Political Economy

“The analytic paper gives students an opportunity to explore topics of interest to them in greater detail. Paper topics must be on subjects drawn from sections II, III, IV, or V of the course. Papers may not exceed nine double-spaced pages, excluding footnotes.” – This is what the professor provides us.

The topics in class are the following:

These are all the parts with their readings:
Part II: Goods and Services

Week 2 Trade: Demand for Openness and Protection (1/20)
Learning Goals: Identify the distributive effects of trade openness; understand how individuals, firms, and others form opinions about trade policy; develop a position regarding what should be done to compensate workers who lose out through greater trade openness

• Ronald Rogowski, “Political Cleavages and Changing Exposure to Trade,” APSR Vol., 81, No. 4 (1987), pp. 1121-1137.
• Hiscox, Michael J. 2002. “Commerce, Coalitions, and Factor Mobility: Evidence from Congressional Votes on Trade Legislation.” American Political Science Review 96 (3):593-608.
• Cornelia Woll and Alvaro Artigas, “When Trade Liberalization Turns into Regulatory Reform: The Impact on Business-Government Relations in International Trade Politics,” Regulation and Governance Vol. 1 No. 2 (2007), 121-138.

Debate: Do Trade Deficits Reduce Total Jobs?
• Scott, Robert E. “The China Trade Toll: Widespread Wage Suppression, 2 Million Jobs Lost in the US.” EPI Briefing Paper 219 (2008).; CONDENSED VERSION ON RESERVE IN Thomas Oatley, Debates in International Political Economy, Chapter 1.
• Irwin, Douglas A., “The Employment Rationale for Trade Protection,” in Free trade under fire. Princeton University Press, 2009. ; CONDENSED VERSION ON RESERVE IN Thomas Oatley, Debates in International Political Economy, Chapter 1.

Week 3 Trade: Systemic Supply of Openness (1/27)
Learning Goals: Analyze the role of the major powers in promoting trade openness; understand how the rise of China as an economic and military power may affect trade openness.

• Stephen D. Krasner. 1976. “State Power and the Structure of International Trade.” World Politics Vol. 28 No. 3: 317-347.
• Stephen Cohen & Brad De Long. What Happens When Other Countries Have All the Money? Whole Book.

Debate: How Robust is the Liberal Order?
• Burrows, Mathew J., and Jennifer Harris. “Revisiting the future: Geopolitical effects of the financial crisis.” The Washington Quarterly 32.2 (2009): 27-38.
• Ikenberry, G. John. “The liberal international order and its discontents.” Millennium-Journal of International Studies (2010).

Week 4 Trade: International Organizations and Openness (2/3)
Learning Goals: Identify the role of the GATT/WTO in promoting trade openness; specify the mechanisms through which international organizations such as the GATT/WTO might promote trade liberalization.

• G. John Ikenberry. 2008. “The Rise of China and the Future of the West Can the Liberal System Survive?” Foreign Affairs. New York
• Judith Goldstein. 1998. “International Institutions and Domestic Politics: GATT, WTO and the Liberalization of International Trade.” in The WTO as an International Organization. Edited by Anne O. Kreuger (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998): 133-52.
• Judith Goldstein and Lisa L. Martin. 2000. “Legalization, Trade Liberalization and Domestic Politics: A Cautionary Note.” International Organization. 54 (3): 603-632.

Debate: Does Trade Promote Growth?
• Dollar, David, and Aart Kraay. “Spreading the wealth.” Foreign Affairs (2002): 120-133.
• Rodrik, Dani. “Trading in illusions.” Foreign Policy (2001): 55-62.

Week 5 Trade and National Security (2/10)
Learning Goals: Understand whether there are legitimate arguments for restraining trade in certain types of goods on national security grounds. Develop a position on whether certain economic sectors, or actors, should be treated differently in global trade and investment on national security grounds; understand the national security implications of open markets.

• Joseph Grieco. 1988. “Anarchy and the Limits of Cooperation: A Realist Critique of the New Liberal Institutionalism.” International Organization 42 No. 3: 485-507.
• Jonathan Kirshner. 2009. “Sovereign Wealth Funds and National Security: The Dog that will Refuse to Bark.” Geopolitics Vol. 14 No. 2: 305-316.
• C. S. Eliot Kang. 1997. “U.S. Politics and Greater Regulation of Inward Foreign Direct Investment.” International Organization Vol. 51 No. 2: 301-33.

Debate: How Dangerous Are Sovereign Wealth Funds?
• Luft, Gal. “Sovereign Wealth Funds, Oil and the New World Economic Order.” Testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Washington 21 (2008).
• Truman, Edwin M. “The Rise of Sovereign Wealth Funds: Impacts on U.S. Foreign Policy and Economic Interests.” Testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Washington 21 (2008).

Part III: Capital Markets

Week 6 Historical Orders of Finance (2/17)
Learning Goals: This week we begin our shift from focusing on the trade side of international political economy to the money side. Since the 1980s, capital market liberalization and high-intensity capital flows have become the norm, but the modern globalized era has seen two other major financial orders: the Gold Standard of the 19th and early 20th centuries, and the Bretton Woods system of the 1940s-70s. We examine what those systems were, why they failed, and the arguments of those who favor a return to either the gold standard or the Bretton Woods order.

• Barry Eichengreen. Globalizing Capital: A History of the International Monetary System, 2nd Edition. Chapters I-IV
• Eric Helleiner. 2010. “A Bretton Woods Moment?: The 2007-2008 Crisis and the Future of Global Finance.” International Affairs Vol. 86 No. 3: 619-636.
Week 7 International Capital Mobility (2/24)
Learning Goals: The 1980s and the 1990s saw capital markets liberalized across the developed and the developing world. We are seeking to understand why countries chose to liberalize their capital markets, and what is the likelihood is that this process will be reversed.

• John B. Goodman and Louis W. Pauly. 1993. “The Obsolescence of Capital Controls?: Economic Management in an Age of Global Markets.”
• Rawi Abdelal. 2007. Capital Rules: The Construction of Global Finance. Chapter 2.
• Richard Deeg and Mary A. O’Sullivan. 2009. “Review Article: The Political Economy Of Global Finance Capital.” World Politics Vol. 61, No. 4: 731–63.

Debate: Is Capital Mobility a Good Thing?
• Jagdish Bhagwati. ” The Capital Myth-The Difference between Trade in Widgets and Dollars.” Foreign Affairs 77 (1998): 7.
• Shailendra J. Anjaria. “The Capital Truth-What Works for Commodities Should Work for Cash.” Foreign Affairs 77 (1998): 142.

Week 8 Financial Crises in an Era of Financial Openness (3/2)
Learning Goals: One consequence of the move from the Bretton Woods system to a world of limited capital controls is a return to an era of international financial crises. We identify the dimensions and politics of modern financial crises.

• Charles Kindleberger. Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises, 6th Edition. Chapters 1-2, 4-5, 8-14.

Debate: The Role of Regulation in the Financial Crisis
• Stiglitz, Joseph E. “The anatomy of a murder: Who killed America’s economy?.” Critical Review 21.2-3 (2009): 329-339.
• White, Lawrence Henry. “How did we get into this financial mess?” Cato Institute, 2008.

Recommended
• Kindleberger. Rest of book.

Part IV: Globalization

Week 9 The Political Effects of Openness (3/9)
Learning Goals: Identify the economic and social effects of increased capital flows on developed and developing countries.

Developed Countries
• Geoffrey Garrett and Deborah Mitchell. 2001. “Globalization, Government Spending and Taxation in the OECD.” European Journal of Political Research Vol. 39 No. 2: 145–177.
• Duane Swank. 2005. “Globalization, Domestic Politics, and Welfare State Retrenchment in Capitalist Democracies.” Social Policy & Society Vol. 4 No. 2: 183-195.

Developing Countries
• Nita Rudra. 2002. “Globalization and the Decline of the Welfare State in Less-Developed Countries.” International Organization Vol. 56 No. 2: 411-445.
• Erik Wibbels and Moises Arce. 2003. “Globalization, Taxation, and Burden-Shifting in Latin America.” International Organization Vol. 57 No. 1: 111-136.

Debate: Is The Multinational Corporation Race to the Bottom Myth or Reality?
• Drezner, Daniel W. “Bottom feeders.” Foreign policy (2000): 64-70.
• Spar, Debora, and David Yoffie. “Multinational enterprises and the prospects for justice.” Journal of International Affairs-Columbia University 52 (1999): 557-582.

SPRING BREAK

Week 10 The European Union & New Responses to Globalization (3/23)
Learning Goals: The European Union is important to international political economy both as a unique major player and a potential model for future transnational integration. We identify the economic and political motivations for European integration, and discuss the issues arising from the current European debt crisis.

• Kathleen R. McNamara. 1999. “Consensus and Constraint: Ideas and Capital Mobility in European Monetary Integration.” Journal of Common Market Studies Vol. 37, No. 3: 455–76.
• Jeffry A. Frieden. 2002. “Real Sources of European Currency Policy: Sectoral Interests and European Monetary Integration.” International Organization Vol. 56 No. 4: 831-860.
• Mette Eilstrup-Sangiovanni & Daniel Verdier. 2005. “European Integration as a Solution to War.” European Journal of International Relations Vol. 11 No. 1: 99-135.

Debate: Solving the Eurozone Crisis
• Henry Farrell & John Quiggin. 2011. “How to Save the Euro – and the EU.” Foreign Affairs Vol. 90 No. 3: 96-103.
• Martin Feldstein. 2012. “The Failure of the Euro: The Little Currency That Couldn’t. Foreign Affairs. Vol. 91 No. 1: 105-116.
• Andrew Moravcsik. 2012. “Europe After the Crisis: How to Sustain a Common Currency.” Foreign Affairs Vol. 91 No. 3: 54-68.

Week 11 Foreign Direct Investment & Multinational Corporations (3/30)
Learning Goals: Multinational corporations (MNCs) trading and investing across national borders are an important source of foreign direct investment. Develop a view on how we can best characterize the relationship between MNCs and host governments, and understand what the effects of MNC investments on development and growth are.

• Shah Tarzi. “Third World Governments and Multinational Corporations: Dynamics of Host’s Bargaining Power.” in Frieden & Lake, International Political Economy
• David Fieldhouse. “A New Imperial System”? The Role of the Multinational Corporations Reconsidered.” in Frieden & Lake, International Political Economy
• Edward Steinfeld. 2004. “China’s Shallow Integration: Networked Production and the New Challenges for Late Industrialization.” World Development Vol. 32 No. 11: 1971–1987.

Debate: Sweatshop Regulation
• Krugman, Paul. “In praise of cheap labor.” Slate. March 20 (1997).
• Miller, John. “Why economists are wrong about sweatshops and the antisweatshop movement.” Challenge-New York- 46.1 (2003): 93-122.Thomas Oatley, Debates in International Political Economy, Chapter 7.

Part V: Externalities

Week 12 Migration and Domestic Politics (4/6)
Learning Goals: Labor is an input into economic processes, but people are not the same as primary or intermediate goods, or capital. This makes the politics of labor movement (i.e. immigration) more complicated than for other inputs. This week and next week we seek to understand the politics of immigration, and its effects on development.

• Jeannette Money. 1997. “No Vacancy: The Political Geography of Immigration Control in Advanced Industrial Countries.” International Organization Vol. 51 No. 4: 685–720.
• Leah Haus. 1995. “Openings in the Wall: Transnational Migrants, Labor Unions and U.S. Immigration Policy.” International Organization Vol. 49 No. 2: 285-313.
• Ashley S. Timmer and Jeffrey G. Williamson. 1996. “Racism, Xenophobia or Markets?: The Political Economy of Immigration Policy prior to the Thirties.” NBER Working Paper No. 5867.
• James Foreman-Peck. 1992. “A Political Economy of International Migration, 1815-1914.” Manchester School of Economics & Social Studies 60 No. 4: 359-76.

Debate: Is Immigration a Positive or Negative?
• LeGrain, Philippe. “The Case for Immigration,” The International Economy, Summer 2007, 26-29.
• Goodhart, David. “Too diverse?.” Prospect magazine 95 (2004): 30-37.

Week 13 Climate I: Economics & the Environment (4/13)
Learning Goals: Learn what the distributive implications of climate change are; identify the factors that increase/decrease the likelihood of collective action to combat climate change.

• Archer and Rahmstorf, The Climate Crisis, Excerpt.
• Stephen M. Gardiner (2004), “Ethics and Global Climate Change,” Ethics Vol. 114: 555-600.
• Richard H. Steinberg. 1997. “Trade-Environment Negotiations in the EU, NAFTA, and WTO: Regional Trajectories of Rule Development.” The American Journal of International Law Vol. 91, No. 2: 231-267.

Week 14 Climate II: The Promise and Peril of International Cooperation (4/20)
Learning Goals: use the tools we have learned throughout the course to explain why climate change negotiations are fraught with difficulties, and what the best institutional response might be. Further details to come…

• Michael A. Levi. 2009. “Copenhagen’s Inconvenient Truth.” Foreign Affairs Vol. 88 No. 5.
• Robert O. Keohane and David G. Victor. 2010. “The Regime Complex for Climate Change.” The Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements: Discussion Paper 10-33.

Debate: Should Trade Be Restricted to Reduce Greenhouse Gases?
• Frankel, Jeffrey A., and Joseph E. Aldy. “Addressing the Leakage/Competitiveness Issue in Climate Change Policy Proposals [with Comment].” Brookings trade forum. Brookings Institution Press, 2008.
Bordoff, Jason E., and Andrew W. Shoyer. “International Trade Law and the Economics of Climate Policy: Evaluating the Legality and Effectiveness of Proposals to Address Competitiveness and Leakage Concerns [with Comment].” Brookings Trade Forum. Brookings Institution Press, 2008.Thomas Oatley, Debates in International Political Economy, Chapter 6.
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