Yonsei International Summer School 2010
International Political Economy
Sankaran Krishna MTWTh:
MH 215
Course Description: The sub-field of International Political Economy examines the interaction between the domains of politics and economics in the modern world system. While certain schools of thought (such as realism, for example) privilege the logic of politics – national interest, national security, state power, and sovereignty – in determining the global patterns of interactions between states, other approaches privilege economic co-operation, the mutually beneficial effects of international trade and investment, and the various international regimes that govern interstate interactions. They see the breakdown in global patterns of economic exchange and trade as resulting in war and conflict, and the latter as potentially preventable through intensifying economic exchange. There is yet a third approach with its roots in the early 19th century discipline of political-economy which regards the two domains – politics and economics - as inherently inseparable, and the analytical distinction between these domains itself an inherently political matter, one that is moreover historically contextual and changes over time.
We will begin this summer course by examining the different traditions of thought within the field of International Political Economy and by looking at classic works from each of the approaches. In the latter part of the course, we will examine the salience of the issues raised by the IPE literature – states versus markets, the role of international regimes in producing collaboration and conflict, the importance of the distinction between “politics” and “economics,” the importance of a hegemonic power in maintaining the world economic system, the relevance of state sovereignty in an era of liberalization of financial markets, trade and investment, and related issues – as they pertain to the experience of the developing nations of the world, or the ‘third world’ as it was called until recently. By looking at the macro-historical experience of the non-western world over the last two centuries, we aim to give traction to the theoretical debates within the field of IPE – what do the various traditions of inquiry highlight, and what do they push to the margins; what sorts of priorities – both economic and ethical- do they carry with them; and what can IPE do to help us understand and change the rapidly globalizing world we are all a part of?
Course Evaluation: Students are expected to come to class having done the readings assigned for that day, and prepared to discuss the material with their colleagues. As per Yonsei University’s rules, attendance will be taken every class, and those students who are absent for more than a third of the course will automatically receive an F for the course. There will be a mid-term examination, scheduled for July 16th. It will comprise of multiple-choice, short-answer, and essay-length questions. The Mid-Term will account for 35% of your final grade. There will be a final exam, modeled on similar lines to the mid-term. This will be on August 5th, and will account for 45% of your final grade. The remaining 20% of the grade will accrue from informed class participation and regular attendance.
Course Readings: The entire reading package for this course is available for purchase at the NMH Copy Center on the 1st floor of the NMH building. It is arranged on a week-by-week basis: please consult this syllabus to make sure you know what the assigned reading for the next class is and be prepared for the same. I will arrange for a CD-Rom to be made of the entire reading package so that students with laptops may ‘carry’ the readings with them electronically rather than in hard copy every day. I emphasize the importance of doing the readings prior to the class meetings.
Class Schedule:
June 29 (Tue): Introduction to the course; overview of contents, procedures, expectations and responsibilities. Introductions of participants. Discussion of the first day’s readings follows:
Read: chapter 7, “International Political Economy,” and chapter 8, “International Political Economy: contemporary debates” from Robert Jackson and Georg Sorensen, Introduction to International Relations: theories and approaches, (2003).
June 30 (Wed): Continuing with our introduction to the sub-field of IPE.
Read: chapter 14, Ngaire Woods, “International Political Economy in an Age of Globalization,” from John Baylis, Steve Smith and Patricia Owens, eds., The Globalization of World Politics, (2008).
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July 1 (Thu): Continuing our introduction into building blocks of the contemporary international political and economic order.
Read: chapter 26, Jan Aart Scholte, “Global Trade and Finance,” from Baylis, Smith and Owens, eds., The Globalization of World Politics.
July 5 (Mon): Revisiting a classic work that underlies so much of the common-sense of today’s economic and political world.
Read: excerpts from Adam Smith, “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations,” (1776), Book One, chapters 1-3.
July 6 (Tue): a contemporary work that has proven enormously influential in everyday understandings of globalization, free trade, markets, and politics.
Read: excerpts from Thomas Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, (2000).
July 7 (Wed): and now for something completely different. A classic work that anchors a very different understanding of the relationship between economics and politics, and the ideal trajectory of the future.
Read: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848).
July 8 (Thu): one of the most influential works on the emergence of market-society and on the ethical implications of making the free market the foundation for collective choice and public policy.
Read: excerpts from Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation: the political and economic origins of our time, (1944).
July 12 (Mon): a contemporary work that brings the insights of Marx, Gramsci, Polanyi and Cox to the analysis of globalization.
Read: excerpts from Mark Rupert and Scott Solomon, Globalization and International Political Economy: the politics of alternative futures, (2005).
July 13(Tue): Continuing the discussion of Polanyi and Rupert and Solomon.
July 14 (Wed): Review Session for Mid-Term. Overview of the first half of the course; student questions; clarifications.
July 15 (Thu): Mid-Term exam. This will be held in class, and will comprise of multiple choice, short-answer and essay questions. The exam will cover materials up to the previous day’s readings and is worth 35% of your final grade.
July 19 (Mon): IPE as reflected in macro-historical debates over the development and underdevelopment of the modern world system. Why are some countries / individuals / regions rich and others poor?
Read: Introduction and chapter one from Sankaran Krishna, Globalization and Postcolonialism: hegemony and resistance into the 21st century, (2008).
July 20 (Tue): continuing the discussion of the emergence of first and third worlds, and the impact of contemporary globalization on inequality and growth.
Read: chapter two, Krishna, Globalization and Postcolonialism.
July 21 (Wed): the contemporary world picture in terms of access to food, to the essentials of development, and patterns of inequality.
Read: chapter 27, Caroline Thomas, “Poverty, Development, Hunger,” from Baylis, Smith and Owens, eds., The Globalization of World Politics.
July 22 (Thu): understanding international political economy in terms of the emergence of global patriarchy, and the gendered nature of world economics in our times.
Read: V. Spike Peterson, “How is the world organized economically?” from Jenny Edkins and Maja Zehfuss, Global Politics: A new introduction (2009).
July 26 (Mon): the relationship between reigning or hegemonic models of economic development and perpetuation of underdevelopment and poverty. One viewpoint:
Read: Paul Cammack, “Why are some people better off than others?” in Edkins and Zehfuss, Global Politics.
July 27 (Tue): Contrasting viewpoints from within IPE regarding the world financial system in the era of globalization; the relationship between liberalization of capital markets and the Asian financial crises; narratives about Asian crony capitalism and putative rationality of western political economies.
Read: excerpts from Walden Bello, Nicola Bullard, Kamal Malhotra eds., Global Finance: new thinking on regulating speculative capital markets, (2000).
July 28 (Wed): an energetic debate within IPE on what the role of the state was among early successful developed capitalist states, and what the contemporary hegemony of the market obfuscates about that history.
Read: excerpts from Ha-Joon Chang, Bad Samaritans: the myth of free trade and the secret history of capitalism (2008); and reponses to Chang from various scholars in the Financial Times.
July 29 (Thu): looking at development and globalization from the ground-up. What does an ethnographic approach reveal about the way in which development occurs in Southeast Asia? A brilliant and illustrative example from another genre of political-economy.
Read: excerpts from Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, Friction: an ethnography of global connection (2005).
Aug 2 (Mon): a critique of development and the pursuit of wealth from a perspective outside the imperium. Are poor nations really poor, and are rich nations really rich? Is poverty an inevitable by-product of modern development itself? Can growth reduce poverty or is latter built into our notions of development?
Read: Ashis Nandy, “The Beautiful Expanding Future of Poverty: popular economics as a psychological defense” Economic and Political Weekly (2004).
Aug 3 (Tue): Reading TBA.
Aug 4 (Wed): summarizing the course. Review session of second-half prior to the final exam. Student reactions and feedback.
Aug 5 (Thu): In class final exam that will test you on materials covered in the course since the mid-term. It will comprise of multiple choice, short-answer and essay questions. Exam is worth 45% of your final grade.
Aug 6 (Thu): Commencement.
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