It can be easy to feel overwhelmed by politics. At a time when many of us want to grasp what is going on, it is getting harder to do so. Rather than becoming caught up in the swirl of day-to-day events, Peter Allen suggests that we instead return to the fundamentals.

Exploring power, representation, knowledge, interests, and possibility, he offers tools for thinking about politics that will us interrogate our own political choices. Underlining the importance of these key political ideas, he makes the case that the scope of what politics is and what it can achieve is often greater than we are told.

He will be in conversation with Aditya Chakrabortty, senior economics commentator for the Guardian.

About the speakers:

• Peter Allen is Professor of Politics at the University of Bath and Co-Director of the Institute for Policy Research. His research focuses on political representation and political behaviour. He is the author of The Political Class (OUP, 2018), and How to Think about Politics (OUP, 2025).
• Aditya Chakrabortty is senior economics commentator for the Guardian. In 2023 he won the British Press Award for Best Broadsheet Columnist of the year.

Questions:

 This event is hosted by the University of Bath Institute for Policy Research. For any questions, please contact ipr@bath.ac.uk