INT 313: Politics of International Trade and Investment
Fall 2007
Dr Caner Bakir
Lectures: Tueasdays and Thursdays: 14-15.15pm
Office: CAS154
Office hours: Tuesdays: 10.30-12.30
Phone:338 1674
e-mail: cbakir@ku.edu.tr
Assistant: zkaymak@ku.edu.tr
Room:cas129
Office hours: Tuesday: 11.30-12.30
Course Description:
This course examines the interaction between various institutions and actors that make up
the field we call international political economy, and which in turn affect distributions of
wealth and power on various levels. It is designed for students who are particularly
interested in the interactions between states, markets, firms, NGOs, and not-for-profit
organizations at the local, national, regional, and supranational levels. Most of our focus
will be on how the world is structured and how power is distributed and exercised with
special reference to trade, production, finance, and knowledge.
We will begin with a critical analysis of the major theoretical approaches to international
trade and investment. In this analysis we will include the classical approaches such as
mercantilism, liberalism, historical structuralism as well as recent debates emerging from
postmodernism, feminism, and environmentalism. Building on this foundation we will
examine the nature and effects of international “structures” of trade, production, finance,
and knowledge, also paying critical attention to their appearances, power circulations, and
what /who is occasionally absent from them. In the third section, we will focus on
contemporary struggles among (and within) advanced industrial states over markets and
protectionism. Among the issues of importance are conflicts over regional integration and
competitiveness in Europe and North America. Finally, we will explore North-South
relations, by critically examining concepts and issues such as development and global
governance.
Throughout the course our goal will be to appraise explanatory frameworks that can be
applied to a diverse set of political issues. Students will be expected to critically assess
theories of international trade; write intelligently about struggles between actors over
power and resources; and connect current events to material discussed in the course. By
the end of the course you will have gained a comprehensive overview of the major
concepts, methods, and trends in international political economy.
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Requirements:
1. Attendance and participation: Regular attendance is a must if you are serious about your
work and the grade you will receive. Being late to class is inexcusable and will affect your
grade. I expect everyone to be in class on time.
You are encouraged to come to class with specific questions you may have about the
readings or the lectures. Please remember that you are invited to respectfully and
analytically question any arguments or opinions you read or hear in this course.
2. Readings: You are expected to have completed the readings before the first lecture of
each week because lectures largely engage with the readings and move beyond them.
The primary text for the course is David Balaam and Michael Veseth’s Introduction
to International Political Economy, 3rd edition. (New Jersey: Prentice Hall 2005). Other
required readings are listed below and will be included in the reading package for the
course. I will also post the material in the F drive when I can. The additional readings are
not optional: in a couple of the weeks you will find that lectures will be based solely
on these readings and most of the time they will provide additional insight to the
chapters so it is imperative that you take note of this requirement.
3. Grading: There will be one midterm and a final exam. These will be designed to assess
your understanding of and engagement with the material studied. All exams will be based
on the readings and the lectures. The formats of the exams will be clearer to those who
attend classes regularly.
You will be expected to write a term paper (12 pages-maximum; double-spaced) on a
theme and question determined in conjunction with me. The question will have to be
related to the issues we are covering and the themes we are exploring. You are advised to
submit a one-page outline of the term paper by November 15, 2007.
Midterm exam
Final exam
Research paper
Class participation
25%
40%
25%
10%
Date: November 1, 2007
Deadline: December 17, 2007
NOTE: Exam dates and paper deadlines are non-negotiable. They will not be
changed under any circumstances. It is your responsibility to meet the deadlines
and attend the exams in their allocated time slots.
Keeping informed:
Please remember that Wikipedia constitutes neither the most reliable nor the most
relevant information Internet has to offer! I do not advise you to use it.
See electronic resources for political sciences at
http://www.ku.edu.tr/ku/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=442&Itemid
=879#law
See electronic resources for economics at
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http://www.ku.edu.tr/ku/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=442&Itemid
=879#bus
See available databases at
http://www.ku.edu.tr/ku/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=442&Itemid
=879
Academic Integrity:
Honesty and trust are important to us all as individuals. Students and faculty adhere to the
following principles of academic integrity at Koç University.
1. Individual accountability for all individual work, written or oral. Copying from others
or providing answers or information, written or oral, to others is cheating.
2. Providing proper acknowledgment of original author. Copying from another student’s
paper or from another text without written acknowledgment is plagiarism. Recycling a
paper written for another class also falls under this category.
3. Study or project group activity is effective and authorized teamwork. Unauthorized
help from another person or having someone else to write one’s paper or assignment
is collusion.
Cheating, plagiarism, and collusion are serious offences resulting in an F as your course
grade and disciplinary action.
You can refer to the following website for a more detailed guide on how to follow rules of
conduct regarding academic honesty. I encourage you to take a look at it both for this class
and for the rest of your education:
http://web.gc.cuny.edu/provost/pdf/AvoidingPlagiarism.pdf
Other Policies
You are encouraged to come to my office hours. If the specified hours do not work for
you, please e-mail me, when you need to talk, with a list of alternative times and days so
that we can find a slot that works.
During lectures, the following are unprofessional and impolite manners of behavior, which
–if displayed- will affect your grade negatively: being late, leaving early, dozing off, reading
materials unrelated to the course, using your phone for calls or text messaging, talking
among yourselves, talking about stuff irrelevant to the discussion, and interrupting or
being disrespectful to each other during discussions. You are expected to turn your cell
phones off during class.
If you have questions or objections to a grade you have received, you should let me know
within seven days after I return your exams / papers. You should also provide me with a
written explanation as to what it is specifically that you think merits more points and why.
Please bear in mind that in such negotiations, an unfortunate possibility is the discovery of
further problems with the work, which may result in reduction of the given grade. I
discuss graded and draft works only in person –not over e-mail or the phone.
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You are to turn in written assignments on time. Failure to do so will result in reduced
grades in accordance with how late you are.
Class schedule
 Approaches to International Political Economy
Introductions: What is international political economy?
Balaam & Veseth, ch. 1
Mercantilism and Realism
Balaam & Veseth, ch. 2
Stephen Gill and David Law, 1988. The Global Political Economy. New York: Harvester
Wheatsheaf, Ch. 3
Liberalism and Neoliberalism
Balaam & Veseth, ch.3
Historical Structuralism
[October 9-11]
Balaam & Veseth, ch.4
Critical Perspectives
Balaam & Veseth, ch. 5
Karl Polanyi, 2001. The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Times.
Boston: Beacon Press, pp. 45-58, 71-80, 136-140 (chapters 4, 6, 11).
Suzanne Bergeron, 2001. Political Economy Discourses of Globalization and Feminist
Politics. Signs, 26(4): 983-1006
Joan Martinez-Alier, 2004. Environmental Justice (Local and Global) in Frederic Jameson
and Masao Miyoshi, Eds. Cultures of Globalization. Durham and London: Duke
University Press, pp. 312-326.
 Issues of Power
What is Power?
Steven Lukes, 2005. Power: A Radical View. Hampshire and New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
pp. 60-107 (chapter 2)
James Caporaso and David Levine, 1992. Theories of Political Economy. Cambridge, New
York, Melbourne;: Cambridge University Press, pp.159-180 (chapter 7)
(optional) Michel Foucault, 1980. Two Lectures in Colin Gordon, Ed. Power / Knowledge:
Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977 by Michel Foucault. New York: Pantheon
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Books, 78-108.
Technology and Knowledge
Balaam & Veseth, Ch. 10
Susan Strange, States and Markets, 119-138.
Timothy Mitchell, 2002. Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity. Berkeley, Los
Angeles and London: University of California Press, pp. 209-243 (chapter 7)
International Trade
Balaam and Veseth, Ch. 6-7
Thomas Oatley, 2004. International Political Economy, Interests and Institutions in the Global
Economy. New York: Pearson, chapter. 3
International Finance
Balaam and Veseth, Ch. 19
Eric Helleiner, 1994. States and Re-emergence of Finance. Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
chapter 1
Susan Strange, Mad Money, 1-42, 158-178
Caitlin Zaloom, 2006. Trading on Numbers. In Melissa Fisher and GreffDowney, Eds.
Frontiers of Capital: Ethnographic Reflections on the New Economy. Durham and London:
Duke University Press, pp. 58-85
Transnational Companies: Production structures in a global economy
Balaam and Veseth, Ch. 17
Susan Strange, 1991. Big Business and State, Millennium 20(1): 245-250.
Susan Strange, 1998. Globaloney? Review of International Political Economy, 5(4): 704-711.
Robinson, W.I. & Harris, J. Towards a Ruling Class? Globalization and the Transnational
Capitalist Class. Science and Society, 64, 11-54.
 New Regionalism in Comparative Perspective: The case of Advanced Industrial
Societies
Balaam & Veseth, Ch. 11 & 12
Peter Dicken, 1998. Global Shift: Transforming the World Economy. London: Paul Chapman,
chapters 2 and 5.
 Political Economy of Development
Perspectives on Development
Balaam and Veseth, Ch. 15
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Arturo Escobar, 1995. Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 3-20 (chapter 1)
James Ferguson, 2006. The Anti-Politics Machine. In Aradhana Sharma and Akhil Gupta,
Eds. The Anthropology of the State. Malden, MA, Oxford, and Victoria: Blackwell
Publishing, pp. 270-286.
IPE for whom? Wealth Distributions and Political Economy of Poverty
Balaam and Veseth, Ch. 19
Joseph Stiglitz, 2001. An Agenda for Development in the Twenty-first Century in
Anthony Giddens, Eds. The Global Third Way Debate. Cambridge: Polity Press, 340357
Arturo Escobar, 1995. Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 21-… (chapter 2)
Recent Debates on Global Governance and the Third World
David Held and Anthony McGrew, Eds, 2001. Governing Globalization. Cambridge: Polity
Press, chapters 1, 8, 9.
James Ferguson, 2006. Global Shadows: Africa in the Neoliberal World Order. Durham and
London: Duke University Press, pp. 25-49.
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