“Big Lessons from Small Nations: How to Do Comparative Policy Analysis,” with James Breiding, S8Nations

ISPS POLICY-RELATED SKILLS DEVELOPMENT - FALL 2020 VIRTUAL TRAINING

As much of the world recedes towards populism and struggles to intermediate political consensus, it’s a good time to remind ourselves why small countries such as Denmark, Netherlands, Singapore, and Switzerland count among the world’s most successful nations. In his book Too Small to Fail, R. James Breiding explains these and several other successful ‘small’ countries, with populations under twenty million, have made a virtue out of their physical limitations. His research seeks to understand their recipes for achieving better-educated, more egalitarian, and wealthier populations. Breiding discovers common patterns in their success stories and reveals their brilliant policy successes.

Breiding will discuss how he undertook the comparative policy research for his book and his ongoing policy research as part of the new international think tank S8, which has been established to partake as a laboratory to combat global challenges and showcase these nations’ policy successes towards resolving them. S8’s aim is to foster ‘leading and learning by example.’

R. James Breiding, CEO of S8Nations, is a fellow at Harvard’s School for International Development and an alum of the Harvard Kennedy School. He heads the foundation behind his prior book Swiss Made, an international bestseller still gifted by Switzerland’s embassies worldwide. Breiding has also appeared in numerous publications for Swiss Made and Too Small To Fail, including The Economist, The Financial Times, The New York Times, Foreign Affairs, and most recently Wall Street Journal Holland. He is based in Zürich, dividing his time between Switzerland and the US.

Open to the Yale community.

Registration is required. Go to https://isps.yale.edu/isps-fellowships-policy-related-skills-development for more information and links to register.