The New Politics of Inequality

Alex Nunn is Professor of Politics and Political Economy at Leeds Beckett University. He is a member of the Politics and Applied Global Ethics subject group and is also a founding Director of the Centre for Applied Social Research (CeASR). CeASR is a university-wide and interdisciplinary research centre focused on achieving progressive social change through engaging researchers with important questions of policy and practice. In this lecture, Alex looked at the causes and implications of increased inequality in the UK and globally. He will posed some critical questions about why the politicians and international organisations who presided over the increase in inequality are now so concerned about it. The objectives of this ‘New Politics of Inequality’ are global in orientation. They are linked to the way the dynamics of political, economic and social life at all levels, from the individual through to macro-regions like the EU, are increasingly dominated by world market integration. As the process of this integration unfolds, we might expect to see an increasing range of more complex and interrelated social problems emerge, including income polarisation. Policy and practitioner audiences will want to understand how better to manage these complex social problems to maintain political legitimacy and social cohesion. Academic and public audiences will want to scrutinise the underpinning political, social and economic objectives of the New Politics of Inequality and hold it to account.