My work explores the intersections of the intellectual, institutional, and economic histories of development in the 20th century, with particular attention to Latin America.
I am currently working on my first monograph, Development with Stability: Economic Technocracy in Colombia. This book studies the construction of state capacities to act on the economy through the lens of Colombia, which in the mid-twentieth century became an experimental ground and, ultimately, a showcase in technocratic economic governance for aid agencies, development experts and philanthropic foundations. Based on extensive archival research and oral interviews, my book traces how the actors involved in development assistance programmes imagined, negotiated and put in place a whole new institutional infrastructure for state economic interventions that situated professional economists in a position of authority to decide on economic affairs.
Before joining the LSE, I completed my PhD in the University of Oxford. My doctoral dissertation, on which Development with Stability is based,was awarded the Joseph Dorfman 2024 Prize for the Best Dissertation in the History of Economics by the History of Economics Society.
I am also interested about the professionalisation of economics in the Global South (including its gender dimensions), the relation between development and democracy, and the history of development thought, which I have mainly approached through the work of Albert O. Hirschman. In 2017, I translated into Spanish Jeremy Adelman’s biography of Hirschman, Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman (Princeton University Press, 2013).
Current teaching
In the department, I teach the BSc and MSc modules on the history of economics and supervise undergraduate and master students’ dissertations. I have been nominated for the LSE Class Teacher Award (2022/23, Highly Commended) and for the LSE Student Union Award for Outstanding Teaching (2022/23 and 2023/24).
EC311 History of Economics: How Theories Change
EH429 History of Economics: Ideas, Policy and Performativity (with Prof. Mary Morgan)
Curriculum Vitae
Read Andrés Guiot Isaac's CV here: Andrés Guiot Isaac CV