The Governance Podcast

About the Talk
How do we make reliable decisions when our scientific models cannot predict outcomes with absolute certainty? In this episode, Our Associate Director, Dr Roberto Fumagalli, sat down with the speaker of our first Public Lecture under the Market Economies and Green Ideals project, Prof Roman Frigg, to unpack the philosophy of science, physics, and environmental modeling. We explore why treating scientific models like literary fiction can actually improve our understanding of reality, the limits of climate predictions, and how policymakers and private insurers navigate deep uncertainty.

The Guest
Roman Frigg is Professor of Philosophy and Head of Department at LSE’s Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method. He is the winner of the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. He is a permanent visiting professor in the Munich Centre for Mathematical Philosophy of the Ludwig-Maximilians- University Munich, and he held visiting appointments in the Rotman Institute of Philosophy of the University of Western Ontario, the Descartes Centre for the History and Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities at the University of Utrecht, the Sydney Centre for the Foundations of Science of the University of Sydney, and the Department of Logic, History and Philosophy of Science of the University of Barcelona. He was associate editor of the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science and member of the steering committee of the European Philosophy of Science Association. He currently serves on a number of editorial and advisory boards. Roman holds a PhD in Philosophy from the University of London and masters degrees both in theoretical physics and philosophy from the University of Basel, Switzerland. His research interests lie in general philosophy of science and philosophy of physics, and he has published papers on climate change, quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics, randomness, chaos, complexity, probability, scientific realism, computer simulations, modelling, scientific representation, reductionism, confirmation, and the relation between art and science. His current work focuses on predictability and climate change, the foundation of statistical mechanics, and the nature of scientific models and theories.

About the Talk
In this episode of the Governance Podcast Associate Director Sam DeCanio, Dr. Jonny Benson, and Professor Jason Brennan discusses the relationship between knowledge, expertise and democracy.  The conversation discusses whether democracy should be understood primarily as a system involving electoral choice, or whether democracy is a type of political system incorporating additional elements such as deliberation and the rule of law. We also discuss questions regarding voter knowledge and political accountability, democracy versus rule by knowledgeable experts or the administrative state, and the types of information markets and democracy require to function effectively.

The Guest
Jonny Benson is a Lecturer at University of Manchester whose research examines democratic theory with a strong connection to the interdisciplinary tradition of politics, philosophy, and economics (PPE). He is particularly interested in contemporary challenges to democracy, including the rise of anti-democratic thought, the relationship to the market economy, and issues of voter knowledge, misinformation, and political polarization. Benson’s first book, Intelligent Democracy: Answering the New Democratic Skepticism was published in 2024 by Oxford University Press. His articles have appeared in journals such as the American Political Science Review, Political Studies, Politics, Philosophy & Economics, Synthese, and Economics and Philosophy.
 
Jason Brennan (Ph.D., 2007, University of Arizona) is the Robert J. and Elizabeth Flanagan Family Professor of Strategy, Economics, Ethics, and Public Policy at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University. He specializes in politics, philosophy, and economics. He is the editor-in-chief of Philosophy & Public Affairs, editor of Public Affairs Quarterly, and an associate editor of Social Philosophy and Policy.  He is the author of 17 books: Questioning Beneficence (Routledge, 2024), with Sam Arnold, Richard Yetter Chappell, and Ryan Davis; Democracy: A Guided Tour (Oxford University Press, 2023), Debating Democracy, with Hélène Landemore (Oxford University Press, 2021), Business Ethics for Better Behavior, with William English, John Hasnas, and Peter Jaworski (Oxford University Press, 2021), Why It's OK to Want to Be Rich (Routledge Press 2020), Good Work if You Can Get It (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020); Injustice for All: America's Dysfunctional Criminal Justice System and How to Fix It, with Christopher Surprenant (Routledge, 2019); Cracks in the Ivory Tower: The Moral Mess of Higher Education, with Phil Magness (Oxford University Press, 2019); When All Else Fails: Resistance, Violence, and State Injustice (Princeton University Press, 2018); In Defense of Openness: Global Justice as Global Freedom (Oxford University Press, 2018), with Bas van der Vossen; Against Democracy (Princeton University Press, 2016); Markets without Limits, with Peter Jaworski (Routledge Press, 2016); Compulsory Voting: For and Against, with Lisa Hill (Cambridge University Press, 2014); Why Not Capitalism? (Routledge Press, 2014); Libertarianism: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford University Press, 2012); The Ethics of Voting (Princeton University Press, 2011); and, with David Schmidtz, A Brief History of Liberty (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010). He is co-editor, along with David Schmidtz and Bas Van der Vossen, of the Routledge Handbook of Libertarianism (Routledge, 2017).

About the Talk
In this episode of The Governance Podcast, CSGS Director Mark Pennington discusses with Matthew Watson some key themes in Matthew’s new book False Prophets of Economics Imperialism. The discussion covers the tension in modern economic theory between mathematical modelling, axiomatic analysis, and their relevance to ‘real world’ empirical phenomena- and the key influencers in 20th Century economic thought that reflect this tension.

The Guest
Matthew Watson is Professor of Political Economy in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick. He is the author of numerous books and papers and coordinates and curates an ongoing project on ‘Rethinking the Market.’

About the Talk
In this episode of the Governance Podcast Mark Pennington discusses with Alasia Nuti the contribution of her new book Politicising Political Liberalism (Oxford University Press, 2024) co-authored with Gabriele Badano. The conversation covers philosophical and practical aspects of how to define when it might be justifiable to limit the spread and influence of anti-democratic views in liberal democratic regimes.

The Guest
Dr Alasia Nuti joined the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of York in September 2015. She works in contemporary political theory and gender studies and she has a strong interest in postcolonial theory and critical race theory. In particular, Alasia is interested in historical injustice, responsibility, structural injustice, memory, immigration and pluralism. She has recently published her first book, entitled Injustice and the Reproduction of History (Cambridge University Press, 2019), which examines why the unjust past matters from a normative perspective. The book was awarded an Honorable Mention from the ECPR Prize in Political Theory in 2021. In 2022, Alasia was awarded the Early Career Prize from the Britain and Ireland Association for Political Thought for excellence in research and teaching.

About the Talk
In this episode of the Governance Podcast, CSGS Director Mark Pennington speaks with Dr Samuel Bagg about his recent book - The Dispersal of Power: A Critical Realist Theory of Democracy, published by Oxford University Press. The book presents an in depth consideration of the problem of 'elite capture' and the possible strategies to address this. 

The Guest
Samuel Bagg is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at University of South Carolina, where he teaches courses in political theory. Before moving to UofSC, he taught at the University of Oxford, McGill University, and Duke University, where he received his PhD in 2017.His research aims to ground democratic theorizing in a realistic picture of the dynamics of social inequality and political power. Among other venues, it has appeared in the American Political Science Review; the American Journal of Political Science; the Journal of Politics; Perspectives on Politics; the Journal of Political Philosophy; the European Journal of Political Theory; Philosophy, Politics, and Economics; Social Philosophy and Policy; Social Theory and Practice; and Political Research Quarterly.