PSC 753 International Political Economy

Prof. Richard Sherman     Fall 2002

This course surveys contemporary research on international political economy. Topics include trade, finance, cooperation and institutions, and globalization. The course focuses on the ways in which international actors––states, interest groups, international organizations, firms, and individuals––influence and respond to economic and political forces that operate across national boundaries.

Class meetings follow a seminar format with an emphasis on discussion. Thoughtful participation in discussions is an important requirement of the course. Along with class participation, you will also write three short (ten-page) papers on the readings and give two in-class presentations on weekly readings.

Beginning with week 3, each week's reading will be presented by two or more participants in the seminar. Those responsible for presenting the week's reading will introduce the main ideas in the texts and provide a critical perspective on them as a means of opening the discussion. A "critical perspective" is not the same thing as a judgment or qualitative appraisal: the point is not to assign a passing or failing grade to the readings, but to use the readings as a window to international political economy. Your critical assessment might include a discussion of what is left unanswered by the theoretical approach represented in the week's reading, or it might be based on illustrative examples that support or weaken the reading's central claims, or it might draw connections between the readings and other analytical approaches or theoretical questions––or a combination of these things. I encourage you to provide handouts or short (2-3 page) papers to facilitate your presentations.

We will allocate the readings among presenters during the second class meeting. The paper due dates are listed below. Grades will be determined as follows:

Participation 20%

Presentations 20%

Three papers 20% each

Books available from Follett's Orange Bookstore:

Ronald Rogowski, Commerce and Coalitions: How Trade Affects Domestic Political Alignments (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989)

Eric Helleiner, States and the Reemergence of Global Finance: From Bretton Woods to the 1990s (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994)

Susan Strange, Mad Money: When Markets Outgrow Governments (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1998)

Beth A. Simmons, Who Adjusts? Domestic Sources of Foreign Economic Policy During the Interwar Years (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994)

Geoffrey Garrett, Partisan Politics in the Global Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998)

Joseph A. Stiglitz, Globalization and Its Discontents (New York: W.W. Norton, 2002)

Mark E. Rupert, Ideologies of Globalization: Contending Visions of a New World Order (London: Routledge, 2000)

Remaining readings are available online or, where necessary, in a reading packet available at the Copy Center in Marshall Square Mall. Most online readings can be accessed from the course web site, http://www/maxwell.syr.edu/maxpages/faculty/sherman/psc753.html The readings that are not web-linked from the syllabus but are noted as "available online through SU library" can be reached by searching for the journal title on the SU library web site and clicking through to the electronic version of the journal. The online readings are accessible from computers on the syr.edu domain, or from your home computer if you have followed the instructions on the SU library for setting up your proxy server.

The books and the reading packet are also on reserve at Bird Library.

Paper due dates:

October 10 a paper on (some of) the readings on trade
November 7 a paper on (some of) the readings on finance
December 5 a paper on (some of ) the readings on either globalization/openness or cooperation & institutions
 

Schedule of readings

Aug. 29       Introduction to course

                    no assigned reading
 

Sept. 5        Perspectives on international political economy

Jeffrey Frieden and Lisa Martin "International Political Economy: The State of the Sub-Discipline", forthcoming in Ira Katznelson and Helen Milner, Political Science: The State of the Discipline (New York: W.W. Norton).

Peter J. Katzenstein, Robert O. Keohane, and Stephen D. Krasner, "International Organization and the Study of World Politics," International Organization 52(2), Autumn 1998, pp. 645-686. (available online through SU library)

Mark Rupert, "Class Powers and the Politics of Global Governance," Paper prepared for conference on Power and Global Governance, Madison, Wisconsin, April 19-21, 2002.
 

Sept. 12     Trade: Realist approaches Albert O. Hirschman, National Power and the Structure of Foreign Trade (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1945), chs. 1-4.

David A. Lake, "Beneath the Commerce of Nations: A Theory of International Economic Structures,"International Studies Quarterly, 28, 2 (June 1984): 143-170.

Edward Mansfield, Power, Trade, and War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), chs. 1, 5

  Sept. 19     Trade: factor endowments, domestic cleavages, and political systems Ronald Rogowski, Commerce and Coalitions: How Trade Affects Domestic Political Alignments (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989), preface & chs. 1-4, 6-7.

Michael J. Hiscox, "Class Versus Industry Cleavages: Inter-Industry Factor Mobility and the Politics of Trade," International Organization 55(1), Winter 2001, pp. 1-46. (available online through SU library)

Daniel Verdier, "Democratic Convergence and Free Trade." International Studies Quarterly 42(1), March 1998, pp. 1-24. (available online through SU library)
 

Sept. 26     Trade: specific factors, transaction costs, inter-industry trade, and some other things James Alt, Jeffry Frieden, Michael Gilligan, Dani Rodrik, and Ronald Rogowski, "The Political Economy of International Trade: Enduring Puzzles and an Agenda for Inquiry," Comparative Political Studies 29(6), Dec. 1996.

Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey, "Specific Factors, Capital Markets, Portfolio Diversification, and Free Trade: Domestic Determinants of the Repeal of the Corn Laws," World Politics 43(4), Jul., 1991, pp. 545-569.

Michael J. Gilligan, "Lobbying as a Private Good with Intra-Industry Trade," International Studies Quarterly 41(3), Sep. 1997, 455-74.

Beth V. Yarbrough and Robert M. Yarbrough, Cooperation and Governance in International Trade: The Strategic Organizational Approach (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), chs. 1-2

  Oct. 3       Finance: states leading markets Eric Helleiner, States and the Reemergence of Global Finance: From Bretton Woods to the 1990s (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994), all.   Oct. 10     Finance: markets leading states Susan Strange, Mad Money: When Markets Outgrow Governments (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1998), all.   Oct. 17     Finance: a miscellany of topics J. Lawrence Broz, "The Origins of Central Banking: Solutions to the Free-Rider Problem."International Organization 51 (Spring 1998), pp. 231-68. (available online through SU library)

Andrew Macintyre, "Insitutions and Investors: The Politics of the Economic Crisis in Southeast Asia," International Organization 55(1), Winter 2001, pp. 81-122. (available online through SU library)
 

Oct. 24     Globalization & openness

Beth A. Simmons, Who Adjusts? Domestic Sources of Foreign Economic Policy During the Interwar Years (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), chs. 1-4, 6, 8.
 

Oct. 31     Globalization & openness Geoffrey Garrett, Partisan Politics in the Global Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), chs. 1, 2, 4, 5

William Roberts Clark, Capitalism, not Globalism: Capital Mobility, Central Bank Independence, and the Political Control of the Economy (forthcoming, University of Michigan Press), chs. 1, 3, 4.
 

Nov. 7     Globalization and openness

Selection from Joseph A. Stiglitz, Globalization and Its Discontents

Selection from Mark Rupert, Ideologies of Globalization
 

Nov. 14     Cooperation and institutions: some fundamentals
  Robert Axelrod & Robert Keohane, "Cooperation under Anarchy," World Politics 1985

Robert Keohane, "The Demand for International Regimes," International Organization 1982.

John Mearsheimer, "The False Promise of International Institutions," International Security 1995.

John Gerard Ruggie, "The False Premise of Realism," International Security 1995.
 

recommended:

Stephen D. Krasner, International Regimes

Kenneth A. Oye, Economic Discrimination and Political Exchange
 

Nov. 21     Cooperation and institutions: the two-level problem\ Helen V. Milner, Interests, Institutions, and Information: Domestic Politics and International Relations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), ch. 1-3, 5, 8.
 

recommended:

Robert D. Putnam, "Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level Games," International Organization 42(), 427-60.

Keisuke Iida, "When and How Do Domestic Constraints Matter? 2-Level Games with Uncertainty," Journal of Conflict Resolution 37(3), Sep. 1993, pp. 403-426.

Suzanne Lohmann and Sharyn O'Halloran, "Divided Government and US Trade Policy: Theory and Evidence," International Organization 48(4), Autumn 1994, pp. 595-632.

Richard Sherman, "Delegation, Ratification, and US Trade Policy: Why Divided Government Causes Lower Tariffs," Comparative Political Studies, forthcoming Dec. 2002.
 

Nov. 28     no class -- Thanksgiving holiday
 

Dec. 5     Cooperation and institutions

Selection from Kenneth A. Oye, Economic Discrimination and Political Exchange

Selection from Lloyd Gruber, Ruling the World