International Political Economy

This course aims to introduce students to major theoretical and empirical issues in the field of international political economy (IPE). It focuses on several issue areas in IPE such as international trade, development and international production networks (multinational corporations). The course will be constituted of three parts.

Part I briefly covers major theoretical perspectives in IPE and their application on empirical issues. It provides a brief historical background for the emergence of increasing integration and institutionalized interdependence across nations, surveying the institutional set-up of international monetary relations. It, then, goes over the politics of international trade, discussing the varying roles of the interest groups and distributional issues, along with those of international and regional organizations, shaping trade policies and politics around those. Discussing the nature of current trade disputes/ 'trade wars', it surveys major multilateral and preferential trade agreements; and the international trade regime supervised by the World Trade Organization (WTO). It goes through broad contestations of the current trade regime in the context of prevalent political tensions.

Part II is on the North-South divide and economic development. It discusses the major development strategies adopted by developing countries since the 1950s, with varying levels of success. It briefly explores the phenomenon of emerging countries in the international economy, with a particular focus on China. It studies different forms of state-market relations and liberalization, reflecting on ¿the Washington Consensus,'post-Washington consensus' and 'the Beijing Consensus.' Finally, it lays out the ongoing challenges faced and posed by the major developing countries in the context of fierce competition in global markets.

Part III focuses on the process of economic integration and its diverse consequences. It particularly examines the globalized production networks, addressing the expansion of multinational corporations along with controversies about them. Reflecting on the ongoing challenges of globalization exemplified by the re-emergence of populist responses and 'Trump-ism,' it discusses the actual and probable impact of policies, individuals and collective actors with substantially sceptical positions toward global integration, entailing significant ramifications on its sustainability, provoking debates about the possibility of "de-globalization".