Dr Lloyd Gruber (Room V410)

MSc Development Management, MSc Development Studies, MSc Anthropology and Development, MSc Global Politics. Space permitting, other MSc students may also be able to enrol, but only with the approval of the course teacher and their own programme directors.

This course examines what (if anything) policymakers in developing countries can do to manage the continuing expansion of global trade, the multinationalization of production, and the seemingly inexorable rise in cross-border flows of financial capital.  Do these forces have a life of their own? And if not – if governments are still, to some extent, in the driver’s seat – what pro- or anti-globalization strategies have they employed domestically and in their external relations? Are developing countries in a position to address the economic dislocations and social tensions that globalization creates, or is a globalization backlash inevitable?

For much of the post-WWII period, the United States and European Union have been in a position, by virtue of their relative size and power, to set the global economic agenda. The course begins by asking why policymakers in these countries have pursued the particular trade, foreign investment, and foreign aid policies they have. To what extent have the choices of the “North” been dictated by societal forces (e.g., the mobilization of interest groups), international pressures (e.g., the end of the Cold War, the threat of terrorism), and/or the structure of U.S. and EU political institutions (e.g., separation of powers, the tension between domestic and supranational authority)? The course then looks at how developing countries have responded – with varying degrees of success – to globalization’s challenges and opportunities. After examining domestic strategies (e.g., industrial policy), the course turns to international strategies, focusing on the formation of North-South trade arrangements and the bolstering of recent efforts by the South to reduce the North’s bargaining advantage in the WTO. The last part of the course explores the future of this North-South asymmetry, concentrating on the volatility of international financial markets, the impact of trade on domestic inequality, and the uncertain relationship between globalization, democracy, and the environment.

Ten lectures and nine seminars held in LT. Revision session in ST.

A 2,000-word essay will be assigned at the beginning of the third week of the course.  Students will have one week to write their essays, which will be based solely on the course materials covered to that point. Feedback will be provided within two weeks of each essay's submission.

A detailed reading list will be presented with the Course Outline at the beginning of the term. Some key texts are: L. Gruber, Ruling the World: Power Politics and the Rise of Supranational Institutions, Princeton University Press, 2000; D. Held, et al., Debating Globalization, Polity Press, 2005; D. Rodrik, Has Globalization Gone Too Far? (Institute for International Economics, 1997); and D. Vogel, Trading Up: Consumer and Environmental Regulation in a Global Economy (Harvard University Press, 1995).

Two-hour examination in the ST (80%) and a 2000 word essay (20%).