UCL Political Science Events

POLICY AND PRACTICE - American Capitalism and American Democracy

Episode Summary

Whether as the `shining city on a hill’, or the world’s only remaining military superpower, the United States shapes political trends and policy tools around the world. As the third largest country in the world, by population, its politics also has direct consequences for 330 million residents.

Episode Notes

This seminar presents – and vigorously critiques – a new edited volume, “American Political Economy”, which aims to reorient our understanding of US politics. Democratic erosions and economic inequalities, two of the most pressing political problems of the United States and its rich western peers, can only be understood in light of the economic, geographic, institutional and racial contexts in which politics are contested.

Speakers

• Jacob S. Hackeris Stanley Resor Professor of Political Science at Yale University. A regular media commentator and policy adviser, he is the author or co-author of five books, numerous journal articles, and a wide range of popular writings onAmerican politics and public policy, including the highly influential Winner Take-All Politics (2010). 
• Professor Desmond Kingwho is the Andrew W Mellon Professor of Government at the University of Oxford. He specializes in the study of theAmericanstate in US executive politics, race and politics inAmericanpolitical development, and the financial bases of US politics.
• Edward Luce is the US national editor and columnist at the Financial Times, and co-author of the Swamp Notes newsletter, which covers the intersection of money, power, and politics in America. He is the author of three highly acclaimed books, including The Retreat of Western Liberalism (2017) and Time to Start Thinking: America in the Age of Descent (2012). 
• Dr. Lucy Barnes is Associate Professor of Comparative Politics at UCL. She specialises in the comparative political economy of rich western democracies (including the USA), with particular focus on the interactions of political institutions and individuals’ ideas, attitudes, and behaviours, in the politics of economic policy-making.