PSC4375: Comparative Political Economy
Upper-Division Undergraduate Course
Fall 2016
Instructor: Dr. Sara Newland
Instructor email: Course time: Monday/Wednesday, 3:00–4:15 p.m.
Course location:
Office hours: Wednesdays 11a.m.–1p.m., or by appointment
Office: St. Augustine Center, Rm. XXXXX
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Course Description
How do politics shape markets, and markets shape politics? Why do some countries (and
some people) become rich while others stay poor? Why does capitalism take such different forms in different places, and what do these differences mean for societies, firms, and
individuals? What is globalization, and who gains (and loses) from the increasingly close
economic ties between different countries? These are a few of the big questions that we
will discuss this semester.
The class will be divided into four units. In the first, we will read excerpts some of the core
philosophical and theoretical texts of political economy. In the second, we will explore the
“varieties of capitalism” and the different forms that transitions from communism to capitalism have taken. The third unit focuses on the political economy of development, and
seeks to understand the role that politics plays in unequal patterns of wealth and poverty
across space and time. The fourth unit focuses on trade and globalization. You should
expect to read about 50–75 pages per week. You will be graded on the basis of your class
participation, weekly reading quizzes, an in-class policy proposal exercise, and two exams.
This class is appropriate for students with an interest in comparative politics, and/or
in the interaction of economics and politics. Introduction to comparative politics is a
prerequisite for this course, although I may exempt students with a strong background in
economics (at minimum, introductory courses in micro- and macroeconomics) from this
prerequisite.
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Policies
Attendance
Your consistent attendance is essential to your success in this course. Class begins
promptly at 3:00. If you are absent more than twice without a documented medical
excuse, your class participation grade will suffer. Also note that reading quizzes will be
given at the start of class and cannot be made up except in the case of a documented
medical emergency.
Academic Honesty and Collaboration
Collaboration is a central part of academic inquiry, and you are always welcome to discuss your ideas with your peers, as well as to give and receive feedback on each others’
written work. If your ideas are heavily influenced by your conversations with a classmate
or friend, please cite the other student’s contribution in a footnote, as is conventional
in academic writing. While I encourage you to exchange ideas with other students, all
written work must be entirely your own. This means two things:
1. Do not plagiarize work by others. Any text that you take directly from another
source must be placed in quotation marks and cited in APA style. In most cases,
you should rephrase others’ ideas in your own words rather than quoting directly;
please note that whether you are quoting, summarizing, or paraphrasing a text, you
must cite the original source.
2. Do not plagiarize work by yourself. Everything you turn in must be written specifically for this course. Turning in a paper that you have already turned in for another
course, in whole or in part, is expressly forbidden unless you receive advance, written
permission from me and the other faculty member.
For a more detailed overview of responsible source use, you may wish to consult the
Harvard Guide to Using Sources (usingsources.fas.harvard.edu). Please note that
evidence of academic dishonesty will be investigated and punished according to Villanova’s Code of Academic Integrity (https://www1.villanova.edu/villanova/vpaa/
studentservices/policies/integrity/code.html).
Electronic Devices
Our class time is short and the temptations of the Internet are strong. To ensure that
our meetings are focused and productive, I ask that you refrain from using a laptop,
iPad, cell phone, or any other device with a screen during class. If it is absolutely
necessary that you use an electronic device in class, please speak to me individually.
Email and Office Hours
Feel free to contact me with questions, appointment requests, and the like at XXXXXXX.
I will respond to every email within 24 hours, and often sooner.
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Office hours are a great opportunity for you to get additional feedback on your work or
just continue a conversation that we began during class—please use them! My office hours
are Wednesdays from 11 to 1 and by appointment.
Grading
Course grades will be determined as follows:
Class participation
Reading quizzes
Midterm
Policy presentation
Final
10%
20%
20%
20%
30%
Please note that I do not give makeup exams except in the case of a documented medical
or family emergency, so make sure that you don’t have any extracurricular obligations
that would require you to miss an exam.
The grading scale used to assign final grades is as follows:
B+
C+
D+
87–89
77–79
67–69
A
B
C
D
F
94–100
84–86
74–76
64–66
0–59
ABCD-
90–93
80–83
70–73
60–63
If you believe that your grade on a given assignment has been calculated incorrectly or
disagree with the grade that you have received, you may submit a regrade request. You
must submit this request no less than 24 hours and no more than one week after receiving
your graded paper or exam. Your request must be in writing, and should include a detailed
description (no longer than one page) of your objection(s) to the original grade. Please
make your request as specific as possible: “I believe my exam deserves an A” is unlikely to
result in a grade change. Instead, your request should look more like this: “I believe you
have misinterpreted my answer to question 5 in ABC way, and that my answer correctly
addresses the exam question for XYZ reasons.” Note that when I regrade your paper or
exam, your grade may go up or down.
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Assignments
Participation
Positive participation means several things. First, I expect active listening—you should
be present and engaged with both lectures and class discussions. Repeated lateness or
absence, sleeping in class, looking at your cell phone, and the like are distracting to your
classmates and to me, and will hurt your class participation grade. Second, I expect regular
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verbal participation (asking questions, making observations, participating enthusiastically
in small group activities). You are also welcome to come to my office hours to discuss the
course materials outside of class. Finally, we will use i-clicker throughout the class for
a series of ungraded review and opinion questions. You will not be penalized for wrong
answers—treat them as a self-diagnostic of your comprehension of the course materials–
but you are expected to bring your clicker to every class and to answer every question.
Reading Quizzes
There will be 12 short reading quizzes over the course of the semester. Each quiz will
consist of three questions about the readings assigned for that day. If you do the readings
carefully, you should find the questions straightforward: They are designed to keep you
on schedule and test your basic understanding, not to trip you up. The quizzes will not
be announced in advance and will be held at the start of class, so please be sure to arrive
on time and be prepared for every class. That said, I know that we all have bad days, so
at the end of the semester I will drop your two lowest quiz grades.
Exams
The midterm and the final will follow similar formats: a combination of short answer
questions (IDs, multiple choice, etc.) and longer essay questions. The final will be cumulative, but will place greater emphasis on course material covered after the midterm than
on earlier material.
Policy Presentation
In the political economy of development unit, we will discuss some of the major political,
social, and geographic obstacles that prevent poor places from developing. In a team of
4-5 students, you will design and present to the class a policy change that could address
one such problem (which will be given to you several weeks in advance). Your grade will
be based on the quality of your presentation and your responses to audience questions.
More details will be distributed in October.
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Course Materials
You will need to purchase two things for this course, and to bring both with you to each
class meeting:
1. an i-clicker (available at the bookstore)
2. Nazneen H. Barma and Steven K. Vogel, eds., The Political Economy Reader: Markets as Institutions (abbreviated BV throughout the syllabus).
Additional readings will be available on the course website.
Please note that you are expected to complete each the readings associated with each
class meeting by the start of class. In other words, the readings associated with October
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17 should be completed no later than 3pm on the 17th (and could be covered by a reading
quiz that day).
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Schedule
Unit 1: Theoretical Approaches to Political Economy
Wednesday, August 24: Introduction: What is political economy?
Monday, August 29: Liberalism
• Excerpt from Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (BV pp. 27–40)
• Excerpt from Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom (BV pp. 107–115)
Wednesday, August 31: Marxism
• Excerpt from Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto (BV pp. 41-62)
Monday, September 5: No class (Labor Day)
Wednesday, September 7: Mercantilism
• Excerpt from Friedrich List, The National System of Political Economy (BV pp. 63–
86)
• James Fallows. 1993. “How The World Works,” The Atlantic pp. 61–87.
Monday, September 12: Economic Sociology
• Excerpt from Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation (BV pp. 121–151)
• Steven K. Vogel, “Why Freer Markets Need More Rules” (BV pp. 341–354)
Wednesday, September 14: New Institutional Economics
• Excerpt from Douglass C. North, Structure and Change in Economic History (BV
pp. 175–183)
• Excerpt from Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons
Unit 2: Varieties of Capitalism and Transitions to Capitalism
Monday, September 19: The “Varieties of Capitalism” framework
• Excerpt from Peter Hall and David Soskice, “An Introduction to the Varieties of
Capitalism” (BV pp. 289–326)
• Optional : Listen to Planet Money podcast #533, “Why Can’t Cars from Europe
and the US Just Get Along?”
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Wednesday, September 21: Applying the VoC framework to labor and vocational
training
• Margarita Estavez-Abe. 2006. “Gendering the Varieties of Capitalism: A Study of
Occupational Segregation by Sex in Advanced Industrial Societies” World Politics
59(1):142–175.
• William Greider, “Can Germany Reform American Labor Relations?” The Nation,
5 March 2014.
• Michael Dolgow, “Would German-Style Apprenticeship Work in the US?” Business
Week, 16 July 2012.
Monday, September 26: Critiquing and extending the VoC framework
• Andreas Nölke and Arjan Vliegenthart. 2009. “Enlarging the Varieties of Capitalism: The Emergence of Dependent Market Economies in East Central Europe”
World Politics 61(4): 670–693 (skip conclusion).
• Kathleen Thelen. 2012.“Varieties of Capitalism: Trajectories of Liberalization and
the New Politics of Social Solidarity” Annual Review of Political Science 15: 138–139
and 143–155.
Wednesday, September 28: State capitalism after WWII
• Excerpt from Chalmers Johnson, MITI and the Japanese Miracle (BV pp. 259–282).
• Peter Kingstone. 2011. The Political Economy of Latin America, pp. 21–32 and
37–44.
Monday, October 3: Contemporary state capitalism
• Excerpt from Seung-Youn Oh. 2013. “Fragmented Liberalization in the Chinese
Automotive Industry:” China Quarterly 216. Read pp. 920–936.
• Ian Bremmer. 2009. “State Capitalism Comes of Age” Foreign Affairs 88(3): 40–55.
Wednesday, October 5: Post-communist transitions, part 1: The USSR
• Excerpt from Jeffrey Sachs, The End of Poverty (BV pp. 359–374)
• Joel S. Hellman, “Winners Take All: The Politics of Partial Reform in Postcommunist Transitions” World Politics 50(2): 203–234.
FALL BREAK! No class October 10 or 12.
Monday, October 17: Post-communist transitions, part 2: China
• Excerpt from Doug Guthrie, China and Globalization (BV pp. 399–419)
• Jean Oi. 1992. “Fiscal Reform and the Economic Foundations of Local State Corporatism in China,” World Politics 45(1). Read pp. 99–105 and 113–126.
Wednesday, October 19: IN-CLASS MIDTERM
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Unit 3: The Political Economy of Development
Monday, October 24: Theories of economic development
• As an introduction to the unit, watch Hans Rosling’s 2007 TED talk, “New Insights
on Poverty” (19 minutes long). Available here: https://www.ted.com/talks/hans
rosling reveals new insights on poverty
• Excerpt from W.W. Rostow, The Stages of Economic Growth (BV pp. 199–209).
• Excerpt from Alexander Gerschenkron, Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective (BV pp. 211–227).
Wednesday, October 26: Critiques of the development paradigm
• Immanuel Wallerstein, “The Rise and Future Demise of the Capitalist World System,” pp. 16–36 (begin with “If capitalism is a mode of production...”)
Monday, October 31: Geography
• Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson. 2012. Why Nations Fail, Chapter 2: “Theories That Don’t Work.”
• Jeffrey Sachs’ review of Why Nations Fail, available here: https://www.foreignaffairs
.com/reviews/review-essay/government-geography-and-growth
Wednesday, November 2: The “resource curse”
• Listen to the Planet Money podcast “How to Avoid the Oil Curse” (September
6, 2011, 5 minutes long). Available here: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/
2011/09/06/140110346/how-to-avoid-the-oil-curse
• Terry Lynn Karl. 1997. The Paradox of Plenty: Oil Booms and Petro-States, Chapter 1.
Monday, November 7: Ethnic diversity
• James Habyarimana, Macartan Humphreys, Daniel N. Posner and Jeremy M. Weinstein. 2007. “Why Does Ethnic Diversity Undermine Public Goods Provision?”
American Political Science Review 101(4): 709–725.
Wednesday, November 9: Formal and informal institutions
• Excerpt from Hernando de Soto, The Mystery of Capital (BV pp. 475–482).
• Kellee Tsai. 2002. Back-Alley Banking: Private Entrepreneurs in China, pp. 1–23.
• Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson. 2012. Why Nations Fail, Chapter 3: “The
Making of Prosperity and Poverty.”
Monday, November 14: Is foreign aid the solution?
• Jeffrey Sachs. 2005. The End of Poverty, pp. 244-265.
• Dembisa Moyo. 2009. Dead Aid, pp. 48–68.
• Listen to This American Life episode #503, Act One: “Money for Nothing and
Your Cows For Free” (28 minutes long). Access the podcast here: http://www
.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/503/i-was-just-trying-to-help
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Unit 4: Globalization
Wednesday, November 16: What is globalization?
• Excerpt from Susan Strange, The Retreat of the State (BV pp. 525–534)
• Excerpt from Robert Gilpin, Global Political Economy (BV pp. 535–546)
• Joseph Stiglitz. 2005. “The Overselling of Globalization” pp. 228–257.
Monday, November 21: Globalization’s impact on developing countries
• Leslie Chang. Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China, pp. 98–119.
• David Dollar. 2005. “Globalization, Povery, and Inequality since 1980.” World
Bank Research Observer 20(2): 145–175.
Wednesday, November 23: Thanksgiving Break!
Monday, November 28: Globalization’s impact on advanced industrial countries
• Suzanne Berger. 2013. Making in America: From Innovation to Market. Chapter
2, “What Happened to Manufacturing?”
• Michael Spence. “Globalization and Unemployment” Foreign Affairs, 2 June 2011.
• David Moberg. “How Wal-Mart Shapes the World” The American Prospect, 19
April 2011.
• Listen a short two-part Planet Money podcast (about 12 minutes total): “The History of Factory Jobs in America, In One Town” (http://www.npr.org/sections/
money/2012/01/12/145038754/the-history-of-factory-jobs-in-america-in-one
-town) and “The Transformation of American Factory Jobs, In One Company”
(http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/01/13/145039131/the-transformation
-of-american-factory-jobs-in-one-company)
Wednesday, November 30: The 2008 Financial Crisis
• Listen to the This American Life podcast entitled “The Giant Pool of Money”
(2008, about one hour long). Available here: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/
radio-archives/episode/355/the-giant-pool-of-money
Monday, December 5: Globalization and regulation: A “race to the bottom”?
• Nita Rudra. 2008. Globalization and the Race to the Bottom in Developing Countries, pp. 19–26 and 46–47.
• David Vogel. 1997. “Trading Up and Governing Across: Transnational Governance
and Environmental Protection,” Journal of European Public Policy 4(4): 556–71.
Wednesday, December 7: Globalization and the welfare state
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• Herbert Obinger et al.. 2010. Transformations of the Welfare State: Small States,
Big Lessons, pp. 1–23.
Monday, December 12: Wrap-up: What will the future look like?
• Joshua Rothman, “Are Computers Making Society More Unequal?”
Yorker, 6 November 2013.
The New
• John Cassidy, “The Good (and Bad) News About Poverty and Global Trade” The
New Yorker, 6 October 2015.
• Henry Farrell, “Dark Leviathan,” available here: https://aeon.co/essays/why
-the-hidden-internet-can-t-be-a-libertarian-paradise
DECEMBER XXXXXXX: FINAL EXAM
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