SP&E 410 - Political Economy of International Development

This course is about political institutions and economic development. In recent years, there has been a surge of literature on political and economic development, at the very heart of which is the relationship between political systems and economic performance. The rising interest in this topic has resulted from the two grand trends that have, during a course of previous two decades, changed most fundamentally the ways in which billions of people live and work: political democratization and economic liberalization. Economists, political scientists, and sociologists have made this area of study one of the most dynamic and fruitful in the social sciences since the early 1990s. It will remain one of the most important research topics, perhaps, the single most important one in the field of international and comparative political economy, for many years to come; the need to study the relationship between the two kinds of development has never been stronger and the call for explication and elaboration of them has never been more imperative.
Units: 4
Course Type: Seminar