The Government and Opposition Leonard Schapiro Memorial Lecture is given annually in honour of Leonard Schapiro, one of the journal's founding editors.

Follow @govandopp for information on the next Schapiro Lecture.

2024 Leonard Schapiro Memorial Lecture

We are delighted that Laura Cram, Professor of Neuropolitics and Director of the Neuropolitics Research Lab at the University of Edinburgh will be giving this year’s Government & Opposition Schapiro Lecture on ‘A Neuropolitical Understanding of Government and Opposition’. Her analysis is of significant contemporary significance, highlighting the challenges to good governance that obtain in often highly polarised decision environments.

The lecture will be held on Thursday 14th of November in person in the Informatics Forum at the University of Edinburgh and live-streamed.

Find out how to book your place here. 

Address: Informatics Forum, 10 Crichton St, Newington, Edinburgh EH8 9AB.

See the location on Google maps. 

The event will run from 6.00-7.15 pm, followed by a wine reception for those who are able to attend in person.

Biography

Laura Cram is Professor of Neuropolitics and Director of the Neuropolitics Research Lab (NRLabs) at the University of Edinburgh. Her lab uses experimental approaches, including fMRI brain scanning, face-emotion coding, eye-tracking and biometric measures along with social computational approaches to get ‘under the hood’ of political attitudes, identities and behaviours. She has also published widely on the European Union (EU) policy process and on EU identity. She held a Senior Fellowship on the Economic and Social Research Council’s UK in a Changing Europe programme, explore the insights that cognitive neuroscience could offer into contemporary debates on the UK’s EU membership of the EU. She was a contributing author to the EU Commission’s 2019 study Understanding our Political Nature: How to put knowledge and reason at the heart of political decision-making. She acted as Special Advisor to the Scottish Parliament’s, European and External Relations Committee, on the Inquiry into the Impact of the Treaty of Lisbon on Scotland. She has provided evidence to the Houses of Lords and Houses of Commons in the UK and works closely with industrial partners and government officials in her research. She has been cited in the New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Economist, Financial Times, Irish Times, Telegraph, the Conversation, BBC, Sky News, Al Jazeera, CNN, International Associated Press. Her lab’s work has featured in BBC documentaries on the process of political decision-making. She was co-editor of Government and Opposition 2018-2024.

2023 Leonard Schapiro Memorial Lecture

Professor Desmond King of the University of Oxford delivered the 2023 Leonard Schapiro Memorial Lecture on 'American Politics and Political Violence: The best possible accommodation?'

The event took place on Thusday the 18th of May 2023 at the RSA in London and online. Click on the image shown to watch the 2023 Lecture

Abstract:

From its settler-colonial and constitutional foundation the United States has experienced periodic episodes and acts of political violence, including one internal civil war, bitter industrial conflicts, violence rooted in enslavement and segregation, people displacement from indigenous lands and riots. These acts of political violence are more persistent and widespread than in other liberal democracies. Charlottesville 2017 and January 6 2021 are powerful recent expressions of political violence in the American tradition. In this talk I ask, How is this political violence accommodated in the US’s political democracy?  The answer identifies constitutional, ideological and historical sources of accommodation.

You can watch a recording of the lecture here.

Biography:

Desmond King is the Andrew W Mellon Professor of American Government at the University of Oxford, and author of several books and papers about U.S. politics, including Making Americans: Immigration, Race, and the Origins of the Diverse Democracy (Harvard University Press, 2002), Still a House Divided: Race and Politics in Obama’s America (Princeton University Press, 2012), and “Forceful Federalism Against American Racial Inequality,” Government and Opposition 52:2 (April 2017) pp. 356-382. He is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the British Academy and the American Philosophical Society.

2022 Leonard Schapiro Memorial Lecture

Professor Brigid Laffan gave the 2022 Schapiro Lecture on ‘The Emergence of Collective Power Europe (CPE)’. Her analysis was of significant contemporary significance, highlighting the cases of Brexit, the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.

Read Professor Laffan's G&O paper based on the lecture here.

The Royal Irish Academy hosted the event in Dublin. It gave us an opportunity also to formally commemorate our G&O colleague and friend Professor Robert Elgie, who was also a member of the RIA, and to have his family present.

The lecture was opened by Dr Mary Canning, President of the Royal Irish Academy.

Professor Helen Thompson gave a short tribute to Robert Elgie on G&O’s behalf. 

You can watch a recording of ‘The Emergence of Collective Power Europe (CPE)’ below.

Following a long decade of crises, it is timely to revisit a macro question concerning the European Union, namely, the nature of the beast or the kind of polity that has emerged from crises and challenge. Concepts such as Market Power Europe and Normative Power Europe no longer capture the essence of the EU as it struggles to act in response to crisis.  This lecture offers the concept of Collective Power Europe (CPE) as a suggestive means to address the kind of EU that is emerging. The lecture addresses what is meant by collective power and what its essential ingredients are.  Then the analysis pivots to three cases where it will be argued the EU exercised collective power. These are Brexit, the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. The underlying assumption is that the EU represents a robust and resilient form of political order and that its distinctiveness serves to disguise its strengths.

2021 Leonard Schapiro Lecture

The 2021 Leonard Schapiro Lecture was “The Shifting Relationship between Postwar Capitalism and Democracy” by Professor Peter A. Hall, Harvard University.

Watch a recording of the Lecture using the YouTube link shown.

Professor Hall's article based on the lecture is available online here.

2020 Leonard Schapiro Lecture

The 2020 Government & Opposition Leonard Schapiro Memorial Lecture, entitled ‘The would-be federation next door: what next for Britain?’ was delivered by Helen Thompson, Professor of Political Economy at the University of Cambridge, UK. 

Watch a recording of the Lecture using the YouTube link shown.

Professor Thompson's article based on the lecture is available without charge here.

2019 Leonard Schapiro Lecture

The 2019 Lecture was delivered by Professor Cas Mudde of The University of Georgia (USA) and the University of Oslo (Norway) who presented a lecture on “Populism in Europe: An Illiberal Democratic Response to Undemocratic Liberalism.”

Professor Mudde's lecture is now available as an article with Government & Opposition.

Watch a recording of the Lecture using the YouTube link shown.

Previous Lectures

2018 - A Fresh Perspective on the Origins of “Civic Culture” and Why It Matters for the Study of the Arab World - Carrie Rosefsky Wickham

2017 - The Global Economics of European Populism: Growth Regimes and Party System Change in Europe - Jonathan Hopkin and Mark Blyth

You can also download Professor Blyth's PowerPoint slides from his lecture here.

2016 - The European Union between Intergovernmentalism and ‘Shared and Responsible Sovereignty’: The Haptic Potential of EMU’s Institutional Architecture - Simona Piattoni

2015 - Making Immigration Work: How Britain and Europe Can Cope with their Immigration Crises - Randall Hansen

2014 - Which Map? Which Government? Malapportionment and Gerrymandering, UK-Style - Ron Johnston

2013 - On Violence and Repression: A Relational Approach - Donatella della Porta

2012 - The Federalization of Iraq and the Break-up of Sudan - Brendan O'Leary

2011 - ‘England Does Not Love Coalitions’: The Most Misused Political Quotation in the Book - Iain McLean

2010 - Pathology Without Crisis? The Strange Demise of the Anglo-Liberal Growth Model - Colin Hay

2008 - The Western Ideology - Andrew Gamble

2007 - Comparative Theory and Political Practice: Do We Need a ‘State-Nation’ Model as Well as a ‘Nation-State’ Model? - Alfred Stepan