National Research University – Higher School of Economics

10 Great Books in International Political Economy and International Relations and Political Economy
Course Syllabus

Professor:      Maxim Bratersky 

Description: The idea of this seminar course was borrowed from a course taught by Prof. Eric Jones at SAIS, John Hopkins University, with some revisions in literature and themes. Throughout the course the students will explore some of the major contributions to international political economy and international relations. The focus on the course will be on globalization and international integration, its advantages and disadvantages, on non-state actors, interdependence, institutions, and ideas. Another pedagogical purpose of the course will be to help students develop a culture of reading and analyzing complex texts. 
Students will be asked to read a book or article a week in preparation for inclass discussion. There are ten weeks of reading, and students will write 5 short essays of 250 words in response to established questions (in the reading list). The essays will be due at the beginning of the class where the books will be discussed. The purpose of the short essays is to develop students’ skills in analytic writing. Therefore, three things to take care of in the essay will be: Answer the question; develop your answer as an argument; and stick to the word limit. This assignment will count for 40 percent of the mark
Second assignment for the students will be to write a book review of 800 words on a book in international political economy published after 1990 and not included in this course. The book review should highlight the specific contribution of the book to the wider literature on international political economy and IR. The book review is due at the end of the course and will count for 40 percent of your final course grade.
Students will also be expected to participate actively in class, and class participation will count for 20 percent of the final mark.

OUTLINE

1.	Establishment of  IPE
 	E.H. Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis (1939) 
	How are economics and politics interconnected?

2.	Ideology 
Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (1942–3rd ed. 1950) Why is capitalism doomed to fail?

Systems 
3.	Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation (1946)
Why free market is considered artificial and welfare state is organic? 

Interdependence 
4.	Richard N. Cooper, The Economics of Interdependence (1968) 
Why is cooperation necessary for all countries, even the most powerful?

Selfishness
5.	David Calleo and Benjamin Rowland, America and the World Political Economy (1973) 
How does the United State abuse its role in the world economy?

Order 
6.	Charles Kindleberger, The World in Depression, Ch. 14
Why is hegemony important for international economic stability?

Competition 
7.	Robert Gilpin, U.S. Power and the Multinational Corporation 
Do Multinational corporations weaken the state, or strengthen it? 

Dependency 
8.	Fernando Cardoso and Enzo Faletto, Dependency and Development in Latin America (1979) 
To what extent are developing country elites responsible for dependency on the North?

Disorder 
9.	Robert O. Keohane, After Hegemony (1984) How can cooperation replace hegemony?

Economics and Politics
Susan Strange, The Retreat of the State
10.	 How does economic uncertainty affect political stability?