Fudan-LSE Lecture Series No.9

THE SPEAKER

Timothy Hildebrandt is Associate Professor of Social Policy and Development at LSE. Trained as a political scientist and Sinologist, Tim’s research broadly explores how states manage increasingly complex societies, and how citizens and social groups respond. His research has appeared in numerous journals such as Development & Change, Development Policy Review, China Quarterly, Journal of Contemporary China, Review of International Studies, Journal of Civil Society; he is the author of Social Organisations and the Authoritarian State in China (Cambridge U.P. 2013). Tim frequently appears in news media outlets like South China Morning Post, BBC and CNN.

ABSTRACT

Slowed economic growth and cost-cutting has made it increasingly difficult for states to meet the changing needs of their citizens. Resurgent populism and the rejection of multilateralism exemplified in Brexit doesn’t bode well for global social policy to overcome these challenges. But in this talk, Timothy Hildebrandt argues that the severity of shared social problems demands more international perspective, not less. Otherwise dissimilar contexts should be compared to learn from successes and failures of social policy innovation. He posits a political economy of comparative social policy research to demonstrate why comparative research remains difficult to do—and suggests ways for overcoming these difficulties.