Simon will be talking at the Graduate Institute in Geneva as part of the International History and Politics Fall seminar series.

Join Simon in conversation with Dipesh Chakrabarty, Chris Moffat and Shital Pravinchandra to discuss climate politics past and present.

The RSA coffeehouse is opening its virtual doors. Inspired by the RSA’s origin as an enlightenment coffeehouse over 250 years ago, the Virtual Coffeehouse Conversation events series offers an interactive space to share and develop ideas for social change. Join Simon to explore how civil society and others can get involved in finding pathways for Global Public Investment's realisation and impact. Simon will also introduce an upcoming global consultation and show how you, as an individual or group, can engage. For more information, and booking, see here.

Simon joins Save the Children’s Juliano Fiori for a discussion on the contemporary politics of aid, social justice, and political minimalism. Where does the international will-to-care merge with a will-to-order, and what is left of justice at that point?

For fifty years two histories have run parallel to one another: the institutionalisation of the neoliberal ascendancy domestically and the consolidation of a liberal international order globally. Today both are in some state of disarray. To what extent did each project rely on the other? What have been the crossovers and the switching points between these two histories? And how have they been managed diplomatically?

In this panel discussion with John Adenitire, Marietta van der Tol and Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins the Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences hears the case for non-political and economic framings of the populist surge. In particular we consider it as a religious backlash. The Eurasian traditionalism of Vladimir Putin, the Christian-Democracy of Orbán, the Judeo-Christianity of Trump, the prosperity Pentecostalism of Bolsonaro, the populist Catholicism of Salvini and the Hindu-nationalism of Modi, and Islamo-Kemalism of Erdoğan are all examples that seem to prove the point. Leading the discussion is Steinmetz-Jenkins’ account that what has been eroding for the past few decades is not simply democratic or liberal values per se but rather a growing suspicion of secularism and the secular elites who propagate it.

In this Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences talk I host Neve Gordon in a discussion about Human Shielding, his brilliant new co-authored book with Nicola Perugini on the history of Human Shielding. From Syrian civilians locked in iron cages to veterans joining peaceful indigenous water protectors at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, from Sri Lanka to Iraq and from Yemen to the United States, human beings have been used as shields for protection, coercion, or deterrence. We cover the use of human shields in key historical and contemporary moments across the globe as a way of interrogating the colonial and racial underpinnings of international law, while highlighting how warring parties use human shields to cast the use of lethal violence against vulnerable people as humane.

A panel discussion with Martin Sandbu, Catherine Fieschi and Saru Jayaraman on how we build a more inclusive society - drawing upon some of the insights of Martin’s latest book. Hosted by the O&B unit at UC Berkeley. Sign up here: bit.ly/3qjmqO0 (starts 5pm UK time)

Simon will be in discussion with historian Sarah Dunstan about her recent and forthcoming work. Hosted by the IHSS. This event will be streamed online.

The recent crisis of liberalism urges us to revisit the last 50 years of world politics. The era we have all been living through is closing out, democracy is turning on its axis once again. The winner of the Leverhulme Prize in 2012 dissects the journey of western democracy in the last 50 years and asks where current events may yet be taking us.

Join Simon and Catherine Fieschi for this evening conversation with leading writers and thinkers. Tonight’s event features writer and presenter Rick Edwards, public consultation maestro Peter MacLeod of MASS LBP in Toronto, and activist Neal Lawson of Compass. We’ll be discussing the entirely uncontroversial matter of “How to Save our Democracies”.

If you’re in Cambridge come listen to this discussion of Empire of Democracy with Julian Huppert at Jesus College’s Intellectual Forum in Cambridge, in November. Do come and join if you are in town.

Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, I’ll be asking “What is the story of democracy in our time?” for this evening lecture in Paris. ULIP is located on the grand Esplanade des Invalides, where it shares a building with the British Council. It is a wonderful institution, and proudly European. A good place, in other words, to explore the idea that a history of the post-Cold War present should start before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 (and treat the decline of communism as part of the ongoing transformation of the institutions and the manners of the liberal democratic west).

Wigtown is Scotland’s National Book Town. I’ll be there on Sunday 29 August to talk about Empire of Democracy. https://www.wigtownbookfestival.com/programme/date/Sun-29-Sep

The Hay Festival is a highlight of the literary calendar. This year I’ll be there on Saturday 01 June, in conversation with Katya Adler, the BBC’s Europe Editor.

I’ll be speaking on the parallel histories of accounts of injustice and inequality in a lecture and debate with Katrin Flikschuh and Michael Goodheart in London. For more information and to attend: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/confronting-injustice-critical-and-realistic-approaches-to-global-inequality-tickets-60744848477

Stuart Elden has written a wonderful book for an English speaking audience on Georges Canguilhem, historian, philosopher of science, and author - most famously - of The Normal and the Pathological. A philosopher of history too, Canguilhem’s discussions of truth, knowledge and ideology are well worth re-apprising in the contemporary moment. CRASSH provides an appropriately interdisciplinary forum for the occasion.

Stefan Collini is one of our most insightful commentators on the state of the state of the academy and its role in public life. I’ll be joining in a roundtable co-hosted by Norwegian Academy of Sciences in advance of a public lecture by Prof. Collini in the afternoon.

Simon is among the invitees to the launch of a new Network on Humanitarian Efforts in Oslo. The event is organised by Maria Gabrielsen at the Peace Research Institute.

Simon will be one of the speakers at a symposium organised by Eric Heinze (Professor of Law at QMUL and author of Injustice) in association with the Centre for Law, Democracy and Society on the history, politics and status of free speech in democracies.

Simon will be presenting the awards at KEGS in chelmsford to returning university students and prizewinners across the school.

Simon is invited to the Agence Francaise de Développement to discuss his work on inequality as part of the two-day event at Le Mistral and the Instutute du monde arabe. More information here: https://www.afd.fr/en/international-conference-inequality-and-social-cohesion-2018

Simon will be responding to the launch of the new International Panel on Social Progress Report at the House of Lords in Westminster. Lord Meghnad Desai will begin the program and moderate the discussions. Panelists will include IPSP authors Marc Fleurbaey (Steering Committee), Marie-Laure Djelic (Steering Committee), Richard Bellamy, Graham Smith, Gianluca Grimalda, Simon Deakin, Lorraine Talbot and Simon Reid-Henry.

Simon will be speaking to the School of Law at QMUL on his recent work on John Rawls, Judith Shklar, and "political minimalism”. The event is chaired by Professor Neve Gordon.