Selected Issues: Global Political Economy and Geopolitics

Course Objective

Knowledge and understanding - The student has acquired knowledge and
understanding of:
(1) major empirical developments in global political economy and
geopolitics and their interaction;
(2) the epistemological issues involved in International Relations
(pertaining to both theory and method)

B. Skills - The student has acquired the skills to:
(3) recognize the policy relevance of the results of political research
as well as detecting pitfalls and shortcomings;
(4) develop a sound research design.
(5) reporting on research as well as providing structured feedback.
(6) leading and structuring a discussion, debating, collecting relevant
literature, present key findings and set up and conduct group work.

C. Attitude - The student displays:
(7) critical theoretical and normative reflection on research results.

Course Content

This course deals with issues within two major fiels of International
Relations (IR): global political economy and geopolitics.Traditionally,
the field of IR is subdivided in the fields of international security
and international (global) political economy. As a consequence of major
transformations of the international system (end of the Cold War,
globalization, climate change), the boundaries between these subfields
have blurred. As the same time, against the background of the rise of
China and other emerging powers, a declining American hegemony, and a
general fraying of the liberal world order and rising interstate
rivalries, questions of international secuirty are increasingly framed
(by policy-makers and scholars alike) through the use of a concept that
until recently was associated with that of bygone era: that of
geopolitics. Geopolitics here is seen as interacting with geo-economics.
What binds them together is a struggle for power, not just between
states but als between rival elites and different societal actors. We
are thus now in the situation in which on the one hand the world economy
has been deeply globalized, with gobal production networks, global
finance as well as (to an extent) global goverance, but we on the other
hand and at the same time observe the continuing strong role of state
power and (constructed) rival national interests. Indeed, this makes for
a dynamic and contradictory whole of a world that is at same time one
(one capitalist world market), and divided and fragemented (into 193
states). In this course we will analyse and discuss how this dialectic
plays out by examining several recent major developements and
contemporary key issues within global political economy and geopolitics
such as the global financial crisis (and the parallels to and
differences with the current global corona crisis); the political
economy and governance of global supply chains; the new Sino-US
rivarly, and more. In each case, students are challenged to explore the
ways in which the boundaries between economic and politics in a
transnational setting are transcended; seemingly "economic" issues are
actually highly political in nature and are often the cause of conflict
and struggle (sometimes violent) between and within states.

Additional Information Teaching Methods

Seminars

Method of Assessment

Participation (30%), final paper (70%).
Both must graded with a pass.

Literature

To be announced in the course manual (see CANVAS)

Additional Information Target Audience

Mandatory course for Master students Political Science in the
specialisation International Relations and Transnational Governance.
This course is also open as an elective course for the students of other
specialisations in the Master Programme of Political Science.