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| This course examines economic, political, and cultural dimensions of globalization. Although the class focuses primarily on contemporary globalization over the last thirty-five years, we begin by examining how colonialism and the rise of industrial capitalism laid the foundation of our contemporary global economic system. The course then turns to the 20th century, closely interrogating technological, geographical and historical drivers of economic globalization from the 1970s to the present, from changing transportation and communication technologies to the geography of labor costs and state regulation. How have different groups and places around the world been affected by these processes? What have been the impacts on social equity and sustainability? In exploring these questions we also examine the role of the state and transnational institutions in globalization, asking how globalization has reconfigured the relationship between states and their citizens in both the Global North (e.g. the United States) and the Global South (e.g. Thailand). Finally, we examine how culture is both a driver and an outcome of economic globalization: what is the impact of economic globalization and powerful corporations such as McDonalds on "local" cultures around the world? What values and cultural assumptions are embedded within globalized products and production systems? How are people reacting to the cultural dimensions of globalization around the world? Specific topics to be covered include: the emergence of an international division of labor; the rise of multinational corporations; the role of the International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organization in globalization processes; the debt crisis and its impacts in the Global South; and cultural and political reactions to globalization. |
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Course Fees: