Tom Wraight successfully defended his PhD thesis 'Confronting the Developmental State: American Trade Policy in the Neoliberal Era'

EGB’s Tom Wraight successfully defended his PhD thesis on Friday October 29th. The PhD, which considered US responses to developmental states such as Japan and China, drew upon concepts such as ideational reassociation so as to understand how and why neoliberalism could incorporate such profound hostility to developmentalism. Tom compared the sentiments around developmentalism to the intense anti-communism of the Cold War years.

Tom gave a thirty minute lecture and acquitted himself in a spirited way when faced by questions from Vibeke Schou Tjalve, a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS) and Desmond King from Nuffield College at the University of Oxford (UK). The assessment committee was chaired by Joachim Lund from CBS’s Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy.

Tom’s primary supervisor was Eddie Ashbee of EGB and the secondary supervisor was Martin Bæk Carstensen. Eddie Ashbee said. “This is a fine achievement by Tom. Each of the papers constituting the thesis will be published shortly and they set the terms for debate and commentary around the topics and concepts they address”.

Pictured (from left to right): Martin Carstensen, Tom Wraight and Eddie Ashbee