INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY
Prof. Shareen Hertel
Email: sh451@columbia.edu
This course offers introductory exposure to issues in international political economy. It
focuses on core themes in scholarly literature and related current policy dilemmas, with
particular emphasis on development economics, trade and labor rights questions.
Requirements: 1) a midterm exam, worth 30% of the final grade; 2) a final exam, worth
60% of the final grade; and 3) class participation, worth 10% of the final grade.
To gain the most from this course, students are strongly advised to: 1) form a study group
(3-5 students, maximum) that meets at least once/week to discuss the week’s readings
and lecture notes; 2) read The New York Times, The Financial Times, and/or The
Economist on a regular basis (student rates available); 3) read informational emails and
access weblinks sent by the instructor to the class on a weekly basis.
Please note: While there are not specific pre-requisites, students with a solid grounding in
theories of international relations and basic macroeconomics will find this course more
accessible than those without such background. A useful introductory macroeconomics
text will be on reserve: Rudiger Dornbusch and F. Leslie C.H. Helmers, The Open
Economy: Tools for Policymakers in Developing Countries (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1988)
Week 1
The intellectual foundations of IPE: basic concepts and measurement issues
Handouts: Human Development Index vs. PPP vs. GNP/GDP
Week 2
The intellectual foundations of IPE: key actors and institutions
Robert Gilpin, The Political Economy of International Relations (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1987), Chapters 1, 2 and 3.
Jeffrey A. Frieden and David A. Lake, editors, International Political Economy:
Perspectives on Global Power and Wealth, 3rd edition (New York: St. Martin’s Press,
1995), Introduction (pp. 1-16).
Stephan Haggard and Robert R. Kaufman, The Politics of Economic Adjustment
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), Introduction (pp. 3-37) and Conclusion
(pp. 319-350).
Week 3:
Monetary Policy: trends and challenges
John Ruggie, “International Regimes, Transactions, and Change: Embedded
Liberalism in the Postwar Economic Order,” International Organization 36, No. 2
(Spring 1982): 379-415. Available electronically via JSTOR.
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Benjamin J. Cohen, The Geography of Money (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press, 1998), Intro and Chapters 2 and 6.
Michael Webb, “International economic structures, government interests, and
international coordination of macroeconomic adjustment policies,” International
Organization 45, No. 3 (Summer 1991): 309-342. Available electronically via JSTOR.
Week 4:
Trade Policy: trends and challenges
Robert Baldwin, “The New Protectionism: A Response to Shifts in National
Economic Power,” in Frieden and Lake (Chapter 21).
Robert Z. Lawrence, “Emerging Regional Arrangements: Buildings Blocks or
Stumbling Blocks?” in Frieden and Lake (Chapter 25).
Robert B. Zoellick, Remarks by Ambassador Robert B. Zoellick, United States
Trade Representative (Washington, DC: Office of the US Trade Representative, 2001).
Read selected speeches: “Trade and the American Nation: A Time to Choose” (pp. 3341); “Globalization at Ground Zero: Dispelling the Myths of NAFTA” (p. 43-53); “The
WTO and New Global Trade Negotiations: What’s at Stake” (p. 99-114).
Oxfam, Rigged Rules and Double Standards: Trade, Globalization and the Fight
Against Poverty (London, UK: Oxfam International, 2002), Executive Summary, Intro,
and Chapter 4.
Week 5:
Industrial development policy
James Brander, “Rationales for Strategic Trade and Industrial Policy,” and Gene
Grossman, “Strategic Export Promotion: A Critique” -- both in Paul Krugman, editor,
Strategic Trade Policy and the New International Economics (Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 1987).
Peter Evans, Embedded Autonomy: States & Industrial Transformation
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), Chapters 1, 3 and 10.
Sylvia Maxfield and Ben Ross Schneider, Business and the State in Developing
Countries (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997), Chapters 1 and 2.
Week 6:
Roots of contemporary inequality and wealth: the colonial experience,
decolonization and early independence
Alexander Gerschenkron, Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962), Chapters 1, 2 and 3.
Fernando Enrique Cardoso and Enzo Faletto, Dependency and Development in
Latin America (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1979) – chapters?
Robin Broad, editor, Global Backlash: Citizen Initiatives for a Just World
Economy (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002), Part II, “The Historical Context,”
pp. 65-112.
Stanley L. Engerman and Kenneth L. Sokoloff, "Factor Endowments, Inequality,
and Paths of Development among New World Economies," Working Paper 9259
(Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, October 2002).
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Week 7: Gender and economic development
Chiara Saraceno, “Women’s Paid & Unpaid Work in Times of Economic Crisis,”
in Lourdes Beneria and Shelley Feldman, editors, Unequal Burden: Economic Crises,
Persistent Poverty, and Women’s Work (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992).
Rounaq Jahan, The Elusive Agenda: Mainstreaming Women in Development
(Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Zed Books, 1995), Chapter 1.
Deepa Narayan, Robert Chambers, Meera K. Shah and Patti Petesch, Voices of the
Poor: Crying Out for Change (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2000), Chapter 6.
Pamela Sparr, editor, Mortgaging Women’s Lives: Feminist Critiques of
Structural Adjustment (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Zed Books, 1994), chapter 2.
Week 8: MIDTERM EXAM
Week 9:
Contemporary dilemmas: the challenge of managing global financial flows
Miles Khaler, editor, Capital Flows and Financial Crises (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1998), Chapters 1, 3, and 5.
Barry Eichengreen, Toward a New Financial Architecture: A Practical Post-Asia
Agenda (Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics, 1999) and review
thereof by Natasha Parriag, E-merge: A Graduate Journal of International Affairs 1
(January 2000), available electronically via http://www.carleon.ca/emerge/v1_br/v1_par1.html
Allan H. Meltzer, “A Report of the International Financial Institution Advisory
Commission: Comments on the Critics” in C. Gilbert, J. Rollo, and D. Vines, editors,
Reforming the Architecture of Global Financial Institutions (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press, 2001). Available electronically via:
http://www.gsia.cmu.edu/afs/andrew/gsia/meltzer/Spanishedition3.doc
Week 10:
Contemporary dilemmas: securing labor rights in the global economy
International Labour Organzation, “Decent Work,” report of the Director-General
to the International Labour Conference, 87th Session 1999 (Geneva: ILO, 1999).
Virginia Leary, “Globalization and Human Rights,” in Symonides, Janusz.
Human Rights: New Dimensions and Challenges (Brookfield, MA: Ashgate, 1998): 265279.
Gerard Griffin, Gerard, Chris Nyland and Anne O’Rourke, “Trade Unions and the
Social Clause: A North-South Union Divide?” Working Paper No. 81 Melbourne,
Australia: National Key Centre in Industrial Relations, Monash University, December
2002.
Kimberly Ann Elliott, “Getting Beyond No…! Promoting Worker Rights and
Trade,” in Schott, Jeffrey J., ed. The WTO After Seattle (Washington, DC: Institute for
International Economics, 2000): 187-204.
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Week 11:
Contemporary dilemmas: overseas development assistance – conditionality,
effectiveness and accountability
Craig Burnside and David Dollar, “Aid, Policies and Growth, The American
Economic Review 90, Issue 4 (September 2000): 847-869. Available electronically via
PROQUEST.
William Easterly, Ross Levine, and David Roodman, “New Data, New Doubts:
Revisiting ‘Aid, Policies, and Growth’” (a response to Burnside and Dollar), Working
Paper 26, Center for Global Development, revised June 2003 – forthcoming in The
American Economic Review, 2003. Available electronically via:
http://www.cgdev.org/fellows/easterly.html
Deepa Narayan, Robert Chambers, Meera K. Shah and Patti Petesch, Voices of the
Poor: Crying Out for Change (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2000), Chapters 10
and 12; and Deepa Narayan and Patti Petesch, Voices of the Poor: From Many Lands
(Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2002), Conclusion, especially pages 471-493. All
available electronically via: http://www.worldbank.org/poverty/voices/overview.htm
Graham Hancock, Lords of Poverty: The Power, Prestige and Corruption of the
International Aid Business (New York: The Atlantic Monthly Press, 1989), Preface
through page 33.
Weeks 12 and 13 (i.e., one session pre-Thanksgiving and two post)
Making sense of globalization: historical perspectives, contemporary definitions and
measurement
Suzanne Berger and Ronald Dore, editors, National Diversity and Global
Capitalism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996), chapters.1, 2, 10.
Robert Boyer and Daniel Drache, States Against Markets: the limits of
globalization (London, UK: Routledge, 1996), Chapters, 7,8, and 9.
Joseph Stiglitz, Globalization and Its Discontents (New York: WW Norton &
Company, 2002), Chapter 3.
Making sense of globalization: varied responses
Dani Rodrik, Has Globalization Gone too Far? (Washington, DC: Institute for
International Economics, 1997).
“Lori’s War,” interview by Moises Naim with Lori Wallach (Public Citizen),
Foreign Policy, Spring 2000: 29-55. Available electronically via PROQUEST.
Jagdish Bhagwati, “What Really Happened in Seattle,” abbreviated version of
essay published in The Financial Times, 21 December 1999, under the title “An
Unjustified Sense of Victory.” Available electronically via:
http://www.columbia.edu/~jb38/papers.htm
Kimberly Elliott, Debyani Kar, and David J. Richardson. “Assessing
Globalization’s Critics: ‘Talkers Are No Good Doers???” Working Paper 2-5, 2002
(Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics). Available electronically via:
www.iie.com
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Policy dilemmas: Economic sanctions – a case study
David A. Baldwin, Economic Statecraft (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1985), Chapters 1 and 3.
Richard N. Haass, editor, Economic Sanctions and American Diplomacy (New
York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1998), Chapter 1, 5 (on Iraq).
David Rieff, “Were Sanctions Right?” The New York Times Magazine, 27 July
2003, pp. 41-46.
Please access the website of The Council on Foreign Relations:
http://www.cfr.org/background/background_iraq_readings.php
Review materials on the Iraq war (2003), particularly sections on “Iraq and the UN”
pertaining to sanctions. Come to class prepared to discuss the case for and against
economic sanctions from a political economy perspective.
Week 14:
FINAL EXAM
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