The NHS is currently in crisis: record numbers of people are on waiting lists, there are serious staff shortages, buildings and equipment are outdated, and research indicates that patient satisfaction is at rock bottom. There does not seem to be much optimism about the UK’s current health system and the NHS’s public support may be waning. Beyond clinical shortcomings, we face a string of public health challenges in the UK, including persistent health inequalities and a slowing or even halted rate of increase in life expectancy.  Is there a way out of the current crisis for the NHS – and a ..read more

Armed conflict is all too common around the world today. One of the consequences of conflict is that civilians are harmed. Military forces – if they respect basic moral and legal standards – seek to avoid those harms so far as they can. But sometimes they will fail in that. So how should armed forces and governments respond when they cause unintended harm to civilians? Well that is a question that the United States and its allies are thinking about very carefully at the moment. One of the researchers whose work is shaping that process joins us today. She is Dr Kaleigh Heard. Kaleigh has advise ..read more

Protest is a fundamental part of democracy. From thousands attending pro-Palestine marches in London, to farmers driving their tractors into Paris, Berlin, and Cardiff, to Just Stop Oil spraying UCL’s famous portico orange – protests are rarely out of the spotlight. But what do protests actually achieve? Do they affect political debate and policy outcomes? A new study sheds light on that, focusing on the impact of climate protests here in the UK on what MPs talk about – both in parliament itself and online. One of the co-authors of that article is Tom Fleming, Lecturer in British and Comparati ..read more

In the wake of the 1917 Russian Revolution, the new Bolshevik regime, keen to destroy the power of global capital, expropriated the commanding heights of the Russian economy and repudiated a mountain of foreign debt incurred by the Tsar. That action left thousands of international investors out of pocket. But addressing their claims proved exceptionally hard. Only in 1986, in the era of Thatcher and Gorbachev, did the British and Soviet governments finally reach a settlement. Other Western powers agreed resolutions later still. The story of this episode is fascinating in itself, but it also sh ..read more

Death threats, on the face it, appear to be exactly the sort of content that an online platform ought to censor – or ‘moderate’, as the preferred and obscuring term has it. Surely it is impermissible to threaten someone’s life and surely it is appropriate for online spaces like Facebook – or now Meta – to remove such speech.  But what if the statement isn’t really an urge towards violence, nor a declaration of one’s intent to kill? Sometimes, when people make death threats, say to dictators, might that really be more of a political slogan or a form of critique? What if there is no intent ..read more

For around a decade, the EU – which was founded by the principles of freedom, democracy and the rule of law – has been struggling to contain anti-democratic developments in some member states.  More broadly, the European Union faces a challenge of how to create unity, and yet accommodate the significant political, social, and economic diversity of its member states. Can it accommodate this diversity? And can it do so without risking being unfair or undermining its own legitimacy?  Addressing these big questions is Professor Richard Bellamy, Professor of Political Science here at in t ..read more

One of the most remarkable transformations over recent decades has been the growing acceptance and celebration of LGBT+ rights. Here in the UK, for example, the proportion of respondents to the British Social Attitudes survey saying that same-sex relationships are not wrong at all has risen from just 11 per cent in 1987 to 67 per cent a generation later in 2022. Yet recent years have seen a backlash against such advances. Self-styled ‘family values’ movements have campaigned against the so-called ‘gay lobby’ or ‘gender ideology’ in many countries, often claiming threats not just to the family ..read more

How parliaments hold ministers (particularly prime ministers) to account is a fundamental part of parliamentary democracy. And one of those mechanisms of accountability involves asking questions.  We take a good hard look at how – and how effectively – parliaments question prime ministers. We are joined by Dr Ruxandra Serban, Associate Lecturer in Democratic and Authoritarian Politics here in the UCL Department of Political Science. Her research focusess directly on parliamentary questioning processes.   Mentioned in this episode: Ruxandra Serban. Conflictual behaviour in legislatur ..read more

The quality of public services – whether health, education, water supply, or sewage disposal – has a big impact on all of our lives. How to enhance that quality is therefore one of the big questions for political studies. Professor Marc Esteve is one of the leading experts on exactly that issue. We have recorded this special episode of our podcast to coincide with his inaugural lecture as Professor of Public Management here in the UCL Department of Political Science.    Mentioned in this episode: Assessing the Effects of User Accountability in Contracting Out, Journal of Public Admi ..read more

Analysts of Russia’s war in Ukraine have often – since its inception in 2014 – highlighted a seeming contradiction. On the one hand, Russia is violating the sovereignty of a neighbouring state in pursuit of its own interests. On the other, Russia simultaneously condemns Western interventions in places such as Syria, Iraq, and Libya, as well as Serbia back in 1999, on the basis that they breach the principle of non-interference in other states. So are Russian leaders just being inconsistent? Or is there more going on?  Dr Kalina Zhekova, Lecturer in Political Science here in the UCL D ..read more