On January 21, 2019, SIAS jointly held a roundtable conference on “Populism and the US Presidential Election”, together with the Shanghai Development Research Foundation (SDRF). Professor Thomas Ferguson, Director of Research Projects at the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET), visited the SIAS and lectured on “the Political Economy of Trump’s Populism”. In his lecture, Professor Ferguson examined various forms of populism and two critical factors in understanding Trump’s election and his policies, i.e. the role money played in American presidential elections and how globalization and related forces have remodeled both the elite members of society and the general electorate.

Academics and experts from the SDRF, the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences (SASS), the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (SIIS), Fudan University, Shanghai University of International Business and Economics, the PwC and Industrial Securities Co., Ltd joined SIAS research staff at the meeting. Those whom participated shared their views with Professor Ferguson on the development of populism and its impacts on US domestic and foreign policy, among other hotspot issues.