Held a week after the Inauguration of Joseph R. Biden as the 46th President of the United States, three esteemed political scientists discuss the governing priorities emphasised in the President’s Inaugural Address. The panel weighed the impact of the severe challenges facing the Biden Administration, including a lethal pandemic claiming 4,000 lives a day, an unemployment rate comparable to the Great Recession of 2008, and the displays of sedition and white supremacy vividly on display in the last days of the Trump presidency. This event will mark the first appearance by Professor Robert Lieberman as this year’s John G. Winant Visiting Professor of American Government. We are also pleased to welcome back Professor Lieberman’s predecessor as Winant Visiting Professor, Professor Margaret Weir.
Desmond King (chair) is the Andrew Mellon Professor of Government at the University of Oxford. Professor King King specialises in the study of the American state in US executive politics, race and politics in American political development, and the financial bases of US politics.
Robert Lieberman is the current John G. Winant Visiting Professor of American Government at the University of Oxford. He is the Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Political Science at The Johns Hopkins University. His most recent book is Four Threats: The Recurring Crises of American Democracy, co-authored with Suzanne Mettler.
Margaret Weir is Professor of Political Science at Brown University. In 2019-20, she was the John G. Winant Visiting Professor of American Government at the University of Oxford. Her research centers on social policy, poverty, and urban politics in the United States and Europe.
