Democracy, Decency and Devolution

Public lecture hosted by LSE Cities

Dame Tessa Jowell delivered her inaugural lecture to mark her recent appointment as Professor of Practice with LSE Cities and the Department of Government.

‘Democracy, Decency and Devolution’ looked at two big questions. First, how our politics can reconnect with a disenchanted and sceptical public and the price we pay for a failure to do that. It then set out the case for devolution to the most local available level as a way of making communities more powerful, against a backdrop of shrinking public expenditure.

Tessa Jowell is standing down from parliament after serving as an MP for 22 years and taking on successive roles in government as Minister for Public Health, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, and Minister for the Olympics. At the LSE, Tessa will be working with the Department of Government and LSE Cities, complementing her role at the Harvard University School of Public Health and the Kennedy School, where she teaches in the ministerial development programmes.

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    Tessa Jowell

    Dame Tessa Jowell is a former MP and UK Government Secretary of State. She was Minister for the Olympics from 2005–2010 and Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport from 2001–2007. In 2014 she was appointed Professor of Practice, working with LSE Cities and the Department of Government on a range of academic and outreach initiatives. She stood down from UK Parliament in 2015, having served as an MP for the London constituency of Dulwich and West Norwood since 1992.

    Craig Calhoun

    Craig Calhoun is Director and President of LSE. Before joining LSE, he was President of the Social Science Research Council, and taught at the University of North Carolina, Columbia, and NYU where he was most recently University Professor of Social Sciences and Director of the Institute for Public Knowledge. Among his books on politics and social movements are, Neither Gods nor Emperors: Students and the Struggle for Democracy in China and The Roots of Radicalism.