College of Social Sciences

Date: Tuesday, 9th May 2023 **hybrid**

Time: 1 – 3pm

Location: Melville Room, Gilbert Scott Building (Main Building), University of Glasgow

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You might have tried to encourage inter-governmental collaboration on a specific policy area. You might have tried to generate impact indirectly through a third agency aiming to promote political or policy change. Or you may have been working directly with the authoritarian regime and found that culture clashes limited the impact you could have.

Join us for an informal and practice-oriented workshop as four politics scholars draw out lessons from their own experience of trying to generate impact in or on authoritarian settings. You will hear from Professor Luca Anceschi, Professor Jane Duckett, Dr Neil Munro, and Professor Anja Neundorf from the School of Social and Political Sciences who will share their experiences of conducting research and generating impact in authoritarian settings.

They will reflect on ethical, practical and political challenges which colleagues need to take into consideration. These include such issues as: 

• Closing/closed public sphere (reluctance to speak out by public/CSOs, reluctance to listen by government bureaux)

• Political cynicism (misinterpreting interventions as political attacks/desire to co-opt or hijack research agendas/indifference to societal problems)

• Obsession with control (reluctance to acknowledge failures/reluctance to acknowledge the role of outsiders in solving problems/tendency to impose solutions unilaterally)

• Need to rely on insiders to act as proxies (problems of generating commitment, legitimacy of insiders working for outsiders, need to find appropriate models of remuneration)

This event will consist of 10 minute presentations by each of the researchers, followed by parallel discussion sections focussing on the tools for achieving impact and the nature of authoritarian institutions.  The session will wrap up with some reflections from Dr Sarah Weakley, Research and Knowledge Exchange Lead in the College of Social Sciences.

This event is co-organised by the College of Social Sciences interdisciplinary research theme on Challenges in Changing Cities.

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First published: 19 April 2023