Two Professors from the University of Nottingham give lectures at USSH

On May 23, 2017, the lecture series began with a presentation by Prof. Catherine Gegout on the topic of “European Intervention in Africa”. The presentation began by listing the direct military interventions of France, the UK and the EU in Africa from 1986 to 2016 and explaining the motives for these interventions, including security, economic, reputational, humanitarian and post-colonial motives.

Accordingly, the motives for intervention can be ranked from high to low priority. Security is the main motive, including ensuring healthy relations with the ruling regime, fighting terrorism and immigration flows, protecting military bases, protecting citizens of their own state, and helping the US maintain its hegemony. Next are economic interests, as long as security interests are guaranteed. Third, the leaders of these countries want to intervene to gain respect and maintain power, encourage people to trust and respect to legitimize their position, and at the same time they want to build reputation with the state where they intervene, with states in the same geographical area and/or sharing the same cultural values ​​as the US superpower, and with UN member states. At the last level is the moral motive, that is, they feel a humanitarian responsibility to people outside their own territory. However, this is the ultimate motive and is only implemented on the basis of satisfying the first three objectives.

Next, Professor Katharine Adeney shared her experience of some teaching and research methods at the University of Nottingham. Professor Katharine Adeney distinguished different types of teaching such as interactive lectures, problem-solving exercises, simulation exercises, online teaching and debates. Along with that, there are also different types of assignments such as writing, essays, reports, theses, projects. She also raised issues in teaching, the most prominent of which is plagiarism. Accordingly, plagiarism means: presenting someone else's research but claiming it as your own, imitating, copying, colluding, using someone else's words/thoughts without citing. At the same time, students often do not distinguish when to paraphrase, when to quote a statement, or how much annotation is enough. Finally, she distinguished between two types of student assessment. Formative feedback is intended to help students improve their learning of a subject, with the aim of improving their performance in that subject; while summative feedback is intended to help students know what they have achieved and improve their performance in future subjects.

Late in the afternoon of the same day, Professor Katharine Adeney gave a lecture on the topic: "Is Indian democracy threatened under Modi?" to graduate students and staff inside and outside the school.

The presentation introduces the history, origins, changes in history and prospects of Indian democracy. After independence from Britain in 1947, India was divided into two states, India and Pakistan, with different religions. Both countries have diverse linguistic and religious groups. According to Professor Katharine Adeney, India's democracy is not due to inheriting and exploiting the long parliamentary tradition of Britain, nor is it due to the large Hindu class in the population. Instead, according to her, the three main sources of Indian democracy are: the political capacity of the Indian National Congress, with nationalist leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru; the stability of Indian democracy immediately before independence, based on political unity in a variety of different languages; and an open attitude to diversity.

Prof. Katharine Adeney presents the presentation

Since independence, Indian democracy has undergone changes such as the rise of lower castes, the growing representation of lower castes in political parties, and the dominance of the BJP in elections and in parliament. However, the BJP advocates religious nationalism with Hindu dominance across the country. It denies Christians and Muslims the right to practice their own religion, silences dissenting voices and ‘anti-nationals’; and concentrates cultural power in the hands of Hindus.

According to Professor Katharine Adeney, this poses a threat to Indian democracy, especially after the election of President Narendra Modi in 2014. The government is ready to use the army to suppress dissidents such as Muslims. However, the above positive changes will continue to promote democracy, although it cannot be said to be perfect.