INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY

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INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY

• IR 2502
• POLITICS AND IR
• UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN

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INTRODUCTION

• COURSE OVERVIEW
• COURSE CONTENT
• REQUIREMENTS

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• 2ND YEAR REQUIRED COURSE FOR IR
• Core curriculum in IR
• Content fills gap in curriculum
• IR security, diplomacy, culture-identity,
  political economy
• Critical turn post-Westphalia, globalization

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WELATH, POVERTY, POWER

• POLITICAL
  ECONOMY
• POWER
  WEALTH

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Theories of Political Economy

• Who were the classical political economists? Adam
  Smith, James Steuart, Scottish Enlightenment
• Karl Marx
• Neo-classical (only market, not state)
• New Institutionalists
• What makes a society wealthy? Land, money, labor?
• What is wealth for? (Smith - social good)
• How are/should states and markets be bounded
• States or markets provide Health care?
  Education? Welfare?

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HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT

• Evolution of World Economy
• Feudalism/capitalism colonialism
• History
• System
• Structure
• International Trade, Finance, Division of Labour
• International Economic Organizations (IMF, WB,
  WTO)
• Globalization
• Gender, Environment

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• Global distribution of wealth/poverty
• 50 of worlds population lives on less
• than 2 per day
• extreme poverty 1.1 billion on less than 1
  per day
• Disease WHO 90 of global disease in low and
  middle income countries but get only 11 of
  health care spending
• Civil conflict/war more likely in poor
  countries

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• UN 2000 report World Institute for Development
  Economics Research
• Top 1 of worlds adult population owns 40 of
  worlds wealth
• Top 2 owns 50 of global wealth
• Top 10 owns 85 of global wealth
• Gap between rich and poor growing

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CAUSES/EXPLANATIONS

• Causes/explanations of global distribution of
  wealth and poverty
• history? (colonialism)
• culture? (work-ethic, religion)
• policies? (state/market)
• politics? (power)
• structures (rules, regimes, international
  economic organizations)

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Solutions?

• Aid/Charity?
• Global Civil Society? (Make Poverty History)
• Individual empowerment? Micro-credit (Grameen
  Bank Mohammed Yunus Nobel Prize)
• Rules of the Game? Prices of goods in
  international trade, intellectual property
  rights? TRIPS
• Taxation

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• Books
• Robert OBrien and Marc Williams (2007) Global
  Political Economy Evolution and Dynamics
  Palgrave Macmillan.
• John Ravenhill (ed. ) (2008) Global Political
  Economy second edition, Oxford, 2008.

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• Essay - 40 of grade
• Exam 60 - of grade
• Library Skills database search
• Scopus
• JSTOR (full text articles)