LSE Podcasts

In the past decade, many commentators have increasingly spoken of growing competition between the United States and China in areas like trade, industrial policy, but also on foreign policy and global influence more generally.

To discuss these issues and how the social sciences can learn from evolutionary thinking, in January 2025 the Phelan US Centre spoke to Shiping Tang, of Fudan University. The conversation ranged over how Professor Tang’s early career as a biologist has informed his thinking about social science issues, whether we should talk about the US and China being in competition at all, and how democracies promote growth.

This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Luke Digweed.

Further reading and resources

• The Institutional Foundation of Economic Development by Shiping Tang (Princeton University Press, 2022)

• Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research, New Edition by Gary King, Robert O. Keohane, and Sidney Verba (Princeton University Press, 2021)

• Why Nations Fail: the Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty. Daron Acemoglu & James A Robinson. Crown Business. March 2012. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2012/08/21/book-review-why-nations-fail-the-origins-of-power-prosperity-and-poverty/

• Olson, M. (1996). Distinguished Lecture on Economics in Government: Big Bills Left on the Sidewalk: Why Some Nations are Rich, and Others Poor. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 10(2), 3–24. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2138479

This episode of LSE iQ looks at whether we should still be driving, whether public transport in cities has helped alleviate the need to drive and how driverless cars are still a distance away from really helping solve the issue of the number of cars on the road.

Contributor (s) Dr Phillip Rode, Professor Rachel Aldred, Dr Chris Tennant and Indira Ray

LSE iQ is a university podcast by the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Research links: https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/governing-compact-cities-9781788111355.html

This episode of LSE iQ explores a national scandal: widespread illegal sewage dumping by our privatised water companies, and why they are all under criminal investigation.

Speakers: Professor Gwyn Bevan, Dr Kate Bayliss, Jo Bateman

How Did Britain Come to This? A century of systemic failures of governance by Gwyn Bevan: https://press.lse.ac.uk/site/books/m/10.31389/lsepress.hdb/

Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated: The persistence of neoliberalism in Britain by Kate Bayliss et al, European Journal of Social Theory: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13684310241241800

LSE iQ is a university podcast by the London School of Economics and Political Science.

In December 2024 the Phelan US Centre spoke Dr Douglas Fuller, Associate Professor in the Department of International Economics, Government and Business at Copenhagen Business School.

They spoke about how the Chinese high-tech and semiconductor chip industry has evolved and the recent history and effectiveness of US chip controls towards China. They also discuss how the US has achieved a multilateral consensus for the implementation of chip controls, and whether these are likely to remain in place in the new administration of Donald Trump.

This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Luke Digweed.

In October 2024 the Phelan US Centre spoke to Professor Michael Mastanduno, Nelson A. Rockefeller Professor of Government at Dartmouth College, and Dr Jennifer Lind, Associate Professor of Government at Dartmouth College.

They spoke about US export controls against China and about their history and effectiveness

This episode was produced by Chris Gilson, Luke Digweed and Anderson Tan.

In November 2024 the Phelan US Centre spoke to Professor Kishore Mahbubani, Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore. From 1971 until 2004 he was a diplomat with the Singapore Foreign Service. He served as Singapore’s Ambassador to the UN from 1984-1989 and then from 1998 to 2004 and as President of the UN Security Council in January 2001 and May 2002. He was appointed the Founding Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in 2004.

They spoke about the evolving relationships between Asian countries and the United States, the India-China relationship, and the role of Southeast Asia within the greater context of US-China relations.

This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Anderson Tan.

Further reading

• Has China Won? The Chinese Challenge to American Primacy (Hachette, 2020) - https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/kishore-mahbubani/has-china-won/9781541768123/?lens=publicaffairs

• Living the Asian Century (Hachette, 2024) - https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/kishore-mahbubani/living-the-asian-century/9781541703049/

With companies, like SpaceX or Blue Origin, getting into space exploration and the cost of launching rockets dropping, could we see a lot more people heading into space in the future? What kind of possibilities does this new space age bring—and what dangers should we be worried about?

Can any nation seize possession of the moon? Could it be mined? Is there junk in space? And whatever happened to that flag that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin planted on the moon fifty five years ago?

To find out more, Maayan Arad speaks to Dr Helen Sharman, the first British astronaut in space who flew aboard the Soviet spacecraft Soyuz TM-12 in 1991. He also talks to Dr Jill Stuart, an expert in the politics, ethics and law of outer space exploration and exploitation and Visiting Fellow in LSE’s Department of Government, and Dr Dimitrios Stroikos, LSE Fellow in the Department of International Relations and Head of the Space Policy Programme at LSE IDEAS.

Read an interview with Dr Dimitrios Stroikos on space politics here: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2024/11/22/interview-with-dimitrios-stroikos-we-tend-to-forget-the-extent-to-which-space-is-so-integral-to-our-daily-lives/

Contributors

Dr Helen Sharman, first British astronaut

Dr Jill Stuart, Visiting Fellow at LSE’s Department of Government

Dr Dimitrios Stroikos, LSE Fellow in the Department of International Relations at LSE and Head of the Space Policy Programme at LSE IDEAS.

LSE iQ is a university podcast by the London School of Economics and Political Science.

In October 2024 the LSE Phelan US Centre spoke to Yeling Tan, Professor of Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford. They spoke about how China understands economic security and its evolving economic strategy, and how public attitudes in China towards international trade influence the country’s trade policy.

This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Anderson Tan.

Further reading

• Global economic influence and domestic regime support: evidence from China. (2023). Review of International Political Economy. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09692290.2024.2402817

In October 2024 the Phelan US Centre spoke to spoke to Lawrence Lessig, the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School. Cited by The New Yorker as “the most important thinker on intellectual property in the internet era”, Professor Lessig now focuses on “institutional corruption”, especially as that affects democracy. He is the author of many books, including They Don’t Represent Us: Reclaiming Our Democracy, Fidelity & Constraint: How the Supreme Court Has Read the American Constitution, and most recently, How to Steal a Presidential Election.

They spoke about how AI and the media can affect the legitimacy and conduct of elections, how policymakers have attempted to govern and control the use of AI and about how citizens’ assemblies could be a way to protect democracy against AI’s influence.

This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Anderson Tan.

Further reading and resources

- Podcast and video of the 8 October 2024 event, ‘What AI is doing to America's democracy’ – LSE Public Lecture with Professor Lawrence Lessig and LSE President and Vice Chancellor Professor Larry Kramer - https://www.lse.ac.uk/united-states/events/2024-events/What-AI-is-doing-to-Americas-democracy

- How to Steal a Presidential Election (Yale University Press, 2024) - https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300270792/how-to-steal-a-presidential-election/

In October 2024 the Phelan US Centre spoke to Fawaz Gerges, Professor of International Relations in the Department of International Relations at LSE, and holder of the Emirates Professorship in Contemporary Middle East Studies.

They spoke about his new book, “What Really Went Wrong: The West and the failure of democracy in the Middle East”. We also discussed the history of US involvement in the region, and the ongoing conflict in the Middle East between Israel and Hamas.

This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Anderson Tan.

Further reading

• What Really Went Wrong: The West and the Failure of Democracy in the Middle East – Yale University Press, 2024 - https://yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300259575/what-really-went-wrong/

• Review of What Really Went Wrong at LSE Review of Books - https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2024/09/24/what-really-went-wrong-the-west-and-the-failure-of-democracy-in-the-middle-east-fawaz-gerges/