This talk is part of the centenary events for Max Weber’s Politics as a Vocation.

Jonathan Powell was Chief of Staff at No10 Downing Street between 1997 and 2007 and was the UK government’s lead negotiator in the Northern Ireland peace talks that led to the Good Friday Agreement. He is the author of three recent books on politics and power, and violence and peacemaking: Great Hatred, Little Room: Making Peace in Northern Ireland (2008); The New Machiavelli: How to Wield Power in the Modern World (2011); and Talking to Terrorists: How to End Armed Conflicts (2015). He is the founder and CEO of Inter Mediate, a charity that facilitates negotiation and mediation in dangerous and complex conflicts.

He will be talking to David Runciman and Helen Thompson about the themes of violence and state power, realism in politics, and political leadership and the responsibilities of political leaders that are central to Weber’s Politics as a Vocation lecture.

This event is in association with the Bennett Institute for Public Policy at the University of Cambridge.