PSCI 2248 - Politics of International Economics

The course is an introduction to the politics of state-to-state economic relations. Political economy, as the name suggests, is a marriage between politics and economics, and as such is a multi-faceted discipline incorporating the study of economics, political science, sociology, law and geography. In this course, however, we will focus on the broad-scale trade between states, the politics of major economic unions like the European Union, large-scale regional trade agreements like NAFTA and the TPP, and key institutions of global system like the World Bank and IMF. In doing so we will focus on the role these systems play in the global political economy and analyze its future in the context of historical and current debates about optimal economic policies for different political constituencies. 3 credits.