Dr Natalya Naqvi

This course is available on the BSc in International Relations, BSc in International Relations and Chinese, BSc in International Relations and History and BSc in Politics and International Relations. This course is not available as an outside option. This course is available with permission to General Course students.

This course has a limited number of places (it is capped).

What role should the state play in economic development? How has globalisation affected what the state can still actually do to promote economic development? Between the 50s and 80s, the East Asian ‘developmental state’ model delivered rapid industrialisation through extensive state intervention, seemingly refuting not only the claims of free market economics, but also of dependency theory: that poor countries could never develop due to the very nature of the capitalist world system.

Since the 80s, the applicability of the East Asian model was challenged in new ways. Structural changes in the global political economy, including the end of fixed exchange rates, increased capital mobility, the development of international financial markets, privatisation of the commanding heights of the economy, the proliferation of restrictive trade and investment agreements, and the rise of global value chains, led many to argue that even if it was economically beneficial for other countries to implement the East Asian model, this was no longer possible because globalisation had dramatically constrained the power of the nation state. Others argued that concerns over the constraints posed by globalisation were overblown, and that domestic interests, institutions, and ideas were responsible for holding back structural transformation of the economy.

This course will combine debates in IPE, over how the process of globalisation has transformed the capacity for state action, with debates in the political economy of development over the role of the state in the process of late development. Students will gain an understanding not only of the debate over how much domestic policy autonomy developing countries have after globalisation, but also of the kinds of policies they need this policy space for. Problems of underdevelopment are approached through the prism of both core-periphery power relations, and power relations arising from the domestic productive structure. By the end of the course, students will be able to:

1. Make theoretically informed arguments in written and oral form, supported by empirical evidence on key questions in the study of globalization and late development

2. Critically engage (understand and be able to point out the weaknesses and strengths of) with various theoretical approaches (dependency, developmentalist, liberal, Marxist) to the study of late development

3.Critically engage with various theoretical approaches (hyperglobalists, constraints school, sceptics, compensation hypothesis) to the study of globalisation 

4. Apply these theoretical frameworks to empirical situations

10 hours of lectures and 15 hours of classes in the AT.

Week 6 is a reading week, in line with departmental policy.

Students will receive feedback on a PowerPoint presentation on a pre-assigned essay question, similar to that set for the summative assessment. The presentation will be in effect an essay outline. This will provide students with the opportunity to refine their work prior to grading. The feedback will focus not only on academic content, but also presentation skills.

Students will also be set one test in a random week. This will test their understanding of key concepts covered so that they know where their weaknesses lie. It will also incentivize students to keep up to date with the core readings.

• Kicking Away the Ladder, Ha Joon Chang
• States and Markets, Susan Strange
• States Versus Markets, Herman Schwartz
• Globalisation in Question, Hirst, Thompson and Bromley
• The Myth of the Powerless State, Linda Weiss
• Reclaiming Development Economics, Chang and Grabel
• The Developmental State, Woo-Cummings
• Business and the State in Developing Countries, Maxfield and Schneider

Essay (90%, 1800 words) in the WT.
Class participation (10%) in the AT.