In this timely and thought-provoking discussion, Cristina Ramirez and Gesine Weber, PhD Candidates at King's College London, break down the 2024 US elections and their wide-reaching implications. From domestic shifts to global challenges, their insights are not to be missed.
In doing so, our special guests, moderated by our researcher and Webinar Series leader, Carlotta Rinaudo, will attempt to analyse the situation by answering the following questions:
Agenda:
00:00 -02:45 Opening remarks and Presentation by Carlotta Rinaudo (Lead of the ITSS Webinar Series)
02:48 What does Trump's return to power reveal about American society and identity? Have we misunderstood his appeal to American voters?
12:00 Is this the era of a new establishment? and if so, what might be its implications for policymaking?
15:18 Are democratic values eroding, and what could his transactional foreign policy mean for the world? Can we expect a rapid peace deal in the Russia-Ukraine war? How could a new Trump administration reshape relations with the EU, China, or impact the war in Gaza?
Dr Michele Groppi (KCL and President of ITSS Verona) hosts a joint KCL/ITSS Verona event featuring the presentation of "Vulnerability and Resilience to Violent Extremism: An Actor-Centric Approach", output of the PAVE project which compares and contrasts the MENA Region and the Balkans. Authors, editors and special guests: - Véronique Dudouet (Berghof Foundation) - Johanna-Maria Hülzer (Berghof Foundation) - Maja Halilovic-Pastuovic (Trinity College Dublin) - Juline Beaujouan (University of Edinburg) - Marie Kortam (IFPO Beirut) - Amjed Rasheed (King's College London) - Racheal Atley (UN CTED)
For our third webinar of the 2023/2024 season we uncovered the complexities of the world’s largest democracy's upcoming elections, India, in April 2024, with a focus on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's domestic and foreign policies, the Kashmiri issue, as well as the narratives shaping the political landscape.
Agenda:
00:00 -06:11 Opening remarks and Presentation by Carlotta Rinaudo (Lead of the ITSS Webinar Series)
06:15 What is the state of India’s democracy, and why is Prime Minister Narendra Modi likely to win the elections again?
25:00 What is the general sentiment in Kashmir and how will the results affect the Kashmiri people?
40:16 Is the Indian economy really growing?
1:00:16 How will India’s foreign policy evolve post-election?
For our second Webinar of the 2023/2024 season, we were truly honored to host Dr. Magen Inon, an Israeli educator who lost his parents during the October 7 attacks. Magen told us about his work as a peace advocate, through which he is trying to forge a safe space for dialogue and mutual understanding between everybody who is affected by the conflict, rejecting hatred and polarization.
Following his contribution, our ITSS Verona researchers from the Middle East Team, Omri Brinner and Chantal Elisabeth Hohe, together with our ITSS Verona Director, Dr. Michele Groppi, analyzed other important dimensions of the Israeli-Palestinian issue: the question of a two-state solution, the need for imagination and creativity in geopolitics, the involvement of regional actors like Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Iran, Israel's strategic culture, and finally, the understated role played by emotions on both sides.
For our first Webinar of the 2023/24 season, we had the pleasure of hosting a great team of experts on Taiwanese affairs: Dr. Dafydd Fell, a distinguished Professor at SOAS University and the Director of the SOAS Centre of Taiwan Studies, and our very own ITSS researchers Sandra Watson Parcels and Ho Ting Hung (Bosco).
Our guests navigated the complexities of Cross-Strait relations, the upcoming Taiwanese elections, and the future of the semiconductor industry.
Welcome to our fourth Webinar of the 2022/23 season, a thought-provoking and intriguing conversation on how state policies, school curricula, job markets, and everyday life are still shaped by assumptions about gender, race, and class.
In this occasion, we had the pleasure to host a team of experts: Jorge Sanchez-Perez, assistant professor at the University of Alberta; Maísa Edwards, Ph.D. Candidate at King's College London; Lucia Sarmiento Verano, humanistic therapist; Rafia Zakaria, journalist and author. Our guests discussed how these oppressive structures and patterns can effectively be dismantled to build a more inclusive society. Many thanks to our Deputy Research Director and Research Analyst, Julia Hodgins, who chaired the event.
For the third Webinar of the 2022/2023 season, we had the pleasure to host three top experts in the field of Cybersecurity: Luca Nicoletti from the Italian National Cybersecurity Agency, Andrea Rigoni from Deloitte, and Antonello Vitale, a former Executive of the Italian Intelligence Community.
These experts explored the complex relationship between the public and the private sector in the context of cybersecurity - a relationship with countless challenges as well as opportunities. The event was chaired by our very own Martina Gambacorta, a member and researcher of the ITSS team.
ITSS Verona and King's College London hosted a joint event on the protests in Iran to discuss how the ongoing protests are different from the previous ones and how come "Woman, Life, Freedom" represents a collective will of the Iranian people and how was it formed? Is it a modern revolution based on the values that are identified within this context? What is the role of Iranian women in this revolution? And finally what is the outcome, are amongst questions that we will discuss with our guests during this event.
Panellists:
Dr Sadegh Zibakalam Mofrad is an Iranian academic, author, and pundit described as reformist and neo-liberal. Zibakalam is a professor at the University of Tehran and frequently appears on international news outlets including BBC News and Al Jazeera.
Dr Ali Fathollah-Nejad is a German–Iranian political scientist focusing on Iran, the Middle East, and the post-unipolar world order. He is a McCloy Fellow on Global Trends of the American Council on Germany (ACG), exploring how transatlantic foreign policy toward authoritarian states could reconcile interests and values.
Dr Nayereh Tohidi is a Professor Emerita and former Chair of Gender & Women’s Studies and the Founding Director of the Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies (2011-2021) at California State University, Northridge. She is also a Research Associate in the Program of Iranian Studies at UCLA coordinating “Bilingual Lecture Series on Iran” since 2003. She received her MA and Ph.D. from the Universities of Tehran and Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. She is also the recipient of several post-doctoral fellowships and research awards, including an NEH grant, a year of Fulbright lectureship and research at the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan; universities of Harvard and Stanford, the Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson Center, and Keddie-Balzan Fellowship at UCLA.
Ms Elahe Amani learned about conflict resolution and mediation in 1990, through the CSUF Certificate Program of “Managing Multicultural Work Environments”. She completed formal mediation training through Pepperdine School of Law Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution in 1991 and promptly joined the Southern California Mediation Association (SCMA) and published a book review on “Mediation Across Cultures” in the SCMA newsletter. In 1992-93 after the Los Angeles riots, Elahe conducted sessions of community mediation between Korean and African Americans in Town Hall settings through a program organized by the Los Angeles City Attorney's Office. In 2006 Elahe did a presentation at SCMA Salon on “Gender and Mediation” and presented on the panel in the affinity discussion at SCMA’s annual conference at Pepperdine University on “Culture and Mediation.” She is currently Interim Director of the Academic Technology CenterInterim Director of Academic Technology Center at California State University, Fullerton.
Moderators: Dr Michele Groppi and Shahin Modarres.
For its third event of "The View from" Series, Ilas Touazi from University of Sétif 2 and Michele Tallarini, ITSS Verona, Africa Team, discuss US-China competition in Africa, touching upon regional dynamics, trade, BRI, questions of debt, and Chinese military presence in the continent.
For its forth event of the 2021/22 Webinar Series, entitled "The Russian-Ukrainian Conflict: What's Next?", ITSS Verona members Ludovica Brambilla, Davide Gobbicchi and Fabrizio Napoli (from the Russia and Post-Soviet Space Team) discuss with Dr Tracey German (KCL) - one of Europe's main experts on Russian affairs - the status of the conflict in Ukraine, narratives, strategies, winners and losers, and political, social, cultural, economic implications for all actors involved.
Do not miss on the other ITSS Verona webinars, which are available at the following link: https://www.itssverona.it/activities
