Pol 161: The Politics of Globalization
Fall 2009
Professor: Craig Borowiak
Hlls 109
TTH 1:00-2:30
Office Hours: Tu 2:35 – 4:30 (or by appointment)
Office: Hall 214
Use of the word “globalization” has become pervasive in both academic and policy debates. But what does it actually mean? How new is it? What are its political, economic, and cultural dimensions? Who and what propels it? What counter-forces does it unleash? What forms of cooperation and conflict does it generate? What are its implications for democracy and the nation-state? This course explores these questions through a critical review of competing accounts of the causes, consequences, and significance of globalization.
Course Dynamics:
Readings:
The type and length of readings for this course will vary considerably from class to class. Some readings will be factually very detailed. Others will be more conceptual. Some will be academic. Others will be journalistic. In all cases, you are expected to come to class having read the readings and prepared to discuss them. While the details of any given reading assignment are important, you are especially encouraged to be attentive to and critical of the general themes and ideas that frame the arguments being made in the texts. That is, pay attention to details but don’t get lost in them.
Participation:
The size of this class will place some constraints upon discussion, but class participation is still very important. While there will be some lecturing, the success of the class will nevertheless depend upon your participation, including your willingness to share your questions, interests, ideas and energy, as well as your willingness to listen to the questions, interests, and ideas of others. Coming prepared to discuss what you’ve read will be indispensable.
Assignments
1. 2. Discussion Questions
Each student will be asked to write two discussion questions for every class period. These need to be more than one sentence questions asking the obvious. Instead they should provide some context for the question and display some thought and sophistication regarding how you are processing the texts. I will not collect these for every class, but I will not hesitate to call upon students to present their questions during class. I will periodically collect them in class and evaluate them with a , -, or +. These will factor in your participation grade.
2. World News
At the beginning of the semester you will be asked to pick a country (you may choose two if you like) whose news you will be expected to follow over the course of the semester. Every other week you will need to turn in a 2-page summary of the news headlines (related to globalization broadly construed) as represented in the country’s own papers. I will periodically take time in class to discuss world news. I will ask students to describe the headlines in their chosen countries. World newspapers are available at http://www.worldpress.org/gateway.htm, www.worldpress.org. (For headlines: http://www.worldpress.org/wprw.htm)
3. Take-Home Midterm Exam
You will be given a take-home, closed book, open notes, 24-hour midterm exam just before fall break. In this you will be asked to write essay responses to a series of questions covering the first part of the semester.
4. Mapping Global Production Assignment and Poster-presentation
Before midterm break, you will be given directions for a mapping/essay/poster project that will involve tracing the production chains of products we use in our daily life. For this, you will have to do independent research into companies of your own choosing. You will be asked to submit maps, visual documentation, and an analytic essay drawing together your findings with the themes from class discussion. You will also be asked to prepare a poster presentation of your findings.
5. Final Exam
The final exam will be a 3-hour, self-scheduled, closed book, open notes exam. It will be run through the registrar’s office.
Evaluation
Participation, Response Questions, World News 15%
Midterm Exam 30%
Global production project 25%
Final Exam 30%
Books:
The following required books are available at the bookstore.
¨ Frank Lechner, and John Boli (eds) The Globalization Reader. 3rd Edition
¨ Kwame Kenneth Appiah, Cosmopolitanism
NOTE: Students who think they may need accommodations in this course because of the impact of a disability are
encouraged to meet with me privately early in the semester. Students should also contact Rick Webb, Coordinator, Office of Disabilities Services (, 610-896-1290) to verify their eligibility for reasonable accommodations as soon as possible. Early contact will help to avoid unnecessary inconvenience and delays.
SCHEDULE
Conceptualizing Globalization
Tu 1 Sept Introductions
Th 3 Sept Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye, “Globalization: What’s New? What’s Not?” (Blackboard)
Thomas Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree (Blackboard)
Thomas Friedman,”It’s a Flat World Afterall” (Blackboard)
Palast and Shykles, “Burn the Olive Tree, Sell the Lexus” (Blackboard)
Recommended reading on the place of globalization in the social sciences
James H. Mittelman, “Globalization: An Ascendant Paradigm?” International Studies Perspectives 3 (February 2002): 1-14. Available at: http://www.colorado.edu/IBS/PEC/gadconf/papers/mittelman.pdf.
Arif Dirlik, “Globalization as the End and the Beginning of History: The Contradictory Implications of a New Paradigm” Available at: http://globalization.mcmaster.ca/wps/dirlik.PDF
Tu 8 Sept David Held and Anthony McGrew, Globalization/AntiGlobalization: Beyond the Great Divide, 2nd edition. Chapters 1 and 10 (Blackboard)
Amartya Sen, “How to Judge Globalism,” (Reader 19-24)
Jan Scholte, “What is ‘Global’ about Globalization” (Blackboard)
Jonathan Xavier Inda and Renato Rosaldo, “A World in Motion” (Blackboard)
Recommended
Jan Scholte, “Globalization in History,” 85-120 (Blackboard)
Political Globalization: Sovereignty and Nation-States
Th 10 Sept “International Law and Organizations Brief” (Blackboard)
Keohane and Nye, “Realism and Complex Interdependence” (Reader 70-77)
David Held, “The Changing Structure of International Law” (Blackboard)
Tu 15 Sept Kenichi Ohmae, “The End of the Nation State” (Reader 223-28)
Susan Strange, “The Declining Authority of States” (Reader 228-34)
Immanuel Wallerstein. “States? Sovereignty? The dilemmas of capitalists in an age of transition” from States and Sovereignty in the Global Economy (20-33) (Blackboard)
Dani Rodrik, “Has Globalization Gone Too Far?” (Reader 241-246)
Geoffrey Garrett, “Partisan Politics in the Global Economy” (Reader 247-256)
Th 17 Sept Stephen Krasner, “Globalization and Sovereignty” from States and Sovereignty in the Global Economy (35-52) (Blackboard)
Saskia Sassen, “Embedding the global in the national” from States and Sovereignty in the Global Economy (Blackboard)
Kenneth Waltz, “Globalization and Governance” (Blackboard)
Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, “Globalization as Empire” (Blackboard)
Global Trade
Tu 22 Sept “Trade and Globalization Brief” (Blackboard)
Held et al., “Global Trade, Global Markets” in Global Transformations, 149-151, 163-182 (Blackboard)
Th 24 Sept Readings from WTO webpage (Blackboard)
Douglas Irwin, “The GATT Turns 60” Wall Street Journal, April 9, 2007 (www.dartmouth.edu/~dirwin/GATT%20at%2060.html)
Joseph Stiglitz, Making Globalization Work, Ch. 3 (Blackboard)
Optional background reading
Dani Rodrik, “Global Governance as if Development Really Mattered” <http://www.wcfia.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/529__Rodrik5.pdf >
Tu 29 Sept Herman Daly, “The Perils of Free Trade” Scientific American 269:5 (1993), 50-55 (Blackboard)
Patrick J. Buchanan, “Free Trade is Not Free.” Address to the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, November 18, 1998. (Blackboard)
CATO Institute. “the Fundamental Freedom to Trade” (Blackboard)
Johan Norberg, “In Defense of Global Capitalism” (Blackboard)
Global Production
Th 1 Oct Barnet and Cavanagh, Global Dreams: Imperial Corporations and the New World Order, 259-338 (Blackboard)
Ankie Hoogvelt, Globalization and the Postcolonial World (90-100, 111-113, 125-127) (Blackboard)
Gary Gereffi, “The Global Economy: Organization, Governance, and Development” (Reader 173-82)
Tu 6 Oct Jeremy Brecher and Tim Costello, “The Race to the Bottom,” 15-33 (Blackboard)
Daniel Drezner, “Bottom Feeders,” Foreign Policy (Nov/Dec 2000) No 121, 64-70 <http://www.danieldrezner.com/research/rtb.pdf>
Miguel Korzeniewicz, “Commodity Chains and Marketing Strategies” (Reader 163-72)
Rhacel Salazar Parrenas, “The International Division of Reproductive Labor: Paid Domestic Work and Globalization” (Blackboard)
Newspaper articles (Blackboard):
Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, “Two Cheers for Sweatshops”
Ginger Thompson, “Chasing Mexico’s Dream Takes a Toll”
Barry Bearak, “Lives Held Cheap in Bangladesh Sweatshops”
David Henderson, “The Case Against ‘Corporate Social Responsibility” (Reader 202-207)
Debora Spar, “The Spotlight and the Bottom Line: How Multinationals Export Human Rights,” Foreign Affairs, March/April 1998 (Blackboard)
Th 8 Oct Globalization’s Margins
James Ferguson, Global Shadows: Africa in the Neoliberal World Order, Chs. 1, 8 (Blackboard)
Zygmunt Bauman, “Are there too many of them?” (Blackboard)
OCTOBER 9 – 18 Fall Break
Inequality, The IMF, and The World Bank
Tu 20 Oct “IMF and World Bank Brief” (Blackboard)
Ngaire Woods. “A Short Introduction to the IMF and the World Bank” (Blackboard)
John Williamson, “What Washington Means by Policy Reform” (7-21) (Blackboard)
Dani Rodrik, “Goodbye Washington Consensus, Hello Washington Confusion? A Review of the World Bank’s Economic Growth in the 1990s: Learning from a Decade of Reform” Journal of Economic Literature 44(4) 1996. (Blackboard)
Th 22 Oct “Life and Debt”
Joseph Stiglitz, Globalization and its Discontents, Chapter 8 (Blackboard)
Saskia Sassen, “Locating Cities on Global Circuits” (Blackboard)
Karen Ho, “Situating Global Capitalisms: A View from Wall Street” (Blackboard)
Visit Webpages:
Bretton Woods Project: http://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/index.shtml
IFI Watch Network: http://www.ifiwatchnet.org/
Bank Information Center: http://www.bicusa.org
Tu 27 Oct Martin Wolf, “Incensed about Inequality” (Reader, 183-189)
Robert Hunter Wade, “Is Globalization Reducing Poverty and Inequality” (Reader 190-196)
“Are Global Poverty and Inequality Getting Worse? Wolf – Wade debate” (Blackboard)
Dollar and Kraay, “Spreading the Wealth (Blackboard)
Oxfam, “Growth with Equity is Good for the Poor,” 182-189 (Blackboard)
David Dollar, “Globalization, Poverty, and Inequality since 1980,” The World Bank Research Observer 20 (2): 145-76 (on-line: www.jstor.org)
Th 29 Oct Thomas Pogge, “Why Inequality Matters” (Blackboard)
Peter Singer, 1972. “Famine, Affluence, and Society” Philosophy and Public Affairs 1(1)(Spring 1972, 229-243.
Manuel Castells, “The Rise of the Fourth World” (Blackboard)
Global Culture and Conflict
Tu 3 Nov Ulf Hannerz, “The Global Ecumene” (Reader 105-116)
Theodore Bestor, “How Sushi Went Global” (Reader, 121-125)
James Watson, “McDonald’s in Hong Kong” (Reader, 126-134)
Timothy Taylor, “Strategic Inauthenticity” (Reader 151-155)
John Tomlinson, “Globalization and Cultural Analysis” (Blackboard)
Akhil Gupta and James Ferguson, “Beyond Culture” (Blackboard)
Th 5 Nov Samuel Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations?” (Blackboard)
Edward Said, "The Clash of Ignorance," The Nation, Oct. 4, 2001
(available at: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20011022/said )
Fouad Ajami, “the Clash” in NY Times, January 6, 2008 (Blackboard)
Amartya Sen, “What Clash of Civilizations? Why religious identity isn't destiny” Slate, Wednesday, March 29, 2006 (Blackboard)
Samuel Huntington, "If Not Civilizations, What? Samuel Huntington Responds to His Critics," Foreign Affairs, November/December 1993 (Blackboard)
Fouad Ajami, “the Summoning” (Blackboard)
Robert Kaplan, “the Coming Anarchy” (Blackboard)
Tu 10 Nov Tarak Barkawi, “Globalization and War” (Blackboard)
Olivier Roy, “Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah” (Reader 364-369)
Charles Kurzman, “Bin Laden and Other Thoroughly Modern Muslims” (Reader 353-357)
Bassam Tibi, “The Challenge of Fundamentalism” (Reader 358-363)
Timothy Mitchell, “McJihad: Islam in the US Global Order” Social Text, Winter 2002 (on-line: www.jstor.org )
Th 12 Nov Oil
Ian Taylor, “China’s Oil Diplomacy in Africa” (Blackboard)
Michael Ross, “Does Oil Hinder Democracy” (Blackboard)
Thomas Freidman, “The First Law of Petropolitics” (Blackboard)
Sandra Barnes, “Global Flows: Terror, Oil and Global Philanthropy” (Blackboard)
David Zweig and Bi Jianhai, “China’s Global Hunt for Energy” (Blackboard)
Tu 17 Nov Global Environment
“Globalization and the Environment Brief” (Blackboard)
Peter Singer, “One Atmosphere” (Blackboard)
Daniel Esty and Maria Ivanova, “Toward a Global Environmental Mechanism” in Worlds Apart: Globalization and the Environment (Blackboard)
Jagdish Bhagwati, In Defense of Globalization (Blackboard)
“Rio Declaration on Environment and Development” (Reader 411-414)
Th 19 Nov Global Civil Society
Jessica T. Mathews, “Power Shift” (Reader 287-93)
Michael Bond, “The Backlash against NGOs” (Reader 294-300)
Paul Wapner, “Greenpeace and Political Globalism” (Reader 415-422)
Peter Evens, “Counterhegemonic Globalization: Transnational Social Movements in the Contermporary Political Economy” (Reader 444-50)
Subcommandante Marcos, “Tomorrow Begins Today” (Reader 474-78)
“Porto Alegre Call for Mobilization” (Reader 479-481)
Scholte, “Cautionary Reflections on Seattle” (Blackboard)
Thomas Friedman, “Senseless in Seattle” (Blackboard)
World Social Forum (Readings on Blackboard)
Tu 24 Nov Poster Presentations
Th 26 Nov THANKSGIVING BREAK. No Class.
Cosmopolitanism and Transnational Democracy
Tu 1 Dec Anthony McGrew, “Models of Transnational Democracy” (Blackboard)
Robert Dahl, “Can International Organizations be Democratic?” (Blackboard)
Held, David, “The transformation of political community: rethinking democracy in the context of globalization” (Blackboard)
Th 3 Dec Kwame Anthony Appiah, Cosmopolitanism (pp. xi-100)
Tu 8 Dec Kwame Anthony Appiah, Cosmopolitanism (pp. 101-178)
Th 10 Dec Wrap up / Catch up
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