Globalization and Development
Term:
Fall 2009
Subject Code:
GECO
Course Number:
6230
This
course analyzes the implications and consequences of globalization for
development in the contemporary world economy. It questions the orthodox
prescription that globalization and markets are the road to development in the
twenty-first century, to develop a heterodox perspective based on an
understanding of theory and a study of experience. It begins with a historical
analysis, to highlight the parallels, similarities and differences in, comparison
with an earlier epoch of globalization during the late nineteenth century. It
considers the economic characteristics, manifestations, and drivers of
globalization in the present phase. And it shows that the existing global
rules, which are unfair, encroach upon essential policy space. This leads into the discussion of the impact
of globalization on countries in terms of growth and on people in terms of
well-being, with some focus on the gap between rich and poor, which suggests
that the outcome is uneven development and economic divergence rather than
rapid growth and economic convergence. Given these realities, the course
explores how globalization could be made more conductive to economic
development that benefits poor countries and poor people. In this endeavour, it
poses, and attempts to answer, two questions.
In the national context, is it possible to introduce correctives and
redesign strategies so that the outcome is a more egalitarian development? In
the international context, is it possible to reshape the rules of the game and
contemplate some governance of globalization to create more policy space for
the pursuit of national development objectives?
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