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Complexity and Liberalism in Development Studies

Symposium on Complexity and Liberalism in Development Studies


Date: Wednesday 3 - Friday 5 December 2025

Venue: London School of Economics

The London School of Economics (LSE) Hayek Programme is pleased to invite submissions for a symposium titled "Complexity and Liberalism in Development Studies," hosted by STICERD, LSE on December 3-5, 2025.

This symposium seeks to advance scholarship on development as a complex, multi-stakeholder process whose direction and outcomes cannot be fully predicted in advance. Developmental processes are subject to radical Knightian uncertainty and complexity just like in other domains of human action. That is, various actors engage in activities whose interactions can produce unintended implications on a nation's prospects for development, whether positive or negative. There is a "large accidental component in long term change, and the record suggests that serendipity, opportunism and the King Saul effect (which occurs when the search for the solution of a specific problem inadvertently leads to a totally new opportunity set) play an important role" (Mokyr, 1990, ch. 11).

Accordingly, development success - or even failure - may be understood as a spontaneous "emergent phenomenon", using the terminology of liberal economist F. A. Hayek and Scottish enlightenment liberals (see Horwitz, 2001: Hamowy, 2005; Infantino, 2023). Consequently, what are the theoretical, methodological, political, economic and public policy implications on development studies arising from taking these epistemic problems seriously?

Please read the full Call for Papers here.

Timeline:

  • Expression of interest due by February 28, 2025
  • Extended abstract submission deadline: May 15, 2025.
  • Confirmation of acceptance by June 30, 2025
  • Submit full draft of paper by 1 Nov, 2025

Conference organiser: Bryan Cheang. Please email b.cheang@lse.ac.uk to express your interest to participate.

This conference is supported by the LSE Hayek Programme and the Institute for Humane Studies.

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