The Past And Future Of The World Economy: The Causes And Consequences of Industrial Cycles

Wednesday, January 22, 2014
12:00 PM - 1:15 PM
(Pacific)
Philippines Conference Room
Speaker: 
  • Dan Chirot

Part I: Asia in the World Series

Since the start of the Industrial Revolution the world economy has gone through a set of stages, or cycles, each defined by its leading centers, its major technologies, and its most critical political conflicts. While technologies have progressed immensely some of the same patterns have been repeated. Though most economists do not seem to believe that there have been long term more or less regular cycles, thinking in terms of repetitive and therefore somewhat predictable and explainable changes can help us better model the past and get some sense of possible futures. Until now the dominant economies have all been Western. Will this continue? Why has Asia lagged, and are contemporary developments going to fundamentally change the nature and causes of success in the world economy?

Dan Chirot has authored books about social change, ethnic and nationalist conflicts, Eastern Europe, and tyranny. He co-authored Why Not Kill Them All? (Princeton Univeristy Press), about political mass murder and most recently he wrote a completely new, very revised edition of his book How Societies Change (Sage Publications).  He has edited or co-edited books on Leninism’s decline, entrepreneurial ethnic minorities, ethnopolitical warfare, the economic history of Eastern Europe, and memories of World War II.  He founded the journal East European Politics and Societies and has received help from, among others, the John Simon Guggenheim, Rockefeller, and Mellon Foundations and from the US State Department. He has consulted for the US Government, the Ford Foundation, CARE, and other NGOs. In 2004/05 he was a Senior Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace working on African conflicts. He earned his BA from Harvard and his PhD from Columbia.