Populism, Post-Liberalism and Climate Change

This talk will apply the insights of F.A. Hayek to inform bottom-up policy solutions to two of the greatest challenges facing high-income, liberal-meritocratic-capitalist (LMC) regimes in the post-globalization era: 1) the apparent decline of the manufacturing sector due to technology-induced creative destruction and the unbundling of production processes that accelerated during the Second Age of Globalization (1980-2015); and 2) the need for a rapid green energy transition due to the looming threat of global climate change.

Nativist and populist responses, spurred on by “post-liberal” theorists, have tended to emphasize erratic and illiberal solutions (e.g., tariffs, subsidies, taxes, and regulations) toward both challenges although some regimes have either ignored or redoubled exploitation of the environment to tackle the manufacturing issue. At stake is not only the relevance of the liberal political and economic model for addressing the most important problems of the 21st century, but also the competitiveness of LMC regimes with authoritarian political capitalist regimes, such as China, which offer solutions to both challenges.

Location: Bush House Lecture Theatre 3 (NE0.01)

About the speaker

Vikash Yadav is a professor of International Relations and Asian Studies at Hobart & William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York. He is the author of three books, most recently, Liberalism’s Last Man: Hayek in the Age of Political Capitalism (University of Chicago Press, 2023). He holds a doctorate in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania, a Master’s degree in Social Science from the University of Chicago, and a Bachelor’s degree in History from DePauw University.

Event page on the CSGS website: https://csgs.kcl.ac.uk/event/populism-post-liberalism-and-climate-change/