Research

Forthcoming:

Drechsler, W., & Fuchs, L. (2023). ‘Mind the Consequences: Quantification in Economic and Public Policy’ in Saltelli, A., & di Fiore, M. (eds.), The politics of modelling: Numbers between science and policy. Oxford University Press. Announcement Link.

Articles

Fuchs, L., Cuevas-Garcia, C., Bombaerts, G. & Mottl, P. (2022). ‘University alliances as learning networks: Towards responsible European engineering universities?’ Frontier of Education 2022 conference proceedings. Link.

Fuchs, L., & Bombaerts, G. (2022). Responsibility in University Ecosystems and Challenge Based Learning. In: 2022 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON). Link.

Drechsler, W., & Fuchs, L. (2022). Max Weber and the Neo-Weberian State: A workshop and a Max Weber Studies Theme Issue. Perspectives on Public Management and Governance, 5(2), 197-198. Link.

PhD Thesis: Political Philosophy, Innovation Policy and Market Shaping

Should politics be concerned with innovation? Should the state play an active entrepreneurial role to change markets? The aim of this thesis is to establish the political philosophical grounds on which the state may legitimately pursue policies aimed at promoting innovation, shaping markets and driving growth. It constitutes an attempt to base ideas about the role of the state in the economy — deriving from certain strands of economic thinking — on a normative foundation in contemporary liberalism. Forging a synthesis between liberalism and innovation policy faces the problem that liberalism has often been understood as imposing boundaries on which government action is legitimate. How can ambitious economic policy be reconciled with the interests, rights or freedoms of individual citizens?

I argue that liberal theory is not merely compatible with the pursuit of ambitious innovation policy; it poses demands on institutional design that translate into an imperative for state innovation. Innovation policy that results in the creation of markets may enable individuals to fulfil their responsibilities to society. Such market shaping does not constitute a heavy-handed version of economic policy. It is possible to carry out such policy without interfering with the personal sphere of individual citizens and without disturbing the epistemic role of markets in society.

The nature of innovation, growth and markets in a society is not merely given, but is subject to our collective agency. Liberal political philosophy can benefit from adopting such an institutional understanding of economic life. This methodological insight will allow us to tackle new questions in political philosophy. We can move on from asking which excesses in economic life are immoral and should be curtailed; instead, we can ask what kinds of markets would be beneficial and should therefore be created by policy and by individuals able to contribute to the reshaping of the economy .

For a copy of my PhD Thesis, please contact me.

Blog Posts

What should universities do about now? (2022), What to do about now.

The Bureaucracy is broken? Towards the Neo-Weberian State (2022), UCL IIPP, Medium

Innovation Portfolios: Examples from Practitioners (2021), Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (OECD) Blog.

Covid-19: Political Turmoil and the Opportunity for Change (2020), What to do about now.

Innovation is political, economics is social: Celebrating one year of the IIPP Theory Reading Group (2020), UCL IIPP, Medium.

When value doesn’t have a price (2018), UCL IIPP, Medium.

MPhil Thesis

‘An Internalist View of Specific Thought’, unpublished MPhil Thesis, University of Cambridge