Video

Part of the conference held at the University of Sussex on April 8th, 2022: 'Ethics and the Civil Service- Past, Present, and Future'.

The event brought together historians, political scientists, civil servants, lobbyists and politicians to investigate the factors that lay behind the revelations of poor standards of ethical conduct among senior civil servants in Whitehall in recent scandals such as the Greensill Affair and the ongoing 'Partygate'. The symposium also sought to challenge the persistent myth that traditionally high standards of professional conduct among UK Civil Servants have their roots in the 1854 Northcote-Trevelyan Report and to emphasise that it was the 'modern' Civil Service which administered the British Empire in its final century.

Speaker:

Professor Miles Taylor (Professor of British History & Society, Centre for British Studies, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)

Part of the conference held at the University of Sussex on April 8th, 2022: 'Ethics and the Civil Service- Past, Present, and Future'.

The event brought together historians, political scientists, civil servants, lobbyists and politicians to investigate the factors that lay behind the revelations of poor standards of ethical conduct among senior civil servants in Whitehall in recent scandals such as the Greensill Affair and the ongoing 'Partygate'. The symposium also sought to challenge the persistent myth that traditionally high standards of professional conduct among UK Civil Servants have their roots in the 1854 Northcote-Trevelyan Report and to emphasise that it was the 'modern' Civil Service which administered the British Empire in its final century.

Speakers:

Professor Elizabeth David-Barrett (University of Sussex) 

Professor Gillian Peele (University of Oxford) 

Dr Susan Hawley (Executive Director, Spotlight on Corruption) 

Facilitator: Professor Robert Barrington (University of Sussex)

Part of the conference held at the University of Sussex on April 8th, 2022: 'Ethics and the Civil Service- Past, Present, and Future'.  

The event brought together historians, political scientists, civil servants, lobbyists and politicians to investigate the factors that lay behind the revelations of poor standards of ethical conduct among senior civil servants in Whitehall in recent scandals such as the Greensill Affair and the ongoing 'Partygate'. The symposium also sought to challenge the persistent myth that traditionally high standards of professional conduct among UK Civil Servants have their roots in the 1854 Northcote-Trevelyan Report and to emphasise that it was the 'modern' Civil Service which administered the British Empire in its final century.

Speakers:

Dr Colin Alexander (Nottingham Trent University) - 'Inside the Mind of the Colonial Administrator: Enthusiasm, Self-loathing, Denial and Preservation' 

Dr Steven Pierce (University of Manchester) – ‘Poison and Typewriters: Framing Government Malpractice in Colonial Northern Nigeria’ 

Chair: Dr Ian Cawood (University of Stirling)

Sir Anthony Seldon examined how history has often been marginalised from the policy-making process, and how some of the poorest decisions in Whitehall have been informed by historical illiteracy. He looked at the reasons why recordkeeping, institutional memory and evaluation of historical precedent have all been in decline, and attempted to answer the question – if history matters, how can it have practical value and not just remain an academic subject?

Speaker: Sir Anthony Seldon (former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Buckingham)

Discussants:

• Dr Andrew Blick (King’s College London, former director of History & Policy)
• Dr Juanita Cox (Research Fellow at the School of Advanced Study investigating The Windrush scandal in a trans-national and Commonwealth context
• Dr Duncan Needham (Darwin College, Cambridge, Director of the Centre for Financial History)
• Prof Sally Sheard (Executive Dean, Institute of Population Health, University of Liverpool)
• Prof Simon Szreter (St John’s College, Cambridge, co-founder of History & Policy)

Chair: Professor Philip Murphy (Director of History & Policy, IHR)

On the 21 March 202, History & Policy hosted a special online seminar on Russian foreign policy towards Ukraine in a historical perspective. Experts from across the world will considered some of the following questions:

1. How might long-term readings of Russian history, epitomised by George F. Kennan’s characterisation of the ‘natural outlook’ of the Russian people in his 1946 telegram, offer us insight into the current crisis? Are there indeed perennial elements to Russia’s strategic outlook and foreign policy?  
2. To what extent do parallels between the current war in Ukraine, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and Cold War clampdowns in Czechoslovakia and Hungary further our understanding of the potential outcomes of this conflict?  
3. How does the current international response to the conflict compare to previous reactions to Soviet expansionism, which have ranged from official condemnation to proxy warfare, and what does this suggest about the efficacy of the current scheme of sanctions and humanitarian and lethal aid? 
4. To what extent has the history of the region become part of public diplomacy and ‘information warfare’ in the Ukraine crisis?  

Panellists: 

• Dr Nikolay Anguelov (Associate Professor, Department of Public Policy, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth)
   
• Prof Marta Dyczok (University of Western Ontario, specialist in international politics and history, with a focus on East Central Europe and Eurasia, and specifically Ukraine)
   
• Prof Jamil Hasanli (Azerbaijani historian, author, and politician. Visiting fellow at the Institute of Historical Research)
   
• Prof Roger E. Kanet (Professor emeritus in the Department of Political Science at the University of Miami)
   

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