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Dr Patrick Meehan works in Global Sustainable Development in the School of Cross-Faculty Studies at the ¹û¶³´«Ã½, and he is also a post-doctorate research fellow in the Department of Development Studies at SOAS. In this seminar, Dr Meehan provides insights into the political economy of the illegal drug trade in Myanmar based on extensive fieldwork conducted as Co-Investigator of a five-year research programme (2017-2022) led by SOAS University of London entitled 'Drugs and (dis)order: Building sustainable peacetime economies in the aftermath of war’. This seminar explores how Myanmar’s flourishing drug economy is not only rooted in the country’s longstanding armed conflict, but is also central to processes of rapid political, economic, and social change that have re-shaped Myanmar’s borderlands since the 1990s. Through exploring issues of cultivation, trafficking, and rising local drug use, Dr Meehan reveals how drugs have become embedded in the DNA of the Myanmar state and the development processes through which Myanmar’s resource-rich borderlands have been integrated into the global economy. 

Date: 27th October 2022 

Time: 16:15-17:30 

Venue: MS.05, Zeeman Building 

This seminar is part of the East Asia ¹û¶³´«Ã½ Group (EASG) Seminar Series. For further information please contact the EASG at easg@warwick.ac.uk.

Dr. Titipol Phakdeewanich is based at the Faculty of Political Science at Ubon Ratchathani University in Thailand. Previously, he has been a Visiting Research Fellow on Human Rights at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at Lund University, Sweden. His research is focused on finding actual solutions to problems experienced by the under-represented, marginalised, and disenfranchised groups within Thailand.

In this seminar, he discusses Thailand’s youth-led democracy movement, that escalated after the dissolution of the Future Forward Party in 2020. Despite government suppression, it continues to challenge aspects of the Thai cultural paradigm, specifically its embedded hierarchical structures, which they argue to be one of the main obstacles for an inclusive, equality-driven, participatory democracy. They claim that people’s fundamental human rights are not fully protected in Thailand.

To what extent has the youth-led democracy movement influenced the military-led government to promote inclusive, equality-driven, participatory democracy? How can the youth-led democracy movement effectively challenge embedded hierarchical structures in Thai society in order to promote inclusive, equality-driven, participatory democracy? Is there an increasing tension between generations when it comes to the question of cultural heritage being perceived to be a reimposition of cultural norms? What is the implication of Youth-led democracy movement on the scheduled 2023 Thailand General Election?

Date: Monday, 17th October 2022

Time: 16:15-17:30

Venue: A0.23, Social Sciences Building

PAIS are delighted to announce that Victor Agboga, has been awarded a prestigious Routledge/Round Table Commonwealth Studentship award for the academic year 2022-23. (The Round Table being the leading Commonwealth journal, founded in 1910, and Routledge being the journal's publishers.) Only two of these awards are made each year.

Victor has worked as a student missionary, a news writer in several media outlets in Nigeria, and a teaching assistant in PAIS. He also owns a with over forty thousand subscribers as of September 2022, where he shares international scholarship tips and opportunities.

Victor’s research revolves around African politics, African political economy, human security, and international development. He has won several international awards including the Standard Bank Africa Chairman Scholarship, the Helmut Schmidt Masters Scholarships for Public Policy and Good Governance, the Mo Ibrahim Governance for Development in Africa Initiative Scholarship, the British Institute in Eastern Africa Grant, and the Working Group in African Political Economy Grant. His research interrogates, both quantitatively and qualitatively, how voters respond when their elected politicians change political parties – whether they punish or reward them, in a non-Western context. He particularly examines this phenomenon in Africa, using Nigeria, the biggest democracy on the continent, as a case study. His research sits against the backdrop of ongoing debates on voters’ agency and party institutionalisation in Africa.

With the Routledge/Round Table Commonwealth Studentship award, he aims to produce an academic paper for the Round Table, plan conference presentations within and outside Africa, film a podcast on his key findings on voters’ response to party switching in Africa, and disseminate them both in academic and policy spaces.

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We are delighted to announce that the Department of Politics and International Studies (PAIS) at the ¹û¶³´«Ã½ has moved up to joint 2^nd place out of 79 UK Politics Departments in The . This prestigious league table continues to place us 1st in the Russell Group for both ‘teaching quality’ and ‘student experience’.

Ben Clift has written a new piece for LSE blog (along with Sean McDaniel, formerly of PAIS) on the politics of productivity and the failings of Prime Minister Truss’s thinking about reviving Britain’s economic fortunes. This draws on their research published in BJPIR. This paper was recently selected by the editors as part of a virtual special issue on British Politics in times of crisis.

You can read Ben's piece here.