Pon Souvannaseng is a PhD candidate who joined the department doctoral programme in 2010. She received a South-South Young Laureate award in 2012 from the tri-continent Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO), Council for Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) and the Asian Political and International Studies Association (APISA). She was a US Fulbright Student Research Award recipient for 2013-2014. She founded and co-organized the Comparative Politics Working Group at LSE, a cross-disciplinary student-faculty research seminar series.
Pon has been a graduate teaching assistant since 2011 and holds a Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education (PGCertHE). She has previously worked as a research analyst at the United Nations in Geneva. She holds a Master of Research in Political Science and Master of Science in Comparative Politics from the LSE.
Thesis
'Losing Ground': Contemporary Development & Economic State-Building in Lao PDR (working title)
This research project examines the challenges of economic-state building in the 21st century through the lens of a least developed small state in the throws of transition.
Utilizing an empirical study of resource-dependent growth in contemporary Lao PDR, this study asks what the global landscape for 'development' looks like in the new millennium viewed from the bottom of the ladder. Contemporary 'development' in Southeast Asia's emerging communist states are taking new forms and patterns which differ markedly from classic cases of industrialization. They throw light on the ways in which classic stories of industrialization coupled with state-building have changed, forcing a re-think to the relevance of old development models and concepts- such as the formation of a working class or the building of a coherent, 'developmental' state.
The study examines Lao PDR's economy from a social development and regional political economy perspective. It engages with the 'resource curse' literature to address ways in which transnational investments in Lao PDR act as a replacement for, rather than a distortion of, existing development.
Supervisors: Dr Chun Lin| and Dr David Woodruff|
Research interests
-
Comparative Social Policy
-
Asian Communisms & Post-communisms
-
International Development
-
International Political Economy
-
Economic State Building
Contact
Email: P.Souvannaseng@lse.ac.uk|
Website: http://personal.lse.ac.uk/souvanna/|