Latest News Events
Public Lecture on Democracy
IDCR Director Professor Todd Landman will deliver a public lecture entitled
‘Why Democracy is Good for the World’
This event takes place at the Gateway Building at the University of Essex Southend Campus on 13 April.
The Lecture will cover:
- A brief overview of the IDCR
- The ‘Arab Spring’ of 2011
- Definitions of democracy
- Trends in democratization
- Explanations for democracy
- Benefits of democracy
There will be a reception before and time for questions.
Full details for this event can be found by CLICKING HERE.
The lecture slides are now available here:
IDCR Director part of ‘gathering of gurus’…
IDCR Director Professor Todd Landman took part in a two-day ‘gathering of gurus’ organised by the Tactical Technology Collective to address questions of using data for evidence-based campaigning among advocacy groups around the world. The event took place in Berlin 4-6 April.
Joined by participants from academia, politics and the non-governmental sector, Professor Landman took part in a series of practical exercises aimed at providing advocacy groups with the rules of thumb in data collection, management, and analysis in support of achieving campaign aims.
Participants included:
- Ethan Roeder from the New Organizing Institute (NOI) in Washington DC and data manager for the 2008 Obama campaign for the US Presidency.
- Friedrich Lindenberg from Liquid Democracy and the Open Knowledge Foundation in Germany
- Helen Darbishire from Access Info in Spain
- Janet Haven from the Open Society Foundation in Hungary
- John Kipchumba from SODNET in Kenya
- Namita Singh PhD Candidate at the Open University from India
- Patrick Pierce Head of the Bruma Programme for the International Centre for Transitional Justice
- Paul Currion, Humanitarian Information Consultant, Montenegro
The discussions were free flowing and addressed a range of key questions about using data for advocacy campaigns, including definition of campaign aims and objectives, identification of data needs, design and implementation of data projects, data management, data and statistical literacy, among other topics.
Any advocacy campaign and particularly those that address human rights and human dignity naturally involve the collection and analysis of data, which provides an evidence base to undestand the nature and extent of a problem and what to do about it.
Whether the topic is quite focused on narrow questions that affect small communities of people or big questions affecting large numbers of people, data can help in so many ways. Having such a gathering of experienced people proved fruitful in generating great ideas for helping advocacy groups. After two days of intense debate and discussion participants then offered their thoughts on film for a new Tactical Tech project.
