News

Waseda University released the fourth episode, “Market Makers: The Politics of Market Design”, of season two of its English language podcast series “Rigorous Research, Real Impact” on November 4, 2025. All podcast episodes are available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, and YouTube.

Episode 4: “Market Makers: The Politics of Market Design”

Episode 4 features an engaging conversation with Associate Professor Jack Seddon from the Faculty of Political Science and Economics. Hosted by Fabian, a PhD student at Waseda’s Graduate School of Economics, this episode uncovers “the hidden architecture of the global economy.” Prof. Seddon shares insights from his research on the London Metal Exchange, revealing how global markets are shaped not only by economic forces but also by deep political struggles and institutional design. The discussion also delves into Prof. Seddon’s personal journey from capital markets lawyer to academic researcher, his experience working in Japan, and what makes the Faculty of Political Science and Economics’ English-based degree programs a unique place to study international political economy.

This episode is based on the following research: 
Jack Seddon (2020) Merchants against the bankers: the financialization of a commodity market, Review of International Political Economy, 27:3, 525-555.

About Season 2

Season two features eight knowledgeable Waseda researchers casually conversing with Waseda PhD students about their recent, rigorously conducted research in the humanities/social sciences, their thoughts on working in Japan at Waseda, and the merits of the English-based degree programs they are a part of. Short 15-minutes episodes will cover a range of themes that include translanguaging in the Japanese sociolinguistic context, legendary game designer Hideo Kojima, and hybrid peacebuilding. It’s the perfect choice for international listeners considering attending university in Japan, current students contemplating further study in graduate school, and researchers looking to make the move to Japan and work for a university that stresses the importance of interdisciplinary approaches.

Recording in the Waseda International House of Literature (Haruki Murakami Library)

About the Guest

Associate Professor Jack Seddon joined Waseda in 2019, where he works at the intersection between international political economy and economic history, employing theories of institutionalism and mixed research methods. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Oxford and has held visiting positions at the University of Pennsylvania, the Graduate Institute in Geneva, the European University Institute, and Georgetown University. Prof. Seddon is part of the Sterling Area Revisited Project, funded by the United Kingdom Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). He was also awarded a Lloyd’s of London UK-US Fulbright Scholarship in 2019-2020 to examine issues in global risk markets. Before beginning his graduate studies, he worked as a capital markets lawyer in London and Brussels.

In addition to his own research, he hopes to inspire students to think about – and engage with – the many global challenges that we now face. He seeks graduate students interested in the field of political science with a focus on global economic governance, international political economy, or transnational governance in other issue areas.

Transcript:

Introduction

MC Fabian Johannes (0:06):
Hello, and welcome to Waseda University’s English podcast series titled “Rigorous Research, Real Impact.” In this series, we dive into interesting conversations and stories from Waseda’s vibrant academic and cultural community. I’m your host, Fabian Johannes, a PhD student at the Graduate School of Economics here at Waseda. Today, we’re exploring the hidden architecture of the global economy. We’ll be discussing the international political economy, focusing on how the structure of global markets, the flow of money, and the exercise of political power are deeply intertwined. It’s a field that uncovers the political struggles that shape our financial world, from commodity trading to global economic governance.

MC Fabian (0:55):
Professor Jack Seddon from the Faculty of Political Science and Economics will be joining us as the guest expert for this episode. His research stands at the intersection of international political economy and economic history, examining the evolution of global financial markets and economic governance. His work reveals how these complex systems are not just driven by invisible hands, but by very real political conflicts and institutional designs. Thank you for coming in, Professor Seddon.

Professor Jack Seddon (1:24):
Thank you, Fabian. It’s great to be here. I’m really looking forward to the conversation.

The London Metal Exchange: A Political Project

MC Fabian (1:30):
Professor, your research on the London Metal Exchange in your paper “Merchants Against the Bankers” is a great example of how structural change in markets is a political project. Could you maybe start by summarizing the most important takeaways of this research for our audience, perhaps starting with a brief overview about the London Metals Exchange?

Professor Seddon (1:50):
No problem at all. So, the London Metals Exchange is actually a really fascinating and quite unique institution. Its history goes all the way back into the 19th century, into the Victorian era. So, it was established in 1877, and it was established by metals merchants for metals merchants, which were basically traders in London that were tired of producer pricing and smelter prices and wanted to establish a kind of more transparent way of producing metals prices, specifically at that time for tin and copper contracts. And it really is a kind of quintessential London Victorian institution. So, it was set up on a coffee shop floor in a very famous coffee house known as the Jerusalem Coffee House, where lots of traders gathered. And they actually used to draw a circle on the floor of that coffee shop and organize their trading around that circle. And that circular structure persists into the present day. It’s known as the ring dealing system of the London Metals Exchange. So that marketplace is specifically for what’s known as non-ferrous metals, which you can basically think about as industrial metals or non-precious metals, so not like gold and silver, but things like aluminum, copper, things that are really produced or utilized in industrial processes. So, this became the kind of global center for the trade of these metals, and it also established the reference prices for these metals, which were used throughout the global trading system. So that’s a little bit of background about the LME, and my particular interest was to try to understand how that very historical market had evolved over the last 100 years to become what is a really quintessential city institution and also a very unique marketplace for the trading of a commodity.

MC Fabian (3:49):
So, you mentioned that the traders that were there to actually, you know, have a more of a, I would say, liberal stance to the market. How would you say the role of a trader evolved from the 1870s to today? Because when people nowadays think of a trader, they think of a person in front of computer screens rather than drawing a circle in a room and talking to other traders, right?

Professor Seddon (4:13):
So, no question this changed a great deal. And this has changed a great deal. I mean, the earliest traders that were there on the LME, you can really think of them as kind of pioneering or buccaneering type capitalists, taking big risks and helping to intermediate this market to bring these commodities across the world. And obviously, the organization of the LME represented the kind of formal organization of this exchange and became something of a model for the trading of other commodities in the US and other parts of the world. All commodity markets were becoming more organized during this period of globalization. And then when we think about the context of the way in which trading was done in that period versus today, one striking difference is obviously the way in which technology has influenced trading and the way in which the market has become both an electronic marketplace and an open outcry voice-traded marketplace, which is something that makes the LME quite unique. It’s actually the only marketplace that remains an open outcry marketplace in London, and I believe also in Europe, and that might be true globally. So, it’s clung onto that trading practice and that trading process.

So, I think something that’s interesting about looking at the LME is that you can see the way in which the legacy of that history also persists into the present in the way that the organization of the traders is structured, the way in which the market’s structured. So, what it’s done is kind of layer on new technologies and new ways of trading and also new participant types. So, something that I try to do in this article is talk about the way in which that trading has evolved from primarily being about metals merchants who are working in the service of the metals industry to becoming a more financialized marketplace. That is a marketplace where you also have banks, you also have hedge funds, and the way in which those new participants have arrived and then tried to work to change the structure of trading within the marketplace, which is why I say this is also a political story. And the reason that it’s a political story is that those different types of traders, although they are complementary, they serve different audiences and different purposes. They also struggle with each other and battle with each other to shape that market.

 From Lawyer to Academic: A Personal Journey

MC Fabian (6:41):
I see, that’s a very clear framework for understanding the hidden politics of market design, which makes me wonder about your own journey. Before pursuing your PhD at Oxford, you worked as a capital markets lawyer in London and Brussels, and that’s quite a different world from academia, I would say. So how did your experience in the legal and financial sectors shape your research interests and ultimately lead you to become a researcher in political economy?

Professor Seddon (7:02):
So that’s quite an interesting question. So, I started out, as you say, as a capital markets lawyer, and there were really two experiences that framed my decision to return to do a PhD. The first was that I always loved economics and political science. I always had a passion for this, and I think becoming a lawyer was kind of something that the opportunity arose when I graduated, and I had the chance to train and be supported by a firm in doing that. But I always had this kind of residual desire to want to become an academic. So, I think that’s my personality. And then on the other side, during my time as a lawyer, I had two very particular experiences. One is I worked at Moody’s Investor Services as a trainee within their corporate department, and it was during the financial crisis. And so, credit rating agencies had become kind of lightning rods for political contestation, rightly or wrongly, and also for regulatory reforms. And because they were undergoing this big structural change within that particular sector, I became very interested in that process of regulation. And then I got seconded to Brussels where the European Union was actually creating new regulations to address credit rating agencies. And in that context, I started to work within the context of the American financial services lobby, looking at the process of that regulation and the politics of producing that regulation. And that experience really inspired me to want to go back to academia and study the politics of financial regulation. And then through my graduate studies, my work remained kind of interested in capital markets, capital market organization, regulation, but became more historical as I became more interested in kind of historical structures and historical patterns of economic organization.

 The Significance of Studying in Japan

MC Fabian (9:03):
So, Proessor Seddon, after your professional experiences and your desire to go back into academia, what makes you ultimately come to Japan opposed to the UK and the US where your research was mainly focused on?

Professor Seddon (9:10):
So, serendipity in a certain sense because I was in the bank, so I’m an academic and I do historical work, so we’re quite strange, we live strange lives. And I was in the archives of the Bank of England, and the person opposite me, who’s actually a professor here in the history faculty, was also there. And interestingly enough, he’d also worked on the same period and the same economic structure that I was looking at. So, we just went for a coffee and started talking, and then he invited me to come and give a presentation here in Waseda. And that brought me to Waseda. I had a wonderful experience, really enjoyed giving the talk, was kind of my eyes were opened to the opportunities here. And then a couple of months after that, I saw a job posting and I thought, why not, I’ll apply and see how it goes. So that’s how it worked out. It wasn’t that I had a long-standing kind of, or a deep knowledge of the country before I came, to be very honest. And it’s been very steep but very enjoyable learning curve ever since.

MC Fabian (10:14):
I see. Very fascinating. Which has me wondering, what makes Japan a significant and rich environment for studying and teaching international political economy? Does being here as opposed to the US or Europe offer a different perspective on the global financial dynamics you analyze?

Professor Seddon (10:29):
Definitely, it offers a different perspective. The first thing I feel I should say is that I’m not that great at Japanese, and I’m not an expert in Japanese political economy. So, there are people here much better qualified to speak about this and Japan’s position within the world economic system and then also it’s the specific characteristics of Japanese capitalism and Japanese financial markets. But what I would say is that being here, I know enough to know that it’s very unique and very distinctive. And so, it’s something that I really want and that really motivates me is to come to better understand those comparisons and to make those and draw those parallels more effectively in the future. So, although my work has so far been largely focused on US capital markets and European and especially UK capital markets, certainly in the future I’d love to do more work on Japan, and I’m fascinated by those differences. My work most recently on commodity markets has brought me into closer contact with the Japanese trading houses and also specifically with the LNG, liquefied natural gas market, which really is a market that Japan built from the bottom up almost. And that makes it a really fascinating case study. So maybe in the future my work will come to have that intersection more. But I couldn’t say more or recommend more coming to Japan for students that have an interest in learning more about East Asian capitalism and also about the distinctive characteristics that it has.

Studying at Waseda’s School of Political Science and Economics

MC Fabian (12:01):
So, thank you very much for you explanations, Professor Seddon. Now, I’d like to shift our focus to any potential future Waseda students listening from around the world. Hearing about your research and your unique background, I’m sure many would be excited about the chance to study these topics at Waseda with you. So, for students interested in international political economy and global governance, what makes Waseda’s School of Political Science and Economics a unique and appealing place to learn?

Professor Seddon (12:26):
There are so many factors, but if I was to kind of boil it down to three main things, the first thing I’d say is that our faculty and our facilities are kind of world-class. And so those students will have the opportunity to study a whole range of different topics and get really high-quality training, which will prepare them well for their future lives, for their graduate studies, and prepare them for success. The other thing is that being here will give them a unique opportunity to learn about and to become part of Japan and part of the academic culture and community here, which again maybe different from the countries that they’re coming from, but will broaden their horizons. And I always say to students, if you can and you do have the opportunity, you’re lucky enough to be able to go and study abroad, definitely take up that opportunity. And I think the third thing that really stands out for me about the environment here is that especially for political science and economics, it’s really the heart, I might be a bit biased here, but the heart of Waseda. I think it really underpins this university in the same way that, for example, those subjects underpin the LSE in London. And so, there’s a kind of distinctive character to the university that’s born of having the social sciences and the arts and humanities at its core. And that kind of complementarity and that focus really gives the department great dynamics, and it’s a wonderful place to work and to study.

MC Fabian (14:06):
So, in sum, if I may, you would say the in-the-classroom experience is really great because of a diverse faculty and good institutions and facilities, but also of course, the outside-of-the-classroom experience being in a vibrant city like Tokyo and Japan, which makes you learn a lot outside of the classroom as well.

The Classroom Experience

MC Fabian (14:26):
Which has me wondering, maybe a bit more in detail, your classes, your seminars, what could students expect in these formats?

Professor Seddon (14:34):
Okay, you should ask my students, but from my perspective, hopefully I’m able to introduce them to a range of different subjects. So, I teach introductory classes, introductions to comparative political economy and international political economy. And then I also have a zemi class, which is a much smaller group for undergraduates that are a bit more advanced in their studies. And then I also teach master’s students, and I teach those more advanced classes in specific topics that are driven by my own research. So specifically, the history of money and also the history of commodity markets. So, any students that are interested, always feel free to write to me, and if you want more details, I’ll be happy to give them.

MC Fabian (15:14):
I see. That’s a great opportunity.

A Final Message

MC Fabian (15:17):
Professor Seddon, it’s been a pleasure to learn more about your research, your professional journey, and Waseda’s School of Political Science and Economics. Before we finish, do you have a final message for students around the world who might be thinking about studying at Waseda or even researchers who might be considering taking up a position in Japan?

Professor Seddon (15:37):
Only just go for it and embrace it, and it’s a great thing to hopefully be able to do, yeah.

MC Fabian (15:43):
Thank you so much for your time and for sharing your expertise with us, Professor.

Professor Seddon (15:47):
Thank you very much for your time. Thank you.

MC Fabian (15:55):
And thanks to all our listeners for tuning in. For more conversations from the corridors of Waseda University, don’t forget to subscribe and tune in to the next episode on “Rigorous Research, Real Impact.” Until then, take care and stay curious.