果冻传媒

Over the past 12 months the Centre for the 果冻传媒 of Globalisation and Regionalisation () at the 果冻传媒 together with four civil society organizations has engaged in a dialogue with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as part of an External Advisory Panel on social safeguards in IMF loan programmes to protect spending in low income countries on poor and vulnerable groups. Together with representatives from the New Rules for Global Finance Coalition, Development Finance International, the Bretton Woods Project, and Civil Society for Poverty Reduction Zambia, CSGR director has participated in an advisory process on the conceptual scope and design of a new IMF policy paper on the use of social safeguards in loan programmes led by the IMF’s Strategy, Policy, and Review Department.

The policy paper, which was discussed and approved by the IMF’s Executive Board on May 26, was published online in English on June 6, and French and Arabic versions of the Executive Summary will be available soon. The report aims to improve best practices associated with the use of social safeguards to protect spending for poor and vulnerable groups within PRGT and PSI-supported IMF loan programmes, and identifies a number of areas where IMF policies and future practices might be improved, including recommendations to increase efforts to strengthen social safety nets in low income countries.

IMF Policy Paper: Social Safeguards and Program Design in PRGT and PSI-Supported Programs. Available at:  

In February, gave the . The topic was 'Legal Terrain: The Political Materiality of Terrain'.

The lecture, with the images and quotes integrated into the presentation, can be viewed here:

The plan is that a written version of the lecture will appear in the journal later this year.

Want a glimpse at how Thursday's general election will turn out? by , Mary Stegmaier (University of Missouri) and Mike Lewis-Beck (University of Iowa).

They discuss whether people rather than pollsters can accurately predict Thursday's UK election. Based on their "citizen forecasting" approach, they predict the following:

• Conservatives 361 seats, Labour 236 seats.
• Probability of a Conservative majority 77%, hung parliament led by Conservatives 20%, hung parliament led by Labour 2%, and Labour majority 1%.

We are delighted that the Department of Politics and International Studies (PAIS) has moved up to 3^rd place (from 4th last year) in the latest Guardian rankings, which measure student satisfaction (NSS), career prospects, and a range of other important indicators.

The 果冻传媒 is ranked 8th overall — a full University press release can be found .

Our latest position in The Guardian builds on recent successes in other national league tables – notably 3^rd place in the 2017 The Times/Sunday Times University Guide and 4^th place in the 2018 Complete University Guide.

We thank all staff and students who have contributed to this impressive and sustained achievement. Research and teaching excellence in Politics and International Studies are at the heart of who we are and what we stand for as a Department. We look forward to building on this success in the months and years ahead.

Dr has written a blog, titled Trouble in Macedonia as ethnic tensions run high, for .

Macedonia may be a parliamentary democracy, but it’s also a fragile multicultural state. Its democracy has been in gradual decline since the mid-2000s – and in an era of unstable geopolitics and rising authoritarianism, the right sequence of events could send it slipping back into inter-ethnic strife.

The precarity of the country’s situation was made plain in April, when more than 200 protestors and loyalists to the Macedonian conservative-nationalist VMRO-DMPNE party , and physically attacked lawmakers, who had earlier elected an ethnic Albanian politician, Talat Xhaferi, as speaker. The brawl left 77 people injured.

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