LSE’s new United States Centre is set to be a pioneer for research and analysis of North American policy and politics.
In an exclusive interview with the Times Higher Education, the centre director, Professor Peter Trubowitz, suggested that, despite plenty of analysis of its foreign policy, there is relatively little focus on US domestic policy in UK universities:
“There are few countries that are more important internationally but less well understood than the US. One reason for that is that even America’s closest allies, ie, the UK, invest very few resources in social sciences training about the US.”
With its global focus, central London location and with over 50 academics working on US-related topics, LSE is in an ideal position to fill this gap in research and knowledge gap, he argued.
In addition to supporting research staff and students, one of the longer-term goals for the US Centre is to establish itself as a hub for academic centres around the world which are “looking at the US from the outside in”.
Professor Trubowitz hopes that an increase in global collaborations will help the LSE lead a “reimagining” of the study of the US.
“In the US, disciplinary conventions have separated the study of foreign and domestic policy so if you’re an expert on US foreign policy you don’t spend much time talking about domestic policy, and if you study domestic policy you don’t spend much time thinking about the US in an international context.
“I personally think that’s a mistake. You would never study any other country that way. It might have made sense when the US was less integrated in the global economy. But now the US is so open. It is so reliant on the global economy.”
Read the full interview and article here: LSE to address shortage of research on US domestic politics.
For more information about the US Centre, visit: LSE United States Centre.
Wednesday 6 January 2016