SENIOR SEMINAR: GLOBALISATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS in Spring 2019 (PO4090)

Globalization is a ubiquitous but nebulous social scientific concept covering diverse phenomena: the ICT revolution, the universalization of capitalism, the institutionalization of global legal regimes (ICC), or the rise of global networks and transnational social movements... Understandings vary according to differing theoretical perspectives and normative commitments. Defenders of the liberal globalization hypothesis argue that we are experiencing a fundamental transformation in the spatial and temporal conditions of modernity and a transition from Westphalian to post-international politics. Realist critics of this view point instead to the persistence of the historic nation-state, power relations and interstate hierarchy, and national identities in the making of international politics. Neo-Marxists focus attention on the transnationalisation of capital and the division of labor, emphasizing the way global commodity chains and transnational capital flows have produced sharply uneven glocal social and economic effects. This course explores the various dimensions of globalization as an historic and social phenomenon, examines the major authors who have contributed to the debate, and focuses a critical gaze on the problems raised by globalization.