This event took place on Tuesday 01 April 2025, 7.00pm to 8.30pm at LSE

In 2006 Professor Bienefeld gave a public lecture at LSE by the very same title, anticipating the global financial crisis of 2007. In that lecture he argued that this crisis would (should?) finally persuade people and policy makers that the neoliberal mantras of "free trade" and of the single-minded empowerment of global market actors, was not a recipe for "development," if only because it eroded the capacity of governments to manage their economies in accordance with the values and priorities of their citizens.

Unfortunately, although there was some talk of a renewed focus on national sovereignty shortly after that crisis, this was soon forgotten as the main focus shifted to the urgent need to manage the debt mountains accumulated in the course of bailing out the financial institutions that had caused the crisis - and then again, in the course of forestalling the economic collapse threatened by the Covid disruptions. And so now, as a new global financial crisis threatens, the same contradictions cry out for resolution, only this time more urgently and more critically.

Indeed, globally the emergence of the BRICS signals a recognition of the need for a new international order with renewed respect for national sovereignties, while in almost all of the developed world political balances are being disrupted by nationalist sentiments that are increasingly difficult to manage, or even to understand. Unless one understands that democracy is not even conceivable unless it pertains to "a society" whose members identify as such, and believe that they share sufficient common interests to allow them to negotiate their remaining differences peacefully through the ballot box.

About the speaker

Manfred Bienefeld is Professor Emeritus, School of Public Policy and Administration, Carleton University, Ottawa. Early critic of IMF/World Bank structural adjustment and exponent of dependency theory and the developmental state. Author of 1994 TWQ paper warning that the end of the Cold War would not lead to a peace dividend in a multipolar world, but to a unipolar world, hell bent on globalizing a neoliberal economic model that was so divisive and unsustainable that its imposition would require increasingly militaristic methods - by an increasingly "imperialistic" power.

About the discussant

Radhika Desai is Professor at the Department of Political Studies, University of Manitoba, Visiting Professor, Department of International Development, LSE.  Her work ranges over international political economy, comparative politics and political theory. Her most recent book is Capitalism, Coronavirus and War: A Geopolitical Economy (2023, Open Access, Knowledge Unlatched)

About the Chair

Robert Wade is Professor of Political Economy and Development in Department of International Development at LSE. Professor Wade worked at Institute of Development Studies, Sussex, 1972-95, World Bank, 1984-88, Princeton Woodrow Wilson School 1989/90, MIT Sloan School 1992, Brown University 1996-2000. Fieldwork in Pitcairn Is, Italy, India, Korea, Taiwan.

Speaker: Professor Geoffrey West, Distinguished Professor and former President of the Santa Fe Institute
Chair: Professor Jean-Paul Faguet, Professor Political Economy of Development, LSE

Why do people and companies stop growing, age and then die, whereas cities keep growing with the pace of life continuing to accelerate? And how about the planet? Can the super-exponential growth of the anthroposphere be sustained or are we on the edge of some major transition? Is "the end of the world nigh”? And how is all of this related to the dynamics of innovation, wealth creation, social networks and urbanisation? 

These are among the questions that will be explored in this lecture. Although life is the most complex and diverse phenomenon in the Universe, almost all its characteristics from cells to cities obey surprisingly simple, “universal” scaling laws which constrain much of the organisation and dynamics of biological, ecological and socio-economic life. These include metabolism, growth, development, lifespans, energy, patents, pollution, roads, crime and disease. These coarse-grained laws originate in the generic underlying mathematical properties of social, infrastructural, resource and information networks that sustain life across all scales. They lead to dramatic consequences for long-term growth, development and sustainability, including the emergence of impending singularities and tipping points.

Can the resulting open-ended super-exponential growth, fueled by innovation and wealth creation, be sustained or does it sow the seeds for eventual collapse?

Hosted by the Department of International Development and the Global School of Sustainability

In their new open access book New Mediums, Better Messages: How Innovations in Translation, Engagement & Advocacy are Changing International Development (OUP), co-editors David Lewis, Dennis Rodgers and Michael Woolcock present twelve wide ranging contributions that suggest that we need to further broaden our ideas about what constitutes valid development knowledge. Themes include alternative media such as literary fiction, films, theatre, radio, photography, blogging, and music. Not only do we need to widen our frame of reference about what constitutes valid knowledge, but we also should question how that knowledge is created and valued, and by whom.

Speakers: Dennis Rodgers (Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva), Michael Woolcock (World Bank), Emily LeRoux-Rutledge (UWE Bristol)
Discussant: Mariz Tadros (IDS Sussex)
Chair: David Lewis (LSE)

We each embark on two life journeys – one out into the world, the other inward to the self. With these journeys in mind, anthropologist, amateur economist and globetrotter Keith Hart reflects on a life of learning, sharing and remembering to offer readers the means of connecting life’s extremes – individual and society, local and global, personal and impersonal dimensions of existence and explores what it is that makes us fully human. 

Please note that this is a recording of a live event, so the sound quality may be slightly compromised.

Speakers:
Sir Mark Lowcock, Professor in Practice, LSE ID, Previously Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator for the United Nations (2017-2021) and Permanent Secretary of the UK Department for International Development (2011-2017)
Dr Stuart Gordon, Associate Professorial Lecturer in Managing Humanitarianism and Programme Co-Director International Development and Humanitarian Emergencies, Department for International Development, LSE
Dr Eiko Thielemann, Associate Professor in Political Science and Public Policy, Department of Government and European Institute, LSE
Anna Landre, The Partnership’s for Inclusive Disaster Strategies' Ukraine Crisis Focal Point and Disability Justice Activist, Department for International Development, LSE

Chair: 
Dr Ian Madison, LSE Fellow and Programme Co-Director International Development and Humanitarian Emergencies, Department for International Development, LSE

Anthropology has often been seen as an academic version of Indiana Jones – namely a discipline devoted to exotic travel that does not have much relevance for the modern world. 

However, anthropology-trained Financial Times journalist and author Gillian Tett argues that this image is completely wrong today, and anthropology can make a vital contribution to public policy, corporate and financial life, as well as our communities as we try to 'build back better' after COVID-19. Indeed, she argues that a world drowning in artificial intelligence and other digital innovations desperately needs a second type of 'AI' – Anthropology Intelligence – to enable us to flourish. 

But what does this mean for the economics profession? Could economists benefit by embracing this new type of AI? Gillian Tett explores this question in this talk, and her new book Anthro-Vision; A New Way To See In Business And Life. Deborah Rowland, a leading global thinker, speaker, writer, and coach in the field of leading big complex change also shares her perspective on an anthropological approaches to business and other complex systems. 

You can also watch the video recording of the event on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xCVwhaCfS4.

The discussion covered many complex questions around how to decolonise development studies, considering the various layers of this debate which address epistemological questions, methodological issues, diversity of authors, curriculum designing, and classroom discussions with and among students. The event built on the lessons and challenges of teaching African Development using decolonial perspectives in the current academic year at the LSE, International Development Department, and what this may mean for other disciplines.

For related podcasts, you can check out the Citing Africa podcast, hosted by the Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa, which explores the global construction and imbalances of knowledge production, taking a critical look at the wider context affecting the African continent.