Click here to download a copy of quiz no. 18

Today, it is becoming increasingly difficult to make sense of the world we live in without some understanding of the theories, institutions, and relationships found in international, or perhaps more accurately, global political economy. Unfortunately, studying IPE/GPE is not a straightforward exercise: not only are the workings of the world economy complex, but the various modes of analysis used to unravel this complexity are, more often than not, in sharp disagreement. Nonetheless, it behooves us to learn as much as we can about how the world economy "works." Indeed, we need to know how it works and why it works the way it does—that is, unless we are willing to surrender our lives completely to the flow of world events, both economic and political.

Our course will begin with an overview of the major theoretical perspectives and methodological debates in the field, which includes a brief look at some of the leading IPE scholars and their particular approaches. This is necessary, we will learn, because one cannot hope to adequately comprehend the complexities of the global economy without recourse to theories and methods of IPE/GPE. In this first part of the course we will also pay particular attention to the concept of and questions concerning power. What is power? Who or what has power? How does power—or how do particular relations of power—play out in the global economy? As we will see, the existence of power—its inescapable nature—is what makes the study of "political economy" necessary in the first place; even more, the manner in which we conceptualize power can have a profound impact on our understanding of the field and on our understanding of IPE/GPE. Click on the icon to download a printable PDF version of the syllabus