CEPH is delighted to collaborate once more with the ESRC Festival of Social Science, which aims to bring social science to a general audience through outreach activities like this. The theme of the festival this year is ‘Our Digital Lives’. Our event, held on November 7th, will engage with the theme by looking at elections, election marketing and misinformation, and how these are not new concepts for the modern age.

Elections can have profound economic and social consequences. Almost half of the global population went to the polls in 2024, and understanding the potential long-term impact of these elections is difficult to condense into 240 characters.

This is where economic history can come into play. Using the toolkit of the economist and the scope of the historian, we explore the lessons from past elections and democratic upheavals and apply them to the modern day. What does history tell us about the economic consequences of a change in government? Is voter misinformation a new phenomenon? What could electoral politics look like a decade from now?

If you have an interest in history, politics or anything in between, join us on November 7th at 5pm in the Lyric Theatre, Belfast for a lively discussion where our panel of economic historians, chaired by a stand-up comedian, look at impactful elections from the past, and connect them to the present using new and exciting research.

Tickets can be reserved here.