The LSE School of Public Policy celebrated its official launch with a discussion on the role of policymaking in an increasingly populist world. The event attracted students, academics, policymakers, and citizens from here and far.
03 December 2018
There was a palpable sense of excitement stemming from the lobby of the New Academic Building last Thursday, as attendees began to queue for the launch of the LSE School of Public Policy. Some attendees waited nearly an hour to gain entrance to the event, such was its popularity.
By the time LSE Director Minouche Shafik arrived at the podium to deliver her opening remarks, the theatre had reached full capacity with several attendees standing in the rear doorways. In her opening address, Dame Shafik emphasized the urgency of today’s public policy issues. “I think policymakers have never faced as many challenges as we have faced at this time,” she said. “We need to train a new generation to solve these problems,” she stated.
Following the Director’s opening remarks, Professor Andrés Velasco, the Dean of the LSE School of Public Policy, delivered a dynamic keynote address on the relationship between populism and policymaking. Professor Velasco began his address by quoting the original mission of the London School of Economics. He affirmed that the School of Public Policy will strive “to understand the causes of things for the betterment of society,” as outlined by LSE’s founders.
After discussing the school’s purpose, Prof. Velasco addressed the subject of the event: the emerging friction between policymakers and populism. In his explanation for the rise of populism, Velasco disregarded the highly fashionable “economic insecurity hypothesis,” or the belief that widening income gaps between the rich and the poor have incited a populist rebellion against mainstream politicians. Velasco cited rising economic success in countries, like Turkey, Brazil, and the Philippines, as evidence that “populism is not the offspring of economic failure, but of economic success” If economic failure was at the heart of populism, there would be a rise in left-wing populism, he argued.
Velasco also considered the emerging separation between citizens and politicians within democratic systems, especially leaders from traditional political parties. “The message is clear: traditional liberal politicians are the perfect food for anti-establishment politicians.” In response, the creation and continual promotion of a common identity shared among all citizens could be the solution, argued Velasco. “How do we get away from these very narrow identities?” he questioned. “You can have a diverse society, you can have a society in which there are many different values and identities, but at the core there is a core of shared democratic values, like toleration and respect,” he stressed.
Unlike other institutions, Prof. Velasco envisions the LSE School of Public Policy as a training ground for leaders, who respect and promote shared democratic values, while at the same time; avert the trappings of liberal elitism. “I would like to think that an institution like ours could be an enthusiastic advocate for patriotic liberalism.”
At the end of his address, Prof. Velasco was joined on-stage by a panel of world-leading policymakers and academics to discuss the impact and causes of populism further. Professor Jason Furman, a former economic advisor to President Barack Obama and LSE alumnus, described his role in crafting the Affordable Care Act in the United States against the backdrop of a political backlash. Furman acknowledged that the Obama administration’s endorsement of the Affordable Care Act led to large electoral losses for the Democratic Party during the 2010 congressional elections. Despite this, Furman remained determined in his support for the Act.
“It’s really hard to predict the political impact that our economic policies have,” he said. “As an economic policymaker, I find that liberating. I have zero regrets about having done that policy. It was the right policy to be done,” stated Furman.
Next, Professor Sara Holbolt of the LSE Department of Government, described the inherent problems in categorising all anti-establishment political movements as populist. Professor Holbolt cautioned against labelling the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European Union as simply a “populist” movement. “If we focus on Brexit as populist, we forget that the reason why we had [a referendum] is due to decades of in-fighting in the most mainstream of parties [in Britain],” said Holbolt. “If we just say this is some populist thing, then we may miss certain facts,” she warned.
Meanwhile, Yascha Mounk, a lecturer on Government at Harvard University, that Brexit and the presidency of Donald Trump have overshadowed other decisive political developments happening around the world. In particular, he suggested that Hungarian President Victor Orban’s decision to close the Central European University in Budapest has largely avoided international condemnation. Most notably, Mounk found it “absolutely striking” that the Orban government “is still a member of [one of] the normal centre right parties in the European Union”. This legitimisation of populist elements within traditional political parties in Hungary, and elsewhere, is one of the main reasons for the rise of populist movements, explained Mounk.
In Yascha Mounk’s opinion, there needs to be an improved and value-based approach to civic education. For Mounk, “the mission of the [School of Public Policy] should be to further the values of liberal democracy.”
The event closed with a series of questions from members of the audience. One of the most powerful interventions came from a current LSE masters student in the social anthropology department, who also serves as a civil servant in the Brazilian government. From the perspective of a civil servant, she asked, “how [can] you act [as an official] in a government that you don’t agree with?”
The question stirred impassioned responses from several members of the panel, especially Professor Furman, who managed career civil servants during the presidential transition of Donald Trump. “My staff had the question: should they stay on and should they continue?” said Furman. “My view was that they should…the Council of Economic Advisers is meant to be a technocratic organisation...I felt better that a lot of them did stay and provided analysis,” he concluded.
The event was followed by a reception where members of the audience could meet with Prof. Velasco and offer thoughts to panelists. There was an impressive turnout of LSE SPP alumni who attended the event, who could be seen networking with current students.