How Change Happens

Thursday, November 2, 2017
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
(Pacific)
William J. Perry Conference Room
Encina Hall, Second Floor, Central, C231
616 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA 94305
Speaker: 
  • Duncan Green

Abstract:

Duncan Green, Oxfam Strategic Adviser and LSE Professor of Practice in International Development, introduces the arguments of his new book, How Change Happens (OUP, October 2016). How Change Happens explores how political and social change takes place, and the role of individuals and organizations in influencing that change. He discusses the challenges that 'systems thinking' creates for traditional aid practices, and how a 'power and systems approach' requires activists, whether in campaigns, companies or governments, to fundamentally rethink the way they understand the world and try to influence it.

Praise for How Change Happens:

• A splendid treatise on how to change the actual world - in reality, not just in our dreams’ Amartya Sen

• ‘An indispensable guide for activists and change-makers everywhere’ Francis Fukuyama

 

Speaker Bio:

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duncan green
Dr.Duncan Green is Senior Strategic Adviser at Oxfam GB, Professor in Practice in International Development at the London School of Economics, Honorary Professor of International Development at Cardiff University and a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Development Studies. He is the author of How Change Happens (OUP, October 2016) and From Poverty to Power: How Active Citizens and Effective States can Change the World (Oxfam International, 2008, second edition 2012). His daily development blog can be found on http://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/. He was previously Oxfam’s Head of Research, a Visiting Fellow at Notre Dame University, a Senior Policy Adviser on Trade and Development at the Department for International Development (DFID), a Policy Analyst on trade and globalization at CAFOD, the Catholic aid agency for England and Wales and Head of Research and Engagement at the Just Pensions project on socially responsible investment. He is the author of several books on Latin America including Silent Revolution: The Rise and Crisis of Market Economics in Latin America (2003, 2nd edition), Faces of Latin America (2012, 4th edition) and Hidden Lives: Voices of Children in Latin America and the Caribbean (1998).