Our annual PPE Centenary Lecture – Wednesday 13 November 2024
Join Christina L. Davis (Harvard University), the 2024-25 Centenary PPE Professor at Oxford at 5.30pm, Wednesday 13 November at The Queen's College, Shulman Auditorium, High Street OX1 4AW.
Christina will look at how governments manage trade as a tool of diplomacy and commerce.
In person registration required.
The lecture can also be viewed online.
We spoke to Christina a little more about the subject of this year’s lecture and its relevance today.
Christina: It is important for us to connect our theoretical debates about economic interdependence or systemic balancing to the current policy debates. In my lecture, I will highlight some questions about the design of the trade policy bureaucracy and economic sanctions where political science can directly contribute to thinking about the conduct of economic statecraft.
Why is the politics of trade so relevant to us today, and what can we learn about it?
Christina: For many years, we thought that free markets would maximize welfare, while international law could solve disagreements. With regards to the World Trade Organization, economic analysis and legal studies guided both research and policy. But the backlash today against both markets and international institutions encourages more attention to the politics of trade. How can we better connect the domestic process of redistribution to the international process of negotiating for market access and common standards? We need to use insights about the design of institutions and better understand how political preferences respond to economic competition.
How important is PPE at Oxford and this centenary lecture for current and potential students?
Christina: PPE encourages students to pursue interdisciplinary research that will prepare them to take on the complex challenges we face. Whether formulating principles to define national interest or reacting to threats from foreign powers, those in government, business, and society must consider problems from many different perspectives. In their PPE courses and in the lecture, I will present on economic diplomacy, students may encounter a new approach to thinking about the goods they consume and the jobs that support their daily lives.
Read more about Christina’s research in international relations and why the effects of complex trade-offs between nations are felt across industries: Geopolitics and understanding the global economy - The Queen's College, Oxford.
