Economic policy-making is often susceptible to political influences. Politicians' and voters' attitudes and behavior are often influenced by economic conditions. To understand politics and economy today, it is indispensable to understand interactions between them. Students taking this course learn important theories of comparative political economy to achieve this goal. In particular, they learn the political consequences of economic performance and the economic consequences of political institutions and behavior. The course is intended to complement other political science and economics courses offered at the Crawford School and other schools in the following regard. First, this course focuses on analyzing causes and consequences of, rather than describing similarities and differences in, political and economic systems and outcomes across nations. Second, its goal is to understand real-world experience through empirical, rather than normative, theories of politics.

Upon successful completion of this course students will be able to:

• demonstrate a broad understanding of key theories and empirical findings in the literature of political economy;
• consider political aspects of real-world economic problems and policies and economic aspects of real-world political conflicts, behavior and outcomes;
• make critical evaluations of methodological issues and problems in existing studies;
• demonstrate a basic knowledge of commonly used methodological tools in studies of political economy, including randomized experiments, multiple regressions, and comparative case studies;
• develop, refine and present a research proposal for their own original research.

-         40% Literature reviews (Learning outcomes #1 - #4).

-         50% A research proposal (Learning outcomes #5)

-         10% Discussions (Learning outcomes #1 - #5)

Weekly lectures (2.5 hours x 13 weeks)

3-5 hours per week for reading and preparation outside of contact hours to complete the course

There is no pre-requisite or co-requisite for this course.

As most assigned articles are based on statistical analysis, it is highly recommended (but not required) to take at least one course on research methodology or statistics before taking this course; for example, POGO8096 (Research Methods). For students who have no statistical background, instructions in how to interpret statistical results are given during the course.

Pre/corequisites

There is no pre-requisite or co-requisite for this course.

To be distributed.

Delivery Mode:

On Campus.

Weekly lectures. All lecture notes (PowerPoint slides) and audio recordings will be uploaded to Wattle after each lecture.