This course is available on the MA in Asian and International History (LSE and NUS), MA in Modern History, MSc in Empires, Colonialism and Globalisation, MSc in History of International Relations, MSc in International Affairs (LSE and Peking University), MSc in International and Asian History, MSc in International and World History (LSE & Columbia) and MSc in Theory and History of International Relations. This course is freely available as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit. It does not require permission. This course uses controlled access as part of the course selection process. For information on controlled access courses, including eligibility, application processes, deadlines, and departmental contact details, please refer to the Controlled Access Courses webpage.

How to apply: Students should write a short statement supporting their application to take a course. The Teacher Responsible will assign places on the course and their decision is final. Places will be assigned by midday on the Monday of week 1.

For queries contact: The teacher responsible for the course, as indicated on the course guide. Staff e-mail addresses are listed at https://www.lse.ac.uk/International-History/People.

The course examines reform processes in the history of the 19th to 21st centuries. We examine the conditions under which reform processes can succeed in achieving their goals and what factors contribute to their failure. To investigate this, we use a modern management approach, known as change management, as a framework against which we analyse reform processes of the past. How were roles distributed in the reform process? What change story was developed? What steps of implementation can be identified? How was resistance dealt with?

We examine these issues using the examples of various reform processes worldwide, e.g., the Tanzimat reforms in the Ottoman Empire since 1839, the Prussian Reforms since 1806, the US New Deal in the 1930s, the Transición to democracy in Spain from 1975 on. Drawing on secondary texts, primary text sources and visual sources, we try to understand the process of reform as a key ability of modern societies.

20 hours of seminars in the Autumn Term.
20 hours of seminars in the Spring Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn and Winter Term.

One formative essay in the Autumn Term.

• Tribe, Keith: Reform. Elements for a Conceptual History, in: Luna-Fabritius, Adriana/ Nokkala, Ere/ Seppel, Marten/ Tribe, Keith (eds.): Political Reason and the Language of Change. Reform and Improvement in Early Modern Europe. London: Taylor & Francis 2023, pp. 23–43. 
• Richter, Michaela; Richter, Melvin: Introduction: Translation of Reinhart Koselleck's "Krise," in Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe, in: Journal of the History of Ideas 67 (2006) 2, pp. 343–356. 
• Firges, Pascal et al.: Introduction. Languages of Reform and the European Enlightenment, in: Richter, Susan/ Maissen, Thomas/ Albertone, Manuela (eds.): Languages of Reform in the Eighteenth Century. New York, London: Routledge Taylor & Francis 2021, pp. 1–26. 
• Hayes, John: The Theory and Practice of Change Management, New York: Palgrave Macmillian, 4th edition 2014, pp. 1-42. 
• Cooke, Bill: Writing the Left out of Management Theory: The Historiography of the Management of Change. In: Organization 6 (1999) 1, pp. 81–105. 
• Moore, Karl/Klein, Alexandra: John Paul Kotter, in: Witzel, Morgen / Warner, Malcolm (eds.): The Oxford Handbook of Management Theorists. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2013, p. 448–461. 
• Baer, Marc David: The Ottomans. Khans, Caesars and Caliphs, London: Basic Books 2021, pp.328-362.
• Firges, Pascal: Writing on "The New Order". Ottoman Approaches to Late Eighteenth-Century Reforms, in: Richter, Susan/ Maissen, Thomas/ Albertone, Manuela (eds.): Languages of Reform in the Eighteenth Century. When Europe Lost its Fear of Change. New York, London: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group 2021, pp. 344–360. 
• Anscombe, Frederick F.: State, Faith, and Nation in Ottoman and Post-Ottoman Land. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2014, pp. 61-89. 
• Tribe, Keith: Revision, Reorganization, and Reform. Prussia, 1790–1820, in: Kapossy, Béla/Nakhimovsky, Isaac/ Whatmore, Richard / Reinert, Sophus A. (eds.): Markets, Morals, Politics. Jealousy of Trade and the History of Political Thought. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 2018, pp. 136–160. 
• N.N.: New Deal. In: Encyclopædia Britannica, 15.09.2022, https://www.britannica.com/event/New-Deal
• Radcliff, Pamela Beth: Modern Spain, 1808 to the Present. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell 2017, pp. 250-265.

Presentation (20%).

Essay (40%, 3000 words).

Essay (40%, 3000 words).