From inequality to authoritarianism: politics events at the Cambridge Festival 2022
What has Covid taught us about social inequality in the UK? Can political innovation come from crisis? Did science win in the battle of Covid communications and how has the pandemic affected gender equality?
These are some of the major political and economic issues to be debated at this year’s Cambridge Festival. Speakers include Professor David Runciman, co-host of the highly respected Talking Politics blog, economics expert Professor Diane Coyle, Chris Smith of the Naked Scientists, journalist and author Mary Ann Seighart and Shruti Kapila, author of Violent Fraternity: Indian Political Thought in the Global Age.
Following a hugely successful inaugural year in 2021 – which saw well over 100,000 online global views during the 10-day festival period – the Cambridge Festival 2022, one of the biggest events of its kind, returns as a hybrid event, hosting over 350 in-person and online events that can be viewed by anyone, anywhere in the world - most of them free of charge.
The Festival, which runs from 31st March to 10th April, is the University of Cambridge’s leading public engagement event and tackles and offers solutions for some of our most pressing issues, from the multiple crises in politics, health and climate change to global economics and human rights.
While the impact of Covid dominates discussions, many of the political events take a wider perspective on the multiple causes of political and economic turbulence at this time. In Can political innovation come from crisis? [7th April 2022, 7.30-8.30pm, Babbage Lecture Theatre] David Runciman, Professor of Politics at the University of Cambridge an author of the new book Confronting Leviathan [September 2021], and Arshin Adib Moghaddam, Professor in Global Thought and Comparative Philosophies at SOAS, University of London, will discuss how the history of ideas helps us to understand what is happening today, whether the multiple crises we are facing could spawn new ideas about how we organise society and what the impact of technology and Artificial Intelligence might be on politics and society. The event will be chaired by Dorothy Byrne, President of Murray Edwards College and former Head of News and Current Affairs at Channel 4 Television.
Equality is also at the centre of several events. In An unequal world: beyond levelling up [4th April, 6-7pm, Babbage Lecture Theatre] Professor Simon Szreter, economics consultant Hilary Cooper and Professor Diane Coyle will look not only at longer term inequality in the UK, but how Covid has exacerbated this. Simon Szreter, Professor of History and Public Policy at the University of Cambridge, and Hilary Cooper, a former senior policy maker, are authors of the new book After the virus: Lessons from the past for a better future [September 2021] which reveals the deep roots of the UK’s vulnerability and sets out a powerful manifesto for change post-Covid-19. Diane Coyle, the Bennett Professor of Public Policy at the University of Cambridge, is author of Cogs and Monsters: What economics is, and what it should be [October 2021], which argues that economics needs to change to keep pace with the 21st century and the digital economy.
In Women and power after Covid [6th April, 6-7.30pm; online only] experts will debate the impact of the pandemic on women - looking at everything from how women leaders have fared and what the impact has been on women in business to how girls education around the world has been affected. Speakers include Professor Jennifer Piscopo, Director of the Center for Research and Scholarship at Occidental College in Los Angeles, California; journalist Mary Ann Sieghart, author of The Authority Gap; [remove Arif] Resham Kotecha, Head of Engagement at women2win and a Fawcett Society Trustee; and Bukola Adisa, Founder/CEO of Career Masterclass, which helps women and BAME professionals progress in the workplace. The event will be chaired by Heidi Allen, former MP for South Cambridgeshire.
Other Covid-related events will explore what we have learned about science communications as a result of the pandemic. Covid communications: did science win? [April 1st, 6-7.30pm, Babbage Lecture Theatre] will hear from virologist Chris Smith, founder of the Naked Scientists and a medical consultant specialising in clinical microbiology and virology at Cambridge University and its teaching hospital, Addenbrooke's, who will talk about his experience of public engagement during the pandemic; social psychologist Sander van der Linden, Professor of Social Psychology in Society and Director of the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab in the Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge, who will speak about his work on countering conspiracy theories and on literacy; Moira Nicolson, Behavioural Science Lead at the Cabinet Office, who will address the role of her team in addressing vaccine hesitancy, what worked and what didn't; and Tushna Vandrevala, Professor of Health Psychology at Kingston University / St George's University of London, who will speak about vaccine hesitancy among hard-to-reach groups in view of Covid, how Covid has put a spotlight on social inequalities and what lessons may or may not have been learned. The event is chaired by Rob Reddick, Commissioning Editor, Covid-19, at The Conversation.
Other politics-related events at the Festival include an international focus on India’s political development and the rise of the East, both events linked to new books.
In Indian Political Thought in the Global Age [5th April, 6-7pm, Lecture Theatre A], Shruti Kapila, Associate Professor in the Faculty of History at the University of Cambridge and author of the recently released Violent Fraternity: Indian Political Thought in the Global Age, a history of the political ideas that made modern India [December 2021], will be in conversation with Gideon Rachman, chief foreign affairs commentator at the Financial Times and author of The Age of The Strongman: How the Cult of the Leader Threatens Democracy around the World [April 2022].
In Before the West: Rise and fall of eastern world orders [5th April, 1-2pm, online], Ayse Zarakol, Professor of International Relations at the University of Cambridge, and Hans Van de Ven, Professor of Modern Chinese History at the University of Cambridge, will be in conversation about Professor Zarakol’s new book, Before the West: Rise and fall of eastern world orders [April 2022]. The book offers a grand narrative of (Eur)Asia and uses that to rethink the foundational concepts and debates of international relations, such as order and decline.
*The full programme is due to be launched on 28th February via the Festival website: www.festival.cam.ac.uk Bookings open on the same day from 10am.
Keep up to date with the Festival on social media: Instagram @Camunifestivals | Facebook: @CambridgeFestival | Twitter: @Cambridge_Fest
For more information, contact Mandy Garner on mandy.garner@admin.cam.ac.uk or ring 07789 106435.
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