Contributor(s): Chris Gilson, Professor Mukulika Banerjee | Description:

In February 2025 the Phelan US Centre spoke to spoke to Mukulika Banerjee, Professor in LSE’s Department of Anthropology. They spoke about using anthropology to better study politics, how the US might be turning into what she terms a “checklist democracy” and how seeing the US from an outside point of view might help Americans to understand their own politics better.

Professor Mukulika Banerjee was inaugural director of the LSE South Asia Centre. Her books include Cultivating Democracy: Politics and Citizenship in Agrarian India, Why India Votes?, The Pathan Unarmed and The Sari (with Daniel Miller); and the series Exploring the Political in South Asia.

This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Luke Digweed.

 

Further reading and resources

Donald Trump’s election victory shows how the US is becoming a ‘checklist’ democracy – LSE USAPP blog – 6 November 2024 - https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2024/11/06/donald-trumps-election-victory-shows-how-the-us-is-becoming-a-checklist-democracy/

Listen to and watch recordings of Professor Banerjee’s 5 March 2025 inaugural lecture, Citizens as cultivars: democratic values in paddy fields and universities - https://www.lse.ac.uk/Events/2025/03/202503051830/Citizens-as-cultivars

Professor Banerjee spoke at the Phelan US Centre event, ‘The 2024 US election: turning point for America?’ on 6 November 2024. Watch the event video and listen to the event podcast - https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/about-usapp/email-subscription/

Listen to The India Briefing podcast with Mukulika Banerjee and Pragya Tiwari [Spotify] - https://open.spotify.com/show/4C3i0GTt101v9DnIqQf6Od

Contributor(s): Chris Gilson, Nicola Leveringhaus | The ongoing conflict in Ukraine has brought the spectre of potential nuclear conflict back into the public consciousness for the first time in decades. But what’s behind the potential for nuclear conflict and what issues are at stake for nuclear powers other than the US and Russia, like China?

To discuss these and other questions on the current state of global nuclear tensions and development, in March 2025 the Phelan US Centre spoke to Dr Nicola Leveringhaus of King's College London.

This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Luke Digweed.

 

Further reading and resources

Under the Nuclear Shadow: China’s Information-Age Weapons in International Security by Fiona S. Cunningham (Princeton University Press, 2025) - https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691261027/under-the-nuclear-shadow

The New Nuclear Age: At the Precipice of Armageddon by Ankit Panda (Wiley, 2025) - https://www.wiley.com/en-gb/The+New+Nuclear+Age%3A+At+the+Precipice+of+Armageddon-p-9781509557462

Contributor(s): Chris Gilson, Rachel Blum | Donald Trump’s links to the right, including the far right and the alt-right date back to least to his 2016 presidential campaign and continued through his first term and then into his 2024 election campaign where Trump faced accusations of being an authoritarian populist.

To discuss Donald Trump’s links to the far right, in February 2025 the Phelan US Centre spoke to Dr Rachel Blum of the University of Oklahoma. They also discussed Dr Blum’s research on party factions and their impact on contemporary US politics, and the 22nd Amendment to the US Constitution, which limits the number of times someone can be elected as President of the United States to two terms.

This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Luke Digweed.

 

Further reading and resources

 

How the Tea Party Captured the GOP: Insurgent Factions in American Politics by Rachel M. Blum (The University of Chicago Press, 2020) - https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/H/bo48408420.html

Cooperating Factions: A Network Analysis of Party Divisions in U.S. Presidential Nominations by Rachel M. Blum and Hans C. Noel (Cambridge University Press, 2024) - https://www.cambridge.org/gb/universitypress/subjects/politics-international-relations/american-government-politics-and-policy/cooperating-factions-network-analysis-party-divisions-us-presidential-nominations?format=PB

The MAGA Coup: Trump’s Takeover of the GOP (w/ Dr. Rachel Blum) – Deep Dive with Shawn C. Fettig - https://deepdivepodcast.buzzsprout.com/1983649/episodes/16215700-the-maga-coup-trump-s-takeover-of-the-gop-w-dr-rachel-blum

Contributor(s): Chris Gilson, Minxin Pei | President Trump has made his feelings about US competition with China plain; one of the early acts of his second presidential term has been to place tariffs on Chinese imports. China has since responded with its own tariffs on certain US goods and restrictions on the import of important minerals.

 

To talk about US-China relations with the return of Donald Trump, in February 2025 the Phelan US Centre spoke to Professor Minxin Pei, the Tom and Margot Pritzker '72 Professor of Government and George R. Roberts Fellow at Claremont McKenna College. They also spoke about China’s surveillance state and the concept of preventative repression, and how China might respond to US escalation on trade.

 

This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Luke Digweed.

 

Further reading and resources

The Broken China Dream: How Reform Revived Totalitarianism (Princeton University Press, December 2025) - https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691223339/the-broken-china-dream?srsltid=AfmBOorqgNLSfzJ7BEaYcMHm84uw9p003wJRq7nmU1j9izI-l17v3vAn

Contributor(s): Chris Gilson, Professor Shiping Tang | 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 Professor 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

Contributor(s): Chris Gilson, Douglas Fuller | 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.

Contributor(s): Chris Gilson, Professor Michael Mastanduno, Dr Jennifer Lind | 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.

 

Further reading 

Lind, J. (2024). Back to Bipolarity: How China’s Rise Transformed the Balance of Power. International Security, [online] 49(2), pp.7–55. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/isec_a_00494

 Lind, J. Half-Vicious: China's Rise, Authoritarian Adaptation, and the Balance of Power (forthcoming, Cornell University Press)‌

Contributor(s): Chris Gilson, Professor Kishore Mahbubani | 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/

Contributor(s): Chris Gilson, Yeling Tan | 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. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.108…90.2024.2402817

Contributor(s): Chris Gilson, Professor Lawrence Lessig | 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/