Politics 200D: Political Economy

Spring 2005, Monday 5-8 PM, Stevenson 217

Ronnie Lipschutz (Crown College; 459-3275; rlipsch@ucsc.edu)      

Office Hours: Monday, 1-2; Thurs., 12:30-1:30, or by appt.

 (Last updated April 25, 2005)

This core seminar introduces students to the theories and methodologies of political economy. It focuses on the relationship between states, markets and societies, addresses the history of the social formation we call the “liberal state,” and considers the politics of economic choices and institutions germane to both national and global political institutions.  The course also addresses the origins and development of markets and capitalism; the historical evolution of states and their economies; the relationship between labor, capital, production, and consumption; regulation of production; macroeconomics and management of economies; and issues of social welfare, both national and global.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS:

Students are required to submit a 2-3 page critique of the readings for seven of the nine sections, as well as a 10-12 page theoretical paper at the end of the quarter.  Each week, two students (who may collaborate or not, as they wish) will be asked to prepare a set of questions to present to the class and to lead the discussion.  Students will also be divided into three groups to organize and present materials on the case studies. The theoretical paper—this is not a research paper—should focus on a question of interest to the student.  It should draw on the course readings, as well as outside materials.

 

REQUIRED TEXTS:


The following texts are available for purchase from the Literary Guillotine, 204 Locust St., SC.  All texts and some of the recommended readings are on reserve at McHenry Library.  Some of the assigned articles are available on-line, as indicated.

Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Times (Beacon Press, 2001, 2nd ed.)

Ellen Meskins Wood, The Origin of Capitalism—a longer view (Verso, 2002).

Reinhardt Koselleck, Critique and Crises (MIT, 1998).

Jerry Muller, The Mind and the Market (Anchor, 2002).

Sandra Halperin, War and Social Change in Modern Europe (Cambridge, 2004).

Peter Drahos with John Braithwaite, Information Feudalism (Norton, 2003).

Amy Dru Stanley. From Bondage to Contract—Wage Labor, Marriage and the Market in the Age of Slave Emancipation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).

COURSE SYLLABUS:

Required readings are designated by an *

Please read The Great Transformation for the first class meeting.

I. GENEALOGIES

           

3/28: “In the beginning”—what is political economy?

 

Required reading:

*Muller, The Mind and the Market, introduction, ch. 1-2.

*Polanyi, The Great Transformation

*Wood,” The Origin of Capitalism,” Part II, ch. 8

*Anna M. Agthangelou and Lilly H.M. Ling, “The House of IR: From Family Power Politics to the Poisies of Worldism,” International Studies Review 6, #4 (2004): 21-49, at: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/Pol200D/Agathangelou%20and%20Ling.pdf

 

Additional resources:

James Caporasso and David Levine, Theories of Political Economy (1992) [A good introduction to major theories. The discussion of Keynes is exemplary.]

Randall Collins, Weberian Sociological Theory, chap 2 “Weber’s Last Theory of Capitalism”

Robert Gilpin & Jean Gilpin, The Political Economy of International Relations (1987), chap. 1 “The Nature of Political Economy”

F.A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism (1988)

Robert Heilbroner, The Nature and Logic of Capitalism (1985)

Albert O. Hirschman, The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before its Triumph (1977)

_________________, Rival Views of Market Society and Other Essays (1988)

John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936)

Friedrich List, The National System of Political Economy

Charles Lindblom, The Market System: What It Is, How It Works, and What to Make of It (2001)

K. Marx, Capital, Vol. I-III

Deborah A. Redman, The Rise of Political Economy as a Science: Methodology and the Classical Economists (1997)

Joseph A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1942)

Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations

Richard Swedberg, Max Weber and the Idea of Economic Sociology (1998)

James Tobin, “The Invisible Hand in Modern Macroeconomics” in Michael Fry ed. Adam Smith’s Legacy (1992), pp. 117-29.

Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

_________, Economy and Society (1978)

 

4/4: Origins of “liberalism” and political economy

Required reading:

*Halperin, War and Social Change in Modern Europe, ch. 1-2.

*Koselleck, Critique and Crises

*Benjamin Lozano, “The Ego and the Market,” on-line at: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/Pol200D/Ego%20and%20the%20Market1.doc

*Muller, The Mind and the Market, ch. 3

*Justin Rosenberg, The Empire of Civil Society (Verso, 1994), ch. 3-5.

 

Additional resources:

Richard Bensel, The Political Economy of American Industrialization, 1877-1900 (2000)

F. Braudel, Afterthoughts on Material Civilization and Capitalism (1977)

Peter Evans, Embedded Autonomy: States and Industrial Transformation  (1996)

Alexander Gershenkron, Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective (1962), esp. chap. 1

Liah Greenfeld, The Spirit of Capitalism: Nationalism and Economic Growth (Harvard 2001)

Albert Hirschmann, National Power and the Structure of Foreign Trade (California, 1980).

Charles Kindleberger, The World in Depression (UC Press, 1973).

Douglass C. North, Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance (1990)

Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power (Cambridge, 1993)

Charles S. Maier, In Search of Stability: Explorations in Historical Political Economy (1987)

Mancur Olson, The Rise and Decline of Nations (Yale, 1982).

Martin J. Sklar, The Corporate Reconstruction of American Capitalism, 1890-1916 (1992)

Daniel Verdier, Democracy and International Trade: Britain, France, and the United States, 1860-1990 (Princeton, 1994).

Immanuel Wallerstein, Modern World-System, Vol. I-III

Max Weber, General Economic History, Frank H. Knight, ed. (1919)

 

4/11: Liberal political economy & its critics (Cassie and Sandra)

Required reading:

*Muller, The Mind and the Market, ch. 4-5, 7

*F.A. Hayek, “The Use of Knowledge in Society,” American Economic Review 35 (1945): 519-530, at: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/Pol200D/Hayek.pdf

*Emma Rothschild, Economic Sentiments: Adam Smith, Condorecet, and the Enlightenment (2002), chap. 5 “The Bloody and Invisible Hand,” at: http://www.compilerpress.atfreeweb.com/Anno%20Rothschild%20Bloody%20&%20Invisible%201.htm

*Douglas North, “Institutions,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 5, #1 (1991): 97-112, at: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/Pol200D/North.pdf

*Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology, at: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/

*Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler, “Capital Accumulation: Breaking the Dualism of ‘Economics’ and ‘Politics’,” in: Ronan Palan (ed.), Global Political Economy: Contemporary Theories (Routledge, 2000), ch. 5. (Xerox)

 

Additional resources:

Janet abu-Lughod, Before European Hegemony (Oxford, 1989).

Walter Adamson, Hegemony and Revolution: A Study of Gramsci’s Political and Cultural Theory (UC Press, 1980).

Giovanni Arrighi, The Long Twentieth Century (Verso, 1994).

Fred Block, The Origins of International Economic Disorder (UC Press, 1977).

Robert Cox, Production, Power and World Order (Columbia, 1987).

G. William Domhoff, The Power Elite: How Policy is Made in America (1990)

_________,  State Autonomy or Class Dominance? Case Studies on Policy Making in America (1996)

Stephen Gill, ed., Gramsci, Historical Materialism and International Relations, (Cambridge, 1993).

Stephen Gill & David Law, The Global Political Economy (Hopkins, 1988).

Sandra Halperin, In the Mirror of the Third World (Cornell, 1997).

Jonathan Nitzan & Shimson Bichler, The Global Political Economy of Israel (Pluto Press, 2002), ch. 1.

 

II.  INSTITUTIONS & SOCIAL FORCES

 

4/18: States and markets (Sara and Courtney)

<>Required reading:

*Halperin, War and Social Change, ch. 3

* Muller, The Mind and the Market,  ch. 8

*Wood, The Origins of Capitalism, ch. 8-9

<>*Philip Cerny, “Structuring the Political Arena,” in: Ronen Palan, ed, Global Political Economy: Contemporary Theories (Routledge, 2000), ch. 2. (Xerox)

*Peter Breiner, “The Political Logic of Economics and the Economic Logic of Modernity in Max Weber,” Political Theory 23 (1995): 25-47, at: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/Pol200D/Breiner.pdf

*Timothy Mitchell, “Society, Economy, and the State Effect,” pp. 76-97, in: George Steinmetz (ed.), State/Culture—State-Formation after the Cultural Turn (Ithaca: Cornell, 1999). (Xerox)

* Adam Przeworski, The State and the Economy Under Capitalism (1990). (Xerox)

*Fred Block, “The Roles of the State in the Economy” in Neil J. Smelser and Richard Swedberg, eds., The Handbook of Economic Sociology (1994), pp. 691-710. (Xerox)

 

Additional resources:

Robert Boyer and Daniel Drache (eds.), States against markets : the limits of globalization  (Routledge, 1996).

Fred Block, Postindustrial Possibilities: A Critique of Economic Discourse (1990)

__________, “The Role of Interests, Institutions, and Ideas in the Comparative Political Economy of Industrialized Nations,” in Mark Lichback & Alan S. Zuckerman, eds., Comparative Politics (1997), pp .174-207.

Fred Hirsch, Social Limits to Growth (1978)

John Goldthorpe, ed., Order and Conflict in Contemporary Capitalism (1984)

Peter A. Hall, ed. The Political Power of Economic Ideas (1992)

Fred Hirsch and John Goldthorpe, eds., The Political Economy of Inflation (1978)

David M. Kotz, Terrence McDonough & Michael Reich, Social Structures of Accumulation: The Political Economy of Growth and Crisis (1994)

Stephen Krasner, “State Power and the Structure of International Trade,” World Politics 28, #3 (April 1976): 317-43.

Charles Lindblom, Politics and Markets: The World's Political-Economic Systems (1978)

James O'Connor, The Fiscal Crisis of the State  (1973)

Torsten Persson & Guido Tabellini, Political Economics: Explaining Economic Policy (2000)

Adam Przeworski Capitalism and Social Democracy (1986)

Andrew Shonfield, Modern Capitalism: The Changing Balance of Public and Private Power (1965)

Sven Steinmo, Taxation and Democracy: Swedish, British, and American Approaches to Financing the Modern State (1993)

Susan Strange, States and Markets (Pinter, 1988).

__________, Casino Capitalism (Blackwell, 1989).

Herman Schwartz, States versus Markets (St. Martin’s, 1994).

Ronen Palan & Jason Abbott, State Strategies in the Global Political Economy (Pinter, 1999).

Peter Katzenstein, ed., Between Power and Plenty (Cornell, 1978).

________, Small States in World Markets (Cornell, 1986).

 

4/25: Capital, labor, property (Marco and Peter)

Required reading:

*Halperin, War and Social Change, ch. 4-5.

*Claus Offe, “The Political Economy of the Labour Market,” in Disorganized Capitalism (1985), pp. 10-51

*Thorstein Veblen, “The Beginnings of Ownership,” American Journal of Sociology 4, #3 (Nov. 1989): 352-65, at http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/Pol200D/Veblen.pdf

*Stanley, From Bondage to Contract, ch. 1-2.

*John G. Ruggie, “Territoriality and beyond: problematizing modernity in international relations,” International Organization 47#1 (1993), pp. 139-174, at: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/Pol200D/Ruggie.pdf

*Chris Tilly and Charles Tilly, “Capitalist Work and Labor Markets,” in Neil J. Smelser and Richard Swedberg, eds., The Handbook of Economic Sociology (1994), pp. 283-312 (Xerox).

 

Additional resources:

Michael Kalecki, "Political Aspects of Full Employment" from The Last Phase in the Development of Capitalism

Peter A. Hall, Governing the Economy: The Politics of State Intervention in Britain and France, (1986),

Colin Gordon, New Deals: Business, Labor, and Politics in America, 1920- 1935 (1994)

Kees van der Pijl, Transnational Classes and International Relations (Routledge, 1998)

Torben Iversen, Jonas Pontusson, David Soskice, eds., Unions, Employers, and Central Banks (2000)

Mark Rupert, Producing Hegemony (Cambridge, 1995)

 

5/2: Social policy and the welfare state

Required reading:

*Muller, The Mind and the Market, ch. 9-12

*Halperin, War and Social Change, ch. 6-8

*David Cameron, "The Expansion of the Political Economy: A Comparative Analysis," APSR 72 (1978), pp. 1243-61, at: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/Pol200D/Cameron.pdf

<>*Gosta Esping-Andersen, Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (1991), chap 1-5 (xerox)

*Torben Iversen and Thomas R. Cusack, "The Causes of Welfare State Expansion: Deindustrialization or Globalization?," World Politics 52 (2000), pp. 313-49, at: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/Pol200D/Iversen.pdf 

Additional resources:

Peter Baldwin, The Politics of Social Solidarity: Class Bases of the European Welfare States, 1975-1975 (1990)

Michael K. Brown, Race, Money, and the American Welfare State (1999),

Alexander Hicks, Social Democracy and Welfare Capitalism: A Century of Income Security Politics (1999)

Evelyne Huber & John D. Stephens, Development and Crisis of the Welfare State (2001)

Claus Offe, Contradictions of the Welfare State (1984)

Theda Skocpol, Protecting Soldiers and Mothers (1992)

Peter A. Swenson, Capitalists Against Markets: The Making of Labor Markets and Welfare States in the United States and Sweden (2002)

Harold Wilensky, The Welfare State and Equality (1975)

Peter Gourevitch, “The Macropolitics of Microinstitutional Differences in the Analysis of Comparative Capitalism,” in Suzanne Berger and Ronald Dore, National Diversity and Global Capitalism (1996), pp. 239-262.

Peter A. Hall & David Soskice, eds., Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage (2001).

Roger Burrows and Brian Loader, Towards a Post-Fordist Welfare State?  (1994)

Richard Clayton & Jonas Pontusson, "Welfare-State Retrenchment Revisited: Entitlement Cuts, Public Sector Restructuring, and Inegalitarian Trends in Advanced Capitalist Societies," World Politics 51 (1998), pp. 67-98.

Alfred Pfaller, Ian Gough & Goran Therborn, Can the Welfare State Compete?  A  Comparative Study of Five Advanced Countries  (1991).

Paul Pierson, "The New Politics of the Welfare State," World Politics 48 (1996), pp. 143-79.

__________, Dismantling the Welfare State (1994)

__________, ed., The New Politics of the Welfare State (2001)

Gosta Esping-Andersen, ed., Welfare States in Transition: National Adaptations in Global Economies (1996).

Duane Swank, Global Capital, Political Institutions, and Policy Change in Developed Welfare States (2002)

Carles Boix, Political Parties, Growth and Equality: Conservative and Social Democratic Economic Strategies in the World Economy (1998)

Colin Crouch & Wolfgang Streeck, Political Economy of Modern Capitalism: Mapping Convergence and Diversity (1997)

Herbert Kitschelt, et.al., eds.,  Continuity and Change in Contemporary Capitalism (1999)

Geoffrey Garrett, Partisan Politics in the Global Economy (1998)

 

III. Cases

5/9: Gendering political economy/gender and political economy/the political economy of gender

Required reading:

*Stanley, From Bondage to Contract, ch. 3-6.

*Ann Shola Orloff, “Gender and the Social Rights of Citizenship,” American Sociological Review 58, #3 (June 1993):303-28, at: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/Pol200D/Orloff.pdf

*Joan W. Scott, “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis,” American Historical Review 91, #5 (Dec. 1986):1053-75, at: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/Pol200D/Scott.pdf

*Caitlin Flanagan, “How Serfdom Saved the Women’s Movement,” Atlantic (March 2004) (Xerox)

*Anna Agathangelou, The Global Political Economy of Sex (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), ch. 1,3. (Xerox)

 

Additional resources:

Bridget Anderson, Doing the Dirty Work?  The Global Politics of Domestic Labour (London: Zed, 2000).

M. Dalla Costa and G.F. Dalla Costa (eds.), Women, Development, and Labor or Reproduction (Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press, 1999).

Joanne Cook, Jennifer Roberts, and Georgina Waylen (eds.), Towards a Gendered Political Economy (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000).

Marianne Marchand and Ann Sisson Runyan (eds.), Gender and Global Restructuring (London: Routledge, 2000).

V. Spike Peterson, A Critical Rewriting of Global Political Economy (London: Routledge, 2003).

 

5/16: Commodification, knowledge, and power

Required reading:

*Drahos, Information Feudalism

*John Conybeare, “International organization and the theory of property rights,” International Organization 34, #3 (Summer 1980): 307-334, at: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/Pol200D/Conybeare.pdf

<>* Kenneth J. Arrow, “The Economics of Information: An Exposition,” Empirica 23, #2 (1996): 119-128 (xerox forthcoming)

* Ronald J. Herring, "Rethinking the Commons," Agriculture and Human Values 7, #2 (Spring 1990):88-104 (xerox).

 

Additional resources:

Stephen Krasner, Structural Conflict—The Third World Against Global Liberalism (UC Press, 1985),

M. Löwy, The Politics of Combined and Uneven Development (Verso, 1981).

Philip McMichael, Development and Social Change: A Global Perspective (Pine Forge Press, 1996).

Robert O. Kohane, "The World Political Economy and the Crisis of Embedded Liberalism," in John H. Goldthorpe (ed.) Order and Conflict in Contemporary Capitalism (1984) pp. 15-38.

 

5/23: Globalization & imperialism

Required reading:

*Muller, The Mind and the Market, ch. 13.

*Joseph Schumpeter, "The Crisis of the Tax State" in R. Swedberg, ed., Joseph A. Schumpeter: The Economics and Sociology of Capitalism (1991), pp. 99-141 (xerox).

*Paul Hirst & Grahame Thompson, Globalization in Question (Polity, 1999, 2nd ed.), ch. 1 (xerox forthcoming).

*J.A. Hobson, Imperialism (Michigan, 1967), pp. 71-93 (exros forthcoming).

*David Landes, “Some Thoughts on the Nature of Economic Imperialism,” Journal of Economic History 21, #4 (1961):496-512, at: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/Pol200D/Landes.pdf

*Wambui Mwangi, “The Colonial State and its Anti-Subjects: Blood Money and Bodily Value in Inter-war Colonial Kenya,” at: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/Pol200D/Mwangi.Colonial_State%23B52E4.doc

 

Additional resources:

Robert Gilpin, The Political Economy of International Relations (Princeton, 1987).

Ronen Palan, ed, Global Political Economy: Contemporary Theories (Routledge, 2000).

R. Albritton, et al, eds., Phases of Capitalist Development (Palgrave, 2001).

Jaghdish Bhagwati, In Defense of Globalization (Oxford, 2004).

James Braithwaite & Peter Drahos, Global Business Regulation (Cambridge, 2000).

Manuel Castells, The Rise of the Network Society (Blackwell, 2000, 2nd ed), ch. 2.

Benjamin J. Cohen, The Geography of Money (Cornell, 1998).

J. Gallagher & R. Robinson, “The Imperialism of Free Trade,” in: The Decline, Revival and Fall of the British Empire (Cambridge, 1952), pp. 1-18.

Robert Gilpin, U.S. Power and the Multinational Corporation (Basic, 1975).

Eric Hobsbawn, The Age of Empire—1875-1914 (Vintage, 1989).

Robert Keohane, After Hegemony (Princeton, 1984)

Kenichi Ohmae, The Borderless World (Basic, 1990).

Louis Pauly, Who Elected the Bankers? (Cornell, 1997).

Justin Rosenberg, The Follies of Globalaization Theory (Verso, 2000).

Mark Rupert, Ideologies of Globalization (Routledge, 2000).

 

5/30: Memorial Day

 

6/1 (Wednesday): Student presentations