Selected Issues: Global Political Economy and Geopolitics

URL study guide

https://studiegids.vu.nl/en/courses/2024-2025/S_SIGPEG

Course Objective

Learning outcomes: A. 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 is able 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 fields of International Relations (IR): global political economy and geopolitics. Traditionally, the field of IR has been 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 security 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 also 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 global production networks, global finance as well as (to an extent) global governance, but where we, on the other hand and at the same time, can observe the continuing strong role of state power and (constructed) rival national interests. This makes for a dynamic and contradictory whole of a world that is at same time one (one capitalist world market) and divided and fragmented (into 193 states). In this course we will analyse and discuss how this dialectic plays out by examining several recent major developments and contemporary key issues within global political economy and geopolitics such as the global financial crisis; the political economy and governance of global supply chains; the new Sino-US rivalry, and more. In each case, students are challenged to explore the ways in which the boundaries between economics 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.

Teaching Methods

Seminars

Method of Assessment

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

Literature

To be announced in the course manual (see CANVAS)

Target Audience

Students in the specialisation International Relations, Security and Global Order (IRSGO). Elective course for students in the other specialisations.