Document Type

Graduate Syllabus

Date

Spring 2024

School

Diplomacy

Course Number

DIPL 6105 AA

Course Description

Globalization - economic, political, social, and cultural integration between countries - was growing at a rapid pace until the 2007-2009 global financial crisis. Since then, events such as the Brexit referendum, election cycles in Western democracies, US unilateralism under the Trump Administration, and finally the current coronavirus pandemic have demonstrated the retreat to insular policies. The pandemic has also showed us feats of global cooperation, especially in the race to identify the virus and develop a vaccine. What forces drive globalization, and what forces slow it down? What are the social and economic impacts? Who is for globalization, and who is against it? DIPL 6105 is a graduate course in international political economy (IPE) addressing these questions, with a focus on the challenges that global markets, organizations, and citizens pose for individual governments. The overarching theme is globalization and governance.

Deeper international economic integration has led to more frequent economic exchanges across the globe on a daily basis, involving nation-states, multinational entities, individuals and non-governmental organisations. IPE scholars study the interplay of political and economic interests between various state and non-state actors pertaining to these crossborder flows. The economic, political and social relations between individuals, states and firms have evolved in response to changes in tastes, technology, ideology, and political or economic power. The distribution of political power itself changes in response to the distribution of economic power. In this course, we will explore how domestic interests drive policy preferences at the state level, and how similarities or differences in interests in various issues across countries lead to cooperation or conflict in global governance and international relations. We will further see how the lack of a global government with enforceable laws has shaped institutions of global governance such as the WTO, and the tension between national sovereignty and these supranational rule- or norm-setting mechanisms.

The course will expose you to both methodologies and their applications to current issues with the goal of deriving evidence-based and rational policymaking. We will bridge the gap between theory and practice by using academic articles, the case method, policy pieces, and podcasts where experts in academia and policy speak. Issue areas in the course include international trade and investment, regional economic integration, environmental and labor standards, climate change, global public health, migration, development, and foreign aid.

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