Obituary: Steve Ludlam

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.13169/intejcubastud.9.2.0178
• Published date: 01 December 2017
• Date: 01 December 2017
• Pages: 178-179
• Author: Stephen Wilkinson

InternatIonal Journal of Cuban StudIeS 9.2 WInter 2017

Obituary

OBITUARY

Steve Ludlam

It is with great sadness that we report in this issue on the untimely death of one

of our Editorial Board members, Steve Ludlam, who suddenly passed away in

September after a short illness. Steve was a key participant in the establishment

and operation of the International Journal of Cuban Studies (IJCS), an enthusi-

astic colleague, inspirational teacher and an excellent academic, whose research

will have a lasting impact on future students of Cuba.

Steve will be greatly missed. He was Senior Lecturer in Politics at the

University of Sheffield where he read for his first degree as a mature student.

Afterwards, he went on to complete his PhD also at Sheffield, on British trade

unions and the public spending cuts of the 1970s, before developing an abiding

interest in Cuba’s trade union movement, upon which he contributed signifi-

cantly to our understanding. As well as being on the board of the IJCS, he was

founding convenor of the Political Studies Association’s specialist Labour

Movements Group, a member of the Cuba Research Forum and The Society for

Latin American Studies, and an honorary member of the Faculty of the Third

Age, University of Havana.

Steve’s main research interests were in the politics of post–Cold War Cuba

and contemporary left politics in Latin America. His latest work was on post–

Cold War Cuba, with a particular interest in its labour politics and employment

relations and how these are changing as the country adjusts its political economy

and its version of socialism. But he also investigated and published on Cuba and

Human Rights diplomacy, politics in Cuba, and the development of third age

education in Cuba. More widely, he wrote and edited books about the wave of

centre-left ‘pink tide’ governments in Latin America, and right-wing responses to

this phenomenon. His latest book was Right-Wing Politics in the New Latin

America: Reaction and Revolt (2011, Zed Books), which he edited with G.

Lievesley and F. Dominguez.