Collective Power Europe (CPE)’ below.
Following a long decade of crises, it is timely to revisit a macro question concerning the European Union, namely, the nature of the beast or the kind of polity that has emerged from crises and challenge. Concepts such as Market Power Europe and Normative Power Europe no longer capture the essence of the EU as it struggles to act in response to crisis. This lecture offers the concept of Collective Power Europe (CPE) as a suggestive means to address the kind of EU that is emerging. The lecture addresses what is meant by collective power and what its essential ingredients are. Then the analysis pivots to three cases where it will be argued the EU exercised collective power. These are Brexit, the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. The underlying assumption is that the EU represents a robust and resilient form of political order and that its distinctiveness serves to disguise its strengths.
2021 Leonard Schapiro Lecture
The 2021 Leonard Schapiro Lecture was “The Shifting Relationship between Postwar Capitalism and Democracy” by Professor Peter A. Hall, Harvard University.
Watch a recording of the Lecture using the YouTube link shown.
Professor Hall's article based on the lecture is available online here.
2020 Leonard Schapiro Lecture
The 2020 Government & Opposition Leonard Schapiro Memorial Lecture, entitled ‘The would-be federation next door: what next for Britain?’ was delivered by Helen Thompson, Professor of Political Economy at the University of Cambridge, UK.
Watch a recording of the Lecture using the YouTube link shown.
Professor Thompson's article based on the lecture is available without charge here.
2019 Leonard Schapiro Lecture
The 2019 Lecture was delivered by Professor Cas Mudde of The University of Georgia (USA) and the University of Oslo (Norway) who presented a lecture on “Populism in Europe: An Illiberal Democratic Response to Undemocratic Liberalism.”
Professor Mudde's lecture is now available as an article with Government & Opposition.
Watch a recording of the Lecture using the YouTube link shown.
Previous Lectures
2018 - A Fresh Perspective on the Origins of “Civic Culture” and Why It Matters for the Study of the Arab World - Carrie Rosefsky Wickham
2017 - The Global Economics of European Populism: Growth Regimes and Party System Change in Europe - Jonathan Hopkin and Mark Blyth
You can also download Professor Blyth's PowerPoint slides from his lecture here.
2016 - The European Union between Intergovernmentalism and ‘Shared and Responsible Sovereignty’: The Haptic Potential of EMU’s Institutional Architecture - Simona Piattoni
2015 - Making Immigration Work: How Britain and Europe Can Cope with their Immigration Crises - Randall Hansen
2014 - Which Map? Which Government? Malapportionment and Gerrymandering, UK-Style - Ron Johnston
2013 - On Violence and Repression: A Relational Approach - Donatella della Porta
2012 - The Federalization of Iraq and the Break-up of Sudan - Brendan O'Leary
2011 - ‘England Does Not Love Coalitions’: The Most Misused Political Quotation in the Book - Iain McLean
2010 - Pathology Without Crisis? The Strange Demise of the Anglo-Liberal Growth Model - Colin Hay
2008 - The Western Ideology - Andrew Gamble
2007 - Comparative Theory and Political Practice: Do We Need a ‘State-Nation’ Model as Well as a ‘Nation-State’ Model? - Alfred Stepan