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A summary report of the Funding Policy and Funders (FPF) project’s workshop
No full textA one-day workshop was held on 21 February 2025 at the LSE, as part of the Funding Policy and Funders (FPF) project to discuss the funders’ views and motivations in funding academic-practitioner collaborations for social change. This closed-door, invitation-only workshop brought together a select group of funders, researchers, practitioners and professionals from across the UK and Europe
In their God we trust: religious cognition increases cooperation across religious divides
No full textBelief in moralizing Gods is widely thought to foster cooperation between coreligionists, but there is disagreement regarding whether this effect is limited to the religious ingroup or if it extends to members of religious outgroups. Here we report the results of a cross-cultural research program that demonstrates that people who think about God (a) are more trusted by both coreligionists and members of other religious groups and (b) typically behave in a more trustworthy manner toward both ingroups and outgroups. We ran three preregistered studies ( = 1,784) with Christians and Muslims in the United States, Jews and Muslims in Israel, and Christians and Hindus in Fiji. Our contexts varied in multiple ways, including the level of intergroup conflict. Using two-player trust games involving real money, we varied whether participants interacted with ingroup or outgroup members and whether reciprocators considered God when deciding how much to return to trustors. We find in each context that making moralizing God beliefs of one player salient enhances both intragroup and intergroup cooperation. Our findings add to a nascent literature documenting the potential for religious cognition to extend moral norms across intergroup divides. We discuss implications for theories of the emergence of moralizing Gods and implications for public debates about religious pluralism in diverse societies
Book review. Undivided: the quest for racial solidarity in an American church, by Hahrie Han
No full textDuncan Green reviews a new book that provides deep insights into the community organising role of a US evangelical megachurch
Infantilising education through risk-averse educational technologies of calculability: a critical essay
No full textThis paper describes a paradox in education where AI-driven technologies foster risk-averse learning while contributing to heightened global uncertainties. We highlight how the promises of AI promote risk-aversion at the individual level through personalised learning while inducing unpredictable ‘superrisks’ at the societal level, affecting areas like the labour market, environment, societal relations. This paradox exposes gaps in educational policies that focus on integrating AI, ultimately legitimating AI-defined risks and needs (e.g., data literacy, coding) over broader societal risks (e.g., gender inequality, climate). We contend that AI’s reductive nature infantilises learners by reducing them to objects within calculable frameworks, stripping away opportunities to engage with and learn to manage real-world complexities. We argue for policy and educational paradigm shift that aims to reconnect education with the world, where students learn to navigate and embrace real-world risks directly, aligning with Hannah Arendt’s vision of taking responsibility for the world we inhabit
The return of the Nordic voice at the United Nations
No full textSince the mid-2010s, the Nordic voice at the United Nations has grown louder, reversing a period of relative quiescence over the previous two decades. Nordic diplomats, often joined by Baltic diplomats, are issuing more joint statements than ever before, both in New York and in the Human Rights Council in Geneva. The return of the Nordic voice at the United Nations (UN) is, fittingly, well explained through the insights contributed by Nordic International Relations in the literatures on communities of practice and ontological security, much of which has been published in Cooperation and Conflict over its 60-year history. This article contributes to the special issue by empirically demonstrating changes in the practices of Nordic and Baltic diplomats and explaining these changes through insights derived from studies of ontological security. Drawing on semi-structured interviews and documentary analysis, it argues that changes in Nordic diplomatic practice are a response to ontological insecurity arising from the crisis of multilateralism within and outside the European Union (EU) which threatened the Nordic identity as champions of UN multilateralism. Nordic and Baltic diplomats have responded by voicing their own distinctive identity and upholding the Nordic narrative via group statements within the UN
Decentralizing development: the economic impacts of government splits
No full textChanges in political boundaries aimed at devolving power to local governments are common in many countries. We examine the economic impacts of the creation of smaller government units through splitting. Exploiting reforms that led to sharp increases in the number of government units in Brazil, we show that voluntary splitting enlarges the public sector, enhances public service delivery, and stimulates economic activity in new local governments over the long term. These gains in economic activity are not offset by visible losses elsewhere and are stronger in peripheral, remote, and underdeveloped areas neglected by their parent governments. Increases in fiscal revenues and decentralization of decision-making power contribute to the positive effects on local economic activity
The resilience of the university community in times of war - a view from Kyiv
No full textUkraine’s universities have remained open to students throughout Russia’s war on Ukraine. Drawing on a recent period teaching at the Kyiv School of Economics, Tomila Lankina reflects on the power of education to build a better future for Ukraine
Why we need corporate responsibility now more than ever
No full textMichael Posner‘s Conscience Incorporated makes the case for strengthening corporate responsibility in an era of political and economic upheaval, from labour rights and ESG investment to AI regulation and democratic backsliding. Though primarily focused on the US, this timely book offers concrete recommendations for business leaders around the world navigating complex ethical challenges, according to Eoin Jackson. Conscience Incorporated: Pursue Profits While Protecting Human Rights. Michael H. Posner. NYU Press. 2024
Are tech platforms taking over family life?
No full textLSE’s Professor Sonia Livingstone and technology policy expert Alexandra Evans explain what they mean by the platformization of family life and the implications of this, following the publication of a new book on the topic
What kind of normativity does sociology need? Rethinking values, knowledge and critique
No full textAt the roundtable discussion of our departmental conference “Sociological Routes: Past, Present and Future”, held on 15 November 2024, we posed a provocative question: Should sociology remain descriptive, or is engaging with normative questions essential to understand social life? As one might expect, the goal was not to settle the issue definitively, but to spark a conversation that would invite our participants to a shared reflection on one of sociology’s most enduring and urgent debates. This question aimed to explicitly interrogate the boundary between description and evaluation, a boundary that recent theoretical developments have framed as the “normative turn” in sociological theory