Ken Shadlen is Professor of Development Studies in the Department of International Development of the London School of Economics and Political Science. Ken works on the comparative and international political economy of development, with a focus on understanding variation in national policy responses to changing global rules.

In recent years Ken’s research has focused largely on the global and cross-national politics of intellectual property (IP). He is interested in the implications that the new global IP regime presents for late development, and the various ways that international norms for IP affect national practices.

His book, Coalitions and Compliance: The Political Economy of Pharmaceutical Patents in Latin America, analyzes differences in how countries introduced pharmaceutical patents in the 1990s and then subsequently revised their new pharmaceutical patent systems in the 2000s. In an ESRC-funded project “TRIPS Implementation and Secondary Pharmaceutical Patenting” he examines how developing countries’ new pharmaceutical patent systems function in practice.

Ken also works on the political economy of health and pharmaceutical policies, the dynamics of “North-South” trade agreements, and changing patterns of government-business relations and democratization. 

From 2011-2020, he was one of the Managing Editors of the Journal of Development Studies.