Sometimes, to prepare for the future, you need to look to the past. Dr. Nicolo Ludovice is that person at the Division of Public Policy in HKUST. He’s a historian who is part of a forward-looking university, and while this may seem contradictory at first, his work and his role are very important. “All issues, policies, movements, trajectories are profoundly shaped by what happened in the past which makes learning and studying history inevitable and should be part of the toolkit of any serious policymaker,” he says.
Even more so, for those in Asia. Taking the example of Hong Kong, and how its institutions, architecture, modes of governance, and thinking are largely shaped by its colonial past, Dr. Ludovice argues, “We have to be reminded that by adopting British frameworks (or any Western framework for that matter), we’re also adopting the interests, assumptions, values, and biases embedded in these frameworks. It begins by thinking about the past: what shaped these frameworks, who imposed them, what mechanisms, etc., and their effect on the governed.”
