Dr Lloyd Gruber

This course is available on the Double Master of Public Administration (LSE-Columbia), Double Master of Public Administration (LSE-Sciences Po), Double Master of Public Administration (LSE-University of Toronto), Master of Public Administration, Master of Public Policy, MPA Dual Degree (LSE and Hertie), MPA Dual Degree (LSE and NUS), MPA Dual Degree (LSE and Tokyo) and MPA in Data Science for Public Policy. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit. 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.

Priority is given to students from the School of Public Policy, students from other programmes will be considered if places remain. 

Deadline for application: 9am on Monday of AT Week 1 (including requests from School of Public Policy students). We aim to inform students of the outcome of their request by 12noon on Tuesday of AT Week 1.

For queries contact: mpa@lse.ac.uk

Artificial intelligence is all the rage these days, but we mustn’t forget about the other kind of intelligence, the kind that gets instilled in young children – and, later on, in teenagers and young adults – by real, non-artificial teachers and professors working in real, non-artificial schools and universities. This course considers why that second, older process of training young minds hasn’t been living up to its potential. This underperformance, the persistently low quality we observe in education systems all across the globe, is not simply an economic problem. What usually gets in the way, more than any lack of resources, is a lack of political will: the political actors who could fix their countries’ broken systems have few incentives to take action. On the contrary, their political incentives steer them away – far away – from the sorts of evidence-based, PISA-test-score-boosting interventions that a growing body of research (much of it carried out by economists) suggests would work.

This comparative political economy course will bring together insights from political scientists, economists, and education experts to explain why the quality-lifting reforms that would work well for children and young adults do not always work well for politicians. Not for presidents or other central government officials, nor for state or provincial officials, nor, perhaps least of all, for mayors and other local officials. Not for political candidates who win office in competitive democratic elections, nor for leaders who come to power – who take power – in autocracies. All of these powerful actors could turn things around if they wanted to. So why don’t they want to?

The good news is that well-meaning education reformers do sometimes gain the upper hand. The course will explore those cases as well. What made them possible? And what came next, once these new movers and shakers had assumed positions of power? Did they have enough state capacity to realise their ambitions? Did their exciting new educational initiatives, the ones that gained traction, stand the test of time? The reality is that most quality-initiatives never get off the ground, and few of those that do (the exceptional cases) survive. What steps can forward-thinking education reformers take to insulate their new, less dysfunctional ways of running schools and universities from politically powerful blockers who prefer the old ways?

22 hours of lectures and 16.5 hours of seminars in the Winter Term.

Presentation (x2)

Critical Evaluation

Every student will deliver one practice group presentation during the first several weeks of the course as well as an individual presentation later on. Students will receive feedback on the substance of these presentations as well as their delivery (presentations will be videoed where possible).  Students will also be asked to submit an individually-authored critique of readings relevant for their Education Policy Application papers.

Katharina Sass, The Politics of Comprehensive School Reforms: Cleavages and Coalitions (Cambridge, 2022).

Lloyd Gruber and Stephen Kosack, ‘The Tertiary Tilt: Education and Inequality in the Developing World’, World Development, vol. 54 (2014), pp. 253–72.

Ruixue Jia and Hongbin Li, The Highest Exam: How the Gaokao Shapes China (Belknap Press, 2025).

Terry M. Moe and Susanne Wiborg, eds. The Comparative Politics of Education: Teachers Unions and Education Systems Around the World (Cambridge, 2017).

Elaine Unterhalter and Amy North, ‘Assessing Gender Mainstreaming in the Education Sector: Depoliticised Technique or a Step Towards Women’s Rights and Gender Equality?’ Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, vol. 40, no. 4 (2010), pp. 389-404.

Philippe Aghion, Xavier Jaravel, Torsten Persson, and Dorothée Rouzet, ‘Education and Military Rivalry’, Journal of the European Economic Association, vol. 17, no. 2 (2019), pp. 376–412.

Ben Ross Schneider, Routes to Reform: Education Politics in Latin America (Oxford, 2024).

Reid Hoffman and Greg Beato, Superagency: What Could Possibly Go Right with Our AI Future (Authors Equity, 2025).

A detailed reading list will be provided at the start of the course.

Presentation (25%).

This component of assessment includes an element of group work.

Critical evaluation (25%).

Report (50%).