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Globalization (348-0-20)

Instructors

Stephen Nelson
847 4912589
601 University Place # 238
Office Hours: http://www.polisci.northwestern.edu/people/core-faculty/stephen-nelson.html

Meeting Info

Harris Hall L07: Tues, Thurs 2:00PM - 3:20PM

Overview of class

Globalization has arguably been the most powerful force shaping international and domestic politics in recent decades. In this course, we will focus primarily on market globalization - the increase in cross-border transactions involving goods and services, production, money and financial assets, and workers.

This is a critical time for market globalization. In the past decade and a half, many countries' financial systems have experienced profoundly destabilizing shocks. The global distribution of economic and political power is shifting. Policymakers in the United States and elsewhere have grown increasingly skeptical of the efficacy and fairness of the international organizations charged with governing globalized markets. A populist-nationalist tide swept into the political scene in many countries in recent years. The eruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, the global diffusion of lockdowns to control the spread of the virus, and the attendant severe, synchronized economic downturns provoked many prominent observers, including the former Chief Economist of the World Bank, Carmen Reinhart, to wonder if the pandemic hammered the "last nail in the coffin of globalization." The corrosion of market globalization, we might think, can only be accelerated by the intensification of geopolitical rivalries and armed conflicts in multiple regions of the world in recent years.

This course is intended to take stock of market globalization considering longstanding integrating and the more recent fragmenting forces. What, exactly, is market globalization? Are its effects on the economic fortunes of individuals and groups in historically rich Northern countries different than the effects in the Global South? Has market globalization gone too far - or has it not gone far enough? These are the kinds of questions that will be discussed in the course.

The course is organized around five main topics: (1) conceptualizing the dimensions of market globalization; (2) describing the transformations in the constituent parts of market globalization (international trade, globalized production, finance, and labor migration) that promoted what some call "hyperglobalization"; (3) exploring how different varieties of capitalism in the historically rich Northern countries have adjusted to pressures generated by market globalization; (4) the relationship between market globalization, economic development, and global income inequality; (5) exploring the challenges to globalization posed by the recent rise of nationalist-populist ideologies in many countries.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this course students will:

  • Deepen their understanding of the historical and political foundations of modern market globalization.
  • Better understand how global markets for trade, production, financial assets, and labor are (and are not) governed.
  • Gain exposure to the case study method used by faculty and students at Harvard Business School.
  • Work alongside colleagues to master the granular details and big-picture takeaways from four complex, challenging cases - each of which are connected to key themes connected to the central topic of the course, market globalization.
  • Improve their abilities to use analytical frameworks and empirical evidence when talking and writing about important debates over market globalization.

Teaching Method

Lectures, full-group case discussions, instructor-led discussion sections

Evaluation Method

Course requirements include two exams, participation in discussion sections and other exercises, two short writing exercises, and (ungraded) participation in the political science department's research pool. The weighting of the course requirements is as follows:

  • Course participation: 10%
  • Critical response paper on assigned reading (1): 10%
  • Case-based prĂ©cis-style writing exercise (1): 15%
  • Midterm exam: 30%
  • Final exam: 35%

Class Attributes

Social and Behavioral Science Foundational Discipl
Social & Behavioral Sciences Distro Area

Associated Classes

DIS - Harris Hall L05: Fri 10:00AM - 10:50AM

DIS - Harris Hall L06: Fri 11:00AM - 11:50AM

DIS - Parkes Hall 215: Fri 12:00PM - 12:50PM

DIS - Parkes Hall 215: Fri 1:00PM - 1:50PM