74638 - Globalization, States and Markets

Academic Year 2018/2019

  • Docente: Rosa Mulè
  • Credits: 8
  • SSD: SPS/04
  • Language: English

Learning outcomes

The course explores changes in the international economy and their effects on domestic politics and economics. At the end of the course, students will be able to analyze issues such as: - Is globalization really a new phenomenon? - Is it irreversible? - What are the effects on wages, inequality, social safety nets, production, innovation and competition? - How does globalization affect democracy? - Are markets beyond the control of political institutions?

Course contents






Globalization, states and markets

2018-2019

This course surveys and discusses the political and economic factors underlying cross-national variation in economic performance, income inequality and responses to international economic crises in advanced capitalist states. The course is structured around the following questions: In what ways does the international economy shape state autonomy? Why do democratic countries differ in their responses to global trends and economic crises? To what extent do differences in institutional settings shape fundamentally different models of democratic capitalism? What is the role of institutions, firms and labour unions in determining the different arrangements we find in the contemporary world? The course investigates the effects of political institutions, veto players as well as coalition politics on economic outcomes and assesses the relative performance of different political-economic systems. The scope of the course is analytical, it focuses on theoretical models and applies the comparative method.

Course Procedures and Evaluation

Each student should read the 'required readings' for each class. In some classes ‘further reading’ is intended to provide background introduction to the main readings. Student groups should prepare in advance two questions per each topic.

Evaluation:

Class participation 15% grade

Students’ presentation 20% grade

Mid-term exam 35% grade

Written paper 30% grade. 2500 words. Deadline for written paper 31 December 2018

Classes will involve lectures, presentations by guest speakers, and inter-active sessions in which students will have an opportunity to participate.

Part I Globalization: history and debates

1. Waves of globalization

Required reading

Polanyi, K. 2001, The Great Transformation. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, chapters 3-6.

Eichengreen, B. J. 1992, Golden Fetters: The Gold Standard and The Great Depression, 1919-1939. Oxford University Press, chapters 1-3.

Further reading

Berger, S. 2013, Puzzles from the first globalization, in M.Kahler and D. Lake eds. Politics in the new hard times, Cornell University Press, pp. 150-167.

2. Globalization : contending approaches

This session is based on ‘debating contests’. Students prepare in advance to put forward and defend one approach.

Required reading

Hirst, P., Thompson, G. and S. Bromley, eds. 2009. Globalization in Question. Polity Press, 3rd ed. chapters 1-2.

Bordo, M. Eichengreen, B. J. Irwin, D. A. 1999, Is Globalization Today Really Different than Globalization 100 years ago? NBER Working Paper No. 7195, pp. 1-27.

Further reading

Haas, P. M. and J. A. Hird. 2013, Controversies in globalization : contending approaches to international relations, 2. SAGE.

Lansbury, R. (2018) The changing world of work and employment relations: a multi-level institutional perspective of the future, Labour & Industry Vol. 28, 5-20.

Zohlnhöfer, R., Engler, F. Dümig, K. (2018) The Retreat of the Interventionist State in Advanced Democracies, British Journal of Political Science , Vol. 48, 2, 535-562.

Kyung Mi, K. Hyeong-Ki,K. (2017) The State's Role in Globalization: Korea's Experience from a Comparative Perspective, Politics & Society Vol. 45, 4, 505-531.

Part II Alternative explanations: Territorial, Sectorial, Institutional Coordination and Complementarity

3. Territorial and sectorial perspectives

Required reading

Clift, B. 2014 Comparative Political Economy. States, Markets and Global Capitalism, Palgrave MacMillan, 2014, chapter 8.

Mann, M. 1997, Has globalization ended the rise and rise of the nation-state? Review of International Political Economy, 4.

Frieden, J. 1991.Invested Interests: The Politics of National Economic Policies in a World of Global Finance. International Organization, 45, pp. 425-30 and 442-51.

Further reading

Rommel, T.; Walter, S. (2018) The Electoral Consequences of Offshoring: How the Globalization of Production Shapes Party Preferences, Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 51, 5, 621-658.

Hay, C. 2011. Globalisation’s impact on states, I J. Ravenhill ed. Global political economy, Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 312-44.

Iversen, T. and D. Soskice. 2006. Electoral Institutions and the Politics of Coalitions: Why Some Democracies Redistribute More Than Others. American Political Science Review 100, pp. 165-181.

Keech, W. 2014. Economic Politics in the United States: The Costs and Risks of

Democracy. Cambridge University Press, Chapters 8 and 9.

4. Institutional coordination and complementarity

In this session students will present the German case as a coordinated market economy or the USA as a liberal market economy

Required reading

Hall, P. and D. Soskice. 2001. An Introduction to Varieties of Capitalism, in P. Hall and D. Soskice, eds. Varieties of Capitalism. Oxford University Press, pp. 1-68.

Further reading

Hancké, B. 2009. Debating Varieties of Capitalism: A Reader. Oxford University

Press (any chapter).

5. Global labour markets and political institutions

Required reading

Fleckenstein, T. and Lee, S. 2017. The Politics of Labor Market Reform in Coordinated Welfare Capitalism: Comparing Sweden, Germany, and South Korea. World Politics,

Bearce, D., and Hart, A., 2017. International Labor Mobility and the Variety of Democratic Political Institutions. International Organization, 71, pp. 65-95.

Lallement, M. 2011. Europe and the economic crisis: forms of labour market adjustment and varieties of capitalism, Work, employment and society, 25, pp. 627-641.

Zartaloudis, S. and A. Kornelakis. 2017 “Flexicurity between Europeanization and Varieties of Capitalism? A Comparative Analysis of Employment Protection Reforms in Portu-gal and Greece.” Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol 55, no. 5, pp1144 – 1161.

6. Globalization, Domestic Politics, taxation and spending

Required reading

Pablo Beramendi (et al.) ed. 2015 The politics of advanced capitalism, New York : Cambridge University Press


Carter, D. B., & Goemans, H. E. 2018. International trade and coordination. Tracing Border Effects World Politics, 70(1), 1-52.

Hays, J. 2003. Globalization and Capital Taxation in Consensus and Majoritarian Democracies. World Politics, 56, pp. 79-113.

Busemeyer, M. 2009. From myth to reality: Globalisation and public spending in

OECD countries revisited. European Journal of Political Research, 48, pp. 455-482.

Further reading

Hellwig, T. and D. Samuels. 2007. Voting in Open Economies: The Electoral Consequences of Globalization. Comparative Political Studies (March), pp. 283-306.

Hays, J., Ehrlich, S. and C. Peinhardt. 2005. Government Spending and Public

Support for Trade in the OECD: An Empirical Test of the Embedded Liberalism Thesis.

International Organization (Spring), pp. 473-94.

Jensen, C. 2010. Conditional contraction: Globalisation and capitalist systems.

European Journal of Political Research, 50, pp. 168-189.

Part III

7. Global economic crises and varieties of states’ responses

International economic crisis of 1929 and 1973

This session is based on students’ presentations of national responses to international economic crises.

Required reading

Gourevitch, P. 1986, Politics in Hard Times. Ithaca, Cornell University Press, chapter 1 and chapters on 1929 and 1973 international economic crises.

Hall, P. 2009. The Evolution of Varieties of Capitalism in Europe, in Hancké, B. Rhodes, M. and M. Thatcher, eds. Beyond Varieties of Capitalism, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

8. The global financial crisis 2007- 2008

Required reading

Pontusson, J. and D. Raess, 2012, How (and Why) Is This Time Different? The Politics of Economic Crisis in Western Europe and the United States, Annual Review of Political Science, 15, pp. 13-33.

Iversen, T. and D. Soskice, 2009, Modern Capitalism and the Advanced Nation State: Understanding the Causes of the Crisis, in B. Hanké et al. (ed.) Beyond varieties of capitalism. Chapter 2.

Further reading

Kahler, M. and Lake, D.A. eds., 2013, Politics in the New Hard Times, The Great Recession in Comparative Perspective, Cornell University Press, Introduction.

Mulé, R. and G. Walzenbach, 2017, Striking a Balance? Comparative and International Political Economy in Times of Crisis, in E. Baroncelli and R. Mulé eds. The political economy of crisis and change in the new global context, Egea, Milan.

Westra, R. et al. 2015, The future of capitalism after the financial crisis. The varieties of capitalism debate in the age of austerity, Routledge.

Cama G. 2015. Markets and Power. The Repercussions of Financial Globalization on Autonomy and Power of States. Rivista Italiana di Politiche Pubbliche, 2, pp. 153-177.

Morlino,L. and F. Raniolo, 2017, The impact of the Economic Crisis on South European Democracies, Palgrave.

Eichengreen, B. 2015. Hall of mirrors : the great depression, the great recession, and the uses and misuses of history, Oxford University Press.

9. The political economy of the Great Recession and the welfare state

Required reading

Armingeon. K. 2014, Breaking with the Past? Why the Global Financial Crisis led to Austerity Policies but not to Modernization of the Welfare State, in Pierson, C. Castles, F. and I.K. Naumann, The welfare state reader, Polity Press.

Frieden, J. and S. Walter, 2017, Understanding the political economy of the Eurozone crisis, in Annual Review of Political Science, 20, pp. 371-90.

Further reading

Kanbur, R. 2015. Globalization and Inequality, in A.B.Atkinson and F. Bourguignon, Handbook of income distribution, North-Holland, Amsterdam, chapter 20.

Hall, P. 2013 The political origins of our economic discontents. Contemporary Adjustment Problems in Historical Perspective, in Kahler, M. and Lake, D.A. (eds.), Politics in the New Hard Times, The Great Recession in Comparative Perspective, Cornell University Press, chapter 5.

Scheidel, W. 2017. The Great Leveler. Violence and the history of inequality from the stone age to the twenty-first century, Princeton, Princeton University Press, chapter 15.

Sacchi, S. and J. Roh 2016. Conditionality, austerity and welfare: Financial crisis and its impact on welfare in Italy and Korea. Journal of European Social Policy, 26, pp. 358-373.

10. Internet governance between state and markets

Amoretti, F. and M. Santaniello. 2016. Between reason of state and reason of market. The development of internet governance in historical perspective, Soft Power, 3, pp.147-167.

Readings/Bibliography

Evaluation:

Class participation 15% grade

Students’ presentation 20% grade

mid-term exam 35% grade

Written paper of 2.500 words 30% grade. Deadline for written paper 31 DECEMBER 2019

Globalization, states and markets

2018-2019

This course surveys and discusses the political and economic factors underlying cross-national variation in economic performance, income inequality and responses to international economic crises in advanced capitalist states. The course is structured around the following questions: In what ways does the international economy shape state autonomy? Why do democratic countries differ in their responses to global trends and economic crises? To what extent do differences in institutional settings shape fundamentally different models of democratic capitalism? What is the role of institutions, firms and labour unions in determining the different arrangements we find in the contemporary world? The course investigates the effects of political institutions, veto players as well as coalition politics on economic outcomes and assesses the relative performance of different political-economic systems. The scope of the course is analytical, it focuses on theoretical models and applies the comparative method.

Course Procedures and Evaluation

Each student should read the 'required readings' for each class. In some classes ‘further reading’ is intended to provide background introduction to the main readings. Student groups should prepare in advance two questions per each topic.

 

Classes will involve lectures, presentations by guest speakers, and inter-active sessions in which students will have an opportunity to participate.

Part I Globalization: history and debates

1. Waves of globalization

Required reading

Polanyi, K. 2001, The Great Transformation. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, chapters 3-6.

Eichengreen, B. J. 1992, Golden Fetters: The Gold Standard and The Great Depression, 1919-1939. Oxford University Press, chapters 1-3.

Further reading

Berger, S. 2013, Puzzles from the first globalization, in M.Kahler and D. Lake eds. Politics in the new hard times, Cornell University Press, pp. 150-167.

2. Globalization : contending approaches

This session is based on ‘debating contests’. Students prepare in advance to put forward and defend one approach.

Required reading

Hirst, P., Thompson, G. and S. Bromley, eds. 2009. Globalization in Question. Polity Press, 3rd ed. chapters 1-2.

Bordo, M. Eichengreen, B. J. Irwin, D. A. 1999, Is Globalization Today Really Different than Globalization 100 years ago? NBER Working Paper No. 7195, pp. 1-27.

Further reading

Haas, P. M. and J. A. Hird. 2013, Controversies in globalization : contending approaches to international relations, 2. SAGE.

Lansbury, R. (2018) The changing world of work and employment relations: a multi-level institutional perspective of the future, Labour & Industry Vol. 28, 5-20.

Zohlnhöfer, R., Engler, F. Dümig, K. (2018) The Retreat of the Interventionist State in Advanced Democracies, British Journal of Political Science , Vol. 48, 2, 535-562.

Kyung Mi, K. Hyeong-Ki,K. (2017) The State's Role in Globalization: Korea's Experience from a Comparative Perspective, Politics & Society Vol. 45, 4, 505-531.

Part II Alternative explanations: Territorial, Sectorial, Institutional Coordination and Complementarity

3. Territorial and sectorial perspectives

Required reading

Clift, B. 2014 Comparative Political Economy. States, Markets and Global Capitalism, Palgrave MacMillan, 2014, chapter 8.

Mann, M. 1997, Has globalization ended the rise and rise of the nation-state? Review of International Political Economy, 4.

Frieden, J. 1991.Invested Interests: The Politics of National Economic Policies in a World of Global Finance. International Organization, 45, pp. 425-30 and 442-51.

Further reading

Rommel, T.; Walter, S. (2018) The Electoral Consequences of Offshoring: How the Globalization of Production Shapes Party Preferences, Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 51, 5, 621-658.

Hay, C. 2011. Globalisation’s impact on states, I J. Ravenhill ed. Global political economy, Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 312-44.

Iversen, T. and D. Soskice. 2006. Electoral Institutions and the Politics of Coalitions: Why Some Democracies Redistribute More Than Others. American Political Science Review 100, pp. 165-181.

Keech, W. 2014. Economic Politics in the United States: The Costs and Risks of

Democracy. Cambridge University Press, Chapters 8 and 9.

4. Institutional coordination and complementarity

In this session students will present the German case as a coordinated market economy or the USA as a liberal market economy

Required reading

Hall, P. and D. Soskice. 2001. An Introduction to Varieties of Capitalism, in P. Hall and D. Soskice, eds. Varieties of Capitalism. Oxford University Press, pp. 1-68.

Further reading

Hancké, B. 2009. Debating Varieties of Capitalism: A Reader. Oxford University

Press (any chapter).

5. Global labour markets and political institutions

Required reading

Fleckenstein, T. and Lee, S. 2017. The Politics of Labor Market Reform in Coordinated Welfare Capitalism: Comparing Sweden, Germany, and South Korea. World Politics,

Bearce, D., and Hart, A., 2017. International Labor Mobility and the Variety of Democratic Political Institutions. International Organization, 71, pp. 65-95.

Lallement, M. 2011. Europe and the economic crisis: forms of labour market adjustment and varieties of capitalism, Work, employment and society, 25, pp. 627-641.

6. Globalization, Domestic Politics, taxation and spending

Required reading

Pablo Beramendi (et al.) 2015 The politics of advanced capitalism / edited by New York : Cambridge University Press

Carter, D. B., & Goemans, H. E. (2018). International trade and coordination. Tracing Border Effects World Politics, 70(1), 1-52.

Hays, J. 2003. Globalization and Capital Taxation in Consensus and Majoritarian Democracies. World Politics, 56, pp. 79-113.

Busemeyer, M. 2009. From myth to reality: Globalisation and public spending in

OECD countries revisited. European Journal of Political Research, 48, pp. 455-482.

Further reading

Hellwig, T. and D. Samuels. 2007. Voting in Open Economies: The Electoral Consequences of Globalization. Comparative Political Studies (March), pp. 283-306.

Hays, J., Ehrlich, S. and C. Peinhardt. 2005. Government Spending and Public

Support for Trade in the OECD: An Empirical Test of the Embedded Liberalism Thesis.

International Organization (Spring), pp. 473-94.

Jensen, C. 2010. Conditional contraction: Globalisation and capitalist systems.

European Journal of Political Research, 50, pp. 168-189.

Part III

7. Global economic crises and varieties of states’ responses

International economic crisis of 1929 and 1973

This session is based on students’ presentations of national responses to international economic crises.

Required reading

Gourevitch, P. 1986, Politics in Hard Times. Ithaca, Cornell University Press, chapter 1 and chapters on 1929 and 1973 international economic crises.

Hall, P. 2009. The Evolution of Varieties of Capitalism in Europe, in Hancké, B. Rhodes, M. and M. Thatcher, eds. Beyond Varieties of Capitalism, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

8. The global financial crisis 2007- 2008

Required reading

Pontusson, J. and D. Raess, 2012, How (and Why) Is This Time Different? The Politics of Economic Crisis in Western Europe and the United States, Annual Review of Political Science, 15, pp. 13-33.

Iversen, T. and D. Soskice, 2009, Modern Capitalism and the Advanced Nation State: Understanding the Causes of the Crisis, in B. Hanké et al. (ed.) Beyond varieties of capitalism. Chapter 2.

Further reading

Kahler, M. and Lake, D.A. eds., 2013, Politics in the New Hard Times, The Great Recession in Comparative Perspective, Cornell University Press, Introduction.

Mulé, R. and G. Walzenbach, 2017, Striking a Balance? Comparative and International Political Economy in Times of Crisis, in E. Baroncelli and R. Mulé eds. The political economy of crisis and change in the new global context, Egea, Milan.

Westra, R. et al. 2015, The future of capitalism after the financial crisis. The varieties of capitalism debate in the age of austerity, Routledge.

Cama G. 2015. Markets and Power. The Repercussions of Financial Globalization on Autonomy and Power of States. Rivista Italiana di Politiche Pubbliche, 2, pp. 153-177.

Morlino,L. and F. Raniolo, 2017, The impact of the Economic Crisis on South European Democracies, Palgrave.

Eichengreen, B. 2015. Hall of mirrors : the great depression, the great recession, and the uses and misuses of history, Oxford University Press.

9. The political economy of the Great Recession and the welfare state

Required reading

Armingeon. K. 2014, Breaking with the Past? Why the Global Financial Crisis led to Austerity Policies but not to Modernization of the Welfare State, in Pierson, C. Castles, F. and I.K. Naumann, The welfare state reader, Polity Press.

Frieden, J. and S. Walter, 2017, Understanding the political economy of the Eurozone crisis, in Annual Review of Political Science, 20, pp. 371-90.

Further reading

Kanbur, R. 2015. Globalization and Inequality, in A.B.Atkinson and F. Bourguignon, Handbook of income distribution, North-Holland, Amsterdam, chapter 20.

Hall, P. 2013 The political origins of our economic discontents. Contemporary Adjustment Problems in Historical Perspective, in Kahler, M. and Lake, D.A. (eds.), Politics in the New Hard Times, The Great Recession in Comparative Perspective, Cornell University Press, chapter 5.

Scheidel, W. 2017. The Great Leveler. Violence and the history of inequality from the stone age to the twenty-first century, Princeton, Princeton University Press, chapter 15.

Sacchi, S. and J. Roh 2016. Conditionality, austerity and welfare: Financial crisis and its impact on welfare in Italy and Korea. Journal of European Social Policy, 26, pp. 358-373.

10. Internet governance between state and markets

Amoretti, F. and M. Santaniello. 2016. Between reason of state and reason of market. The development of internet governance in historical perspective, Soft Power, 3, pp.147-167.

Teaching methods

Classes will involve lectures, presentations by guest speakers, and inter-active sessions in which students will have an opportunity to participate.

Assessment methods

Evaluation:

Class participation 15% grade

Students’ presentation 20% grade

mid-term exam 35% grade

Written paper of 2.500 words 30% grade. Deadline for written paper 31 DECEMBER 2018

Teaching tools

videos and slides

Office hours

See the website of Rosa Mulè