Saving the planet in an age of geopolitical rivalry

Catherine Boone is Harold Laski Professor of Political Science at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She holds a PhD in Political Science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research focuses on questions of comparative political economy, and especially on questions of institutional change and economic development. Her books include Inequality and Political Cleavage in Africa: Regionalism by Design (2024), Property and Political Order: Land Rights and the Structure of Conflict in Africa (2014); Political Topographies of the African State: Territorial Authority and Institutional Choice (2003). She was elected to the British Academy and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2020. At the LSE, she convened the MSc in African Development and has led the LSE-UCL Land Politics Working Group since 2015.

Robert Falkner is Professor of International Relations in the Department of International Relations at LSE, and the Academic Dean of the TRIUM Global Executive MBA, a world leading executive MBA programme jointly run by NYU Stern School of Business, HEC Paris and LSE.

Stephanie J Rickard is Professor of Political Science in the Department of Government at LSE. For over fifteen years, she has researched issues related to the international political economy, including trade agreements and international financial rescues. In her award-winning book, Spending to Win, Rickard investigates how economic geography influences countries' economic policies and international economic relations.

Tang Xiaoyang is the chair and a professor in the Department of International Relations at Tsinghua University. His research interests include political philosophy, China’s engagement in the developing countries and global modernization process. He is the author of Coevolutionary Pragmatism: Approaches and Impacts of China-Africa Economic Cooperation (Cambridge University Press 2020) and has published extensively on the Belt and Road Initiative. Previously, he worked at the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, DC and as a consultant for the World Bank, UNDP, USAID. He was also deputy director for Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy until 2021. He completed his Ph.D. in the philosophy department at the New School for Social Research in New York. He earned his M.A in philosophy from Freiburg University in Germany and his B.A in business management from Fudan University in Shanghai.

Zhao Kejin, Professor and Deputy Director of Global Development Institute at Tsinghua University. He received his Ph.D in International Relations at Fudan University and worked at the Center for American Studies at Fudan University until 2009 when he moved to Tsinghua University as Professor at Institute of International Studies. He has published more than 120 papers in academic journals and published books on such topics as the American studies, public diplomacy and China’s foreign policy. His current research focuses on global governance, public diplomacy and China’s foreign affairs.

Peter Trubowitz is Professor of International Relations, and Director of the Phelan US Centre at LSE and Associate Fellow at Chatham House, Royal Institute of International Affairs.