Inspires - Department of Politics and International Relations ...

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WelcomeStephen Whitefield has been the Head ofDepartment since 1 September 2010. Here hewelcomes readers and explains some of thecontemporary challenges and opportunitiesfacing the Department of Politics andInternational RelationsEveryone knows Gilbert Ryle’s oldphilosophical joke: a prospectivestudent visits Oxford and sees Balliol,Christ Church and Exeter Colleges, and asksthe tour guide, ‘But where is the university?’,having been under the assumption that it isa different place altogether. But, for those ofyou who matriculated fifteen years ago andread PPE at Merton, St John’s, Somervilleor elsewhere or perhaps did the MPhil atNuffield or St Antony’s, the question might be:‘But where is the Department of Politics andInternational Relations?’Until ten years ago, Politics matters in Oxfordwere managed by the Sub-Faculty of Politics.You may recall that its administrative heart, sofar as it had one, was located in George Streetin the same building as the Social StudiesLibrary. It was pleasant, with a commonroom and small seminar room. Coordinationacross Politics as a whole was rather limited,and colleges and college tutors were central.But, the world was already changing. Thegovernment inspectors were inspecting ourteaching; research funding was becomingmore important (and we were subject to yetmore inspection); our graduate programmeswere growing. And so, to meet the challengesof modernity, the Department of Politics andInternational Relations was born. And, judgingby its enormous growth over the last ten years,the external recognition we have achieved asthe top-ranked Department in the UK for ourteaching and the student experience, and bythe fact that we have the largest number oftop-rated researchers of any Department inthe country too, we have responded to thosechallenges tremendously well.So, the simplest answer to the question,‘Where is the Department of Politics andInternational Relations (along with Economicsand Sociology)?,’ is that its administrativeheart is now located on Manor Road in anappropriately modern new building designedby Norman Foster, with many lecture andseminar rooms as well as offices and a largecafé. Students come to visit the relocatedSocial Sciences Library and attend lecturesthere more frequently than they attendSchools. Many of our graduate students onMPhils and DPhils have desks and computers,and some academics also have (largelyshared) offices there too, particularly whenthey are involved in burgeoning Departmentaladministration. I am the third Head ofDepartment, after Mark Philp and mostrecently Neil Macfarlane each served fiveyears. They were the institutional builders.I am trying hard not to mess things up.But, the simplest answer won’t really do.For one thing, our building could not housethe nearly 100 academics and hundredsof students, even if the various ‘teethingproblems’ in the building with the heatingand air conditioning were sorted out and theywanted to leave their colleges. But moreimportantly, the Department is and wants to bespatially and intellectually diversely located.We are self-avowedly pluralist in our teachingand research with enough of us to operate onthe ‘zoo principle’ – two of everything. And wework, happily but with occasional friction, in aCollegiate University, which means that almostall of us wear two hats of Department andCollege, if seldom at the same time. So, as mycolleague Sudhir Hazareesingh at Balliol put it:Where is the Department? It is really locatedall over the University!My hope is that some of that spirit ofpluralism of academic endeavour as well aspluripresence will be evident in this the firstissue of the Department’s Alumni magazineInspires. Why are we launching Inspiresnow? Because the challenges – from thegovernment, for the needs of our students(graduate and undergraduate) and to continueour research – keep on coming, if anythingever more briskly, and to meet them we needthe support and understanding of our closestfriends, our alumni. So, we aim to show youhere a few of the many exciting things that arehappening in the Department in the hope thatyou will want to be involved with us in years tocome.4
“We are veryconfidentabout ourstanding inthe academicworld andconfident tooabout ourcapacity toprogress infuture.”Photo: Sue SrawleyJennifer Welsh writes about the work of theinter-departmental and inter-disciplinaryOxford Institute for Ethics, Law and ArmedConflict (ELAC), particularly about theemerging doctrine of ‘responsibility to protect’that the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moondiscussed eloquently in a recent lecturesponsored by the Department and which isplaying a major legal role in currently ongoingintervention in Libya. Ray Duch writesabout his work, based in Nuffield College’sCentre for Experimental Social Sciences,involving pioneering research that tries tofind new ways to get at the vexed issue ofdetermining causality when people makepolitical judgements or decide on politicalaction. Stuart White discusses how PoliticalTheory should engage with the real world ofpolitics, which of course is already central toour teaching and research. As, for example,David Soskice shows when he engages withthe pressing issue of the financial crisis. SaraKalim writes about the work being done onmedia and politics in the Reuters Institute forthe Study of Journalism, which is based in theDepartment with generous core funding fromthe Thompson Reuters Foundation. And LizFrazer reflects on how teaching has changedin Oxford over the years – Liz recentlywon (with Scot Peterson who is also in theDepartment) an award for innovation in use ofe-resources in teaching.We are very confident about our standingin the academic world and confident tooabout our capacity to progress in future. Butwhat, finally, are the main challenges facingour Department as we aim to maintain andenhance our teaching and research? You willhave read a great deal about the proposedincreases in undergraduate fees, much ofwhich will simply be used to make up forcuts in government funding with most of theremainder going to much needed bursaryand access schemes that will help ensure thatno-one is put off of applying for and attendingOxford. But much less is heard about thepressing need the Department has to offerscholarships for students on our mastersand doctoral research programmes, wheregovernment funding has also been cut. Togive an example, both the Economic andSocial Research Council and the Arts andHumanities Research Council have announcedthat they will no longer fund the college fee,so colleges and the Department will need towork together to make up the shortfall. TheDepartment has put in place a scheme fromour own resources that will see funding forgraduate scholarships increase significantlyover the next four years, but even then wewill be far behind our competitors for the bestresearch students at Harvard, Princeton andelsewhere in the US. Our number one fundingpriority is to make that difference up. But,we will need your help through joint collegedepartmentalfunds to do so.So, this is what will be the first of many futurealumni magazines and the first in what will bea stream of invitations to you to get involvedwith the Department. Come to the UniversityAlumni weekend in Oxford this September.And bear in mind events to be announcedsoon that will commemorate the appointment100 years ago of the first Gladstone Professorof Government and not long after that the100th anniversary of PPE as well. Visit ourwebsite. And please be in touch throughKate Candy (Communications Officer withresponsibility for alumni relations) about howyour careers and lives connect with Politics inOxford.We look forward to hearing from youand seeing you in the Department soon.Remember, you can find us all round theUniversity.Stephen WhitefieldHead of Department, Professor of Politics,University Lecturer in Politics, RhodesPelczynski Tutorial Fellow in Politics,Pembroke College5
Page 1 and 2: inspiresTrinity Term 2011The Magazi
Page 3: ContentsTrinity Term 2011: Issue 14
Page 8 and 9: Learning toExperimentRay Duch expla
Page 10 and 11: CrunchingtheNumbersOn the principle
Page 12 and 13: TheoryPracticeandStuart White exami
Page 14 and 15: Nation States, Capitalism and theCr
Page 16 and 17: LifeafterPPEThree PPE alumni explai
Page 18 and 19: International RelationsinOxfordAndr
Page 20 and 21: Recent BooksMembers of the DPIR pro
Page 22 and 23: Mediaand PoliticsREUTERS/ Russell B
Page 24 and 25: PUndergraduate Teachingersonal Refl
Page 26 and 27: The DPIR and theInternetThe Departm
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