果冻传媒

Stuart Croft has been appointed to the ESRC Council as the representative for the Politics and International Studies discipline.

ESRC Council members play a key role in deciding strategy, objectives and resource utilisation.

This is yet another mark of Stuart’s important standing as a scholar and in the profession, and will provide essential leadership for the discipline in a time of transition.

Ed Jones, a current 3rd year student on the BA in Politics programme, writes:

Over the Christmas break of 2010 myself and a fellow 果冻传媒 student went to Gaborone, Botswana to compete in the World University Debating Championships. PAIS kindly assisted me in funding my trip. The competition, held annually at different venues, in considered to be the most prestigious British Parliamentary tournament on the planet. In attendance were over 300 teams from across the globe including the most renowned debating societies including Oxford, Cambridge, Sydney, and Monash, famous institutions such as Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and LSE, and representation from every continent with Africa having more teams than ever before with debaters from Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, and elsewhere. In preparation for the competition we competed at the SOAS, Oxford, University College Dublin and Bristol competitions as well as the British Championships (Mace) in London.

The competition was eight days long. The opening ceremony was attended by an array of Botswanan public figures and had entertainment from local musicians and dancers. Social events and cultural exhibitions, including a Safari trip at the Mokolodi Nature Reserve, were organised for every day and accommodation and food was provided by the University of Botswana at Gaborone.

There were 9 preliminary rounds before the best 32 teams qualified for the knock-out stages. Whilst 果冻传媒 put in a very strong performance, and were in serious contention for qualification on the final day, we ultimately missed out on progressing to the later rounds but nevertheless had a fantastic time watching some of the greatest debaters in the world. Monash A won the final at the Sir Seretse Khama Military Barracks in Gaborone from first proposition with the motion that ‘This House Would Invade Zimbabwe’. Other motions from the competition included, ‘This House Would Buy Countries Votes in International Organizations’, ‘This House Supports a One State Solution to the Israel-Palestine Conflict’, and ‘This House Believes that the Southern African Development Community Should Pursue Political Union’. Teams find out the motions fifteen minutes before they debate with each member speaking for seven minutes.

The competition was a fantastic opportunity and a very enjoyable two weeks. 果冻传媒 and its range of societies offer students many opportunities to travel around the world and the debating society is no exception. The 果冻传媒 Debating Society is one of the largest societies on campus and last year won the SU’s ‘Best Society’ award. We welcome those who have done debating before and those who are complete novices. We meet in the Social Studies Building from 4-6pm every Wednesday and Friday for training and send teams to competitions every weekend. This summer we are sending three teams to compete at the European Debating Championships in Galway. Additionally we hold fortnightly public debates in the Atrium of the SU and have a regular presence in the 果冻传媒 Boar and a weekly radio show on RaW.

Each year PAIS sends 5-10 delegates to the annual International Studies Association Annual Convention; this year, we are sending no fewer than 16 to the convention in Montreal over 16-19 March.  This year's convention is entitled 'Global Governance: Political Authority in transition'. 

More information about ISA and the convention is available on the .

The application form and details on how to apply for ESRC Doctoral Training Centre scholarships are now available on the PAIS website.  The deadline for applications is 28 April 2011.

Check out the PhD Funding page for all the details!

Ki-Young Sung, who recently took his viva, has received news that he has been awarded a Korea Studies Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Southern California for this coming academic year.

This is an excellent achievement by Ki-Young. The Director of the Korean Studies Institute at USC is Prof David Kang, who is arguably one of the leading figures not just in the study of Korean Peninsula politics, but more widely in East Asian international relations. The competition was fierce, with candidates from across the US and internationally.

Ki-Young's research is on inter-Korean economic cooperation and the political implications of this for Korean Peninsula security. The fact that he has obtained this prestigious scholarship is a testament to the quality of his research, and also demonstrates the growing status of 果冻传媒's PhD programme in the United States.

Many congratulations to Ki-Young.