P-62 - The Political Economy of Crises
| Course specification | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Type of study | ||||
| Study programme | ||||
| Course title | The Political Economy of Crises | |||
| Acronym | Status | Semester | Number of classes | ECTS |
| P-62 | mandatory | 2L + 2E | 5.0 | |
| Lecturers | ||||
| Lecturer | ||||
| Lecturer/Associate (practicals) | ||||
| Prerequisite | Form of prerequisites | |||
| Learning objectives | ||||
| The Political Economy of Crises is an advanced course dealing with the emergence of modern capitalism and its history and complexity of economic and financial crises from the 19th century to the present day. One of the aims of this course is to dispel the myth of "Euro-centrism", as a locus in which all modernity and civilization begins drawing from ancient Greece and Rome. The second aim of the course is to show that there is no equality in global capitalism as a social system. "If there is equality", Marx wrote in Capital, "there is no profit". Global capitalism develops in an uneven way, and some are more equal than others. We will reach an understanding of the various developmental periods of modern capitalism in history, as well as an understanding of imperialism and imperial expansion. The focus, however, will be on the development of capitalism and its crises in the 20th and 21st centuries and we will spend considerable time in looking at the Bretton Woods system and the so-called "Golden Age of Capitalism" (1945-1970), the crisis of the 1970s, the process of European integration and the current Euro-zone crisis. We will also have a session on the Yugoslav debt crisis of the 1970s and 1980s | ||||
| Learning outcomes | ||||
| Understending of contemporary approaches to the crises of political and economical systems. | ||||
| Content | ||||
| The making of modern capitalism as a global social system; modernity and the Enlightenment; the separation of disciplines and the "division" between politics and economics; modern political economy and the role of the state; an attempt at periodisation of capitalism; non-Euro-centric approaches to global history and social theory.Crisis theorising; crises of over-accumulation and crisis of under-consumption; forms of capital (industrial, financial, finance); crisis in the real economy; crisis in the sphere of "fictitious" economy; imperialism and new imperialism the passage to neo-liberal financialisation/globalisation; the new prominence of finance; neo- liberalism and the state; the collapse of the Soviet Union and the "Washington consensus"; The advance of the process of "European integration" and the enlargements of the EU and NATO; the issue of debt and the collapse of Yugoslavia | ||||
| Teaching Methods | ||||
| classes/lectures, practical exercises, seminar papers, discussions, work on original compulsory literature. Your knowledge of core texts is of paramount importance in order to pass the final exam. If you have ideas about giving a seminar, ie present a paper on one of the topics given above then please let me know. Although this is not compulsory, it is obvious that it will contribute to your overall grade. | ||||
| Literature | ||||
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| Evaluation and grading | ||||