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After this course, students can
- on the basis of the course literature and additional scientific literature, present a well-argued and evidenced position to a broader public in an entertaining fashion on a pressing GPE issue that pertains to a capitalist crisis;
- engage core findings or lines of argumentation of existing crisis research in dialogue with the course literature;
- critically reflect on questions of conflict, contestation and consensus in core issues that revolve around capitalist crises, and convey the aquired knowledge in a well-structured presentation;
- recognize theoretical perspectives within the field Global Political Economy (GPE).
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The Global Political Economy is going through turbulent times. The 2008-crisis is far from resolved, and with the COVID-19 pandemic and the escalation of an imperialist Russian invasion into Ukraine that started in 2014, a new global economic crisis and recession is surfacing. Bottlenecks in global supply chains, shortages in energy and food supplies, and rising inflation are looming large, leaving many people in dire straits about their future survival and hitting particularly hard on the poorest segments of societies, most notably in the Global South. Behind all this there is the climate and ecological emergency, and an acute need for immediate action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The course Global Political Economy (GPE) explores comprehensive theories, topical themes and issues that pertain to past and present conjunctures of crises within and of global capitalism. Based on theoretically informed studies and analyses, students will gain insights on the causes, and the socio-economic, political and environmental impact of these crises, as well as dynamic interplay of important (transnational) agents shaping and contesting crises responses, the underlying ideational and material structures, as well as institutional strongholds enabling or hindering them. Focal points of inquiry are the transformation of state-market relations in the context of post-World War II capitalism and the consolidation of the neoliberal world order; the vulnerabilities of global value chains; the problems of the global financial system, the role of (new) financial players and the rise of debt-led accumulation structures; as well as issues revolving around corporate taxation, digitalised economies, precarious labour and the future of work. In the course discussions, we will focus on the important question of cui bono (who wins and who loses) and the global distribution of wealth and power.
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| This course is exclusively for Master students of the specialisations International Relations and International Political Economy. |
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| Written assignments (column) and presentation.
None of the grades/papers are transferable to another year. |
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