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Society, Politics & Law
The Future For Finance
The financial crisis of 2008 has been widely blamed on poor regulation of financial institutions and the bonus driven casino culture. So what measures are the new coalition Government taking to ensure a crisis on this scale doesn’t happen again? Martin Upton of The Open University Business School’s Centre for Accounting
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Society, Politics & Law
Cooperation, anarchy and interdependence
How can the World Trade Organisation (WTO) control international states without one central world government? Is the WTO just a club for the extremely rich and powerful? The Open University’s Dr William Brown leads discussions around the themes of co-operation, interaction and interdependencies. Dr. Jef Huysmans and Dr. Simon Bromley delve into...
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Society, Politics & Law
Sacking Prime Ministers
Over the past one hundred years, only two British prime ministers, Stanley Baldwin and Harold Wilson have left Number 10 entirely voluntarily, the electorate has voted most of them out. So why do PM’s so rarely leave office on their own terms? What happens when a prime minister’s credibility becomes weakened? The Open University’s Dr. Richard ...
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Society, Politics & Law
Technology, networks and international order
How have technological change and the rise in organised networks affected international order? William Brown, Senior Lecturer in Government and Politics, is joined by fellow Open University lecturers Dr Simon Bromley and Dr Helen Yanacopulos to investigate the key issues through recent events such as the 'Jubilee 2000 debt campaign’ and the ...
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Society, Politics & Law
This Sporting Planet
Sport is a massive global phenomenon. Events and sporting heroes attract an enormous amount of interest. What’s going on? Why do sporting heroes matter so much and why is the media full of sports news? This album uses interviews with four key people in sport (Ed Smith, Sue Tibballs, Ed Warner and Sunder Katwala) to explore the relationship ...
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Society, Politics & Law
Politics
Governments across the world have to make controversial decisions everyday. Whether it be raising taxes, cutting budgets or going to war, there will always be opposition. The tracks on this album look at how governments make decisions, form policies and sometimes manipulate information to help their cause. The four video tracks focus on the GM ...
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Society, Politics & Law
Understanding Cities
At the beginning of the 21st century, more than half the world’s population live in cities. Issues about governance, intensification of social relationships, the impact of globalisation, and the way green spaces are utilised become ever more pressing concerns. The tracks on this album explore some of the challenges faced across the world as ...
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Society, Politics & Law
The dot.com bubble
Sir Isaac Newton observed that he could track the movement of the stars but not the madness of men. This fast paced album looks at the history and causes of economic bubbles and focuses on the highs and lows of the dot.com boom of the early 2000s. How do we spot a bubble emerging? Why do we buy into it? And what are the consequences when a ...
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Society, Politics & Law
The pensions timebomb
Over the last three decades major events, scandals and regulations have shocked the pension system. Have the public lost faith in occupational and private pensions? Should the state pension be enough to see us through our old age? And with the non-working to working ratio continuing to rapidly increase, who will pay? We hear from those that ...
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Society, Politics & Law
Global response to the financial crisis
What caused the financial crisis of 2007-9 and the recession that followed? How did governments and the international banking system respond? Senior Lecturer William Brown is joined by three course team members to address the key issues that emerged as a result of the financial crisis and what it reveals about shifts in the international system....
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Society, Politics & Law
Belfast - healthy city
In the late nineteen eighties, Belfast became part of the World Health Organisation's Healthy Cities Project. The aim was to get as many institutions as possible to make health central to their planning and to give the diverse communities of Belfast a real say in their future. What were the challenges they faced? What solutions did they evolve? ...
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Society, Politics & Law
Globalisation and health
What is the future for global health policy? How are the old paradigms being replaced by new ones? What are the key issues in the new globalised world? Ilona Kickbusch reviews the rapidly changing world of global health. In the past there were relatively few organisations involved and there was a hard dividing line between the public and private...