POLS 248-01: Politics of Development
Syllabus
Week 01
1/20/11: Introduction
Week 02
1/25/11: The Experience of Poverty
- Markandaya, Nectar in a Sieve, Chapters 1-15, pp. 1-96
1/27/11:
- Markandaya, Nectar in a Sieve, Chapters 16-30, pp. 97-189
Week 03
2/1/11: Defining Poverty; Global & Historical Survey
- Jeffrey Sachs, The End of Poverty, pp. xii-xv, 1-89
2/3/11: China, India, Africa; Millennium Development Goals
- Jeffrey Sachs, The End of Poverty, pp. 148-243.
- QUIZ 1
Review Concepts: Relative poverty, moderate poverty, extreme or absolute poverty; income/consumption deprivation approach; poverty trap, fiscal trap, demographic trap; clinical economics; purchasing power parity (PPP); Millennium Development Goals (MDG); Poverty & disease: malaria; tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS; Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ARV); official development assistance (ODA).
Week 04
2/8/11: Investment & Technology
- Jeffrey Sachs, The End of Poverty, pp. 244-308.
2/10/11: Politics of Aid Coordination
- Jeffrey Sachs, The End of Poverty, pp. 309-368.
Review Concepts: Human capital; Green Revolution; High Yield Variety (HYV) seeds; United Nations system (e.g., United Nations Development Program (UNDP), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), [UN] Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), United Nations Population Fund (UNFP), etc.); World Health Organization (WHO); World Food Program (WFP); World Trade Organization (WTO); International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank); International Monetary Fund (IMF); poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSP); heavily indebted poor countries (HIPC) initiative; global compact; failed states; Marshall Plan; Jubilee 2000.
Week 05
2/15/11: Planners vs. Searchers
- William Easterly, White Man’s Burden, pp. 3-59.
2/17/11: Planning and Markets
- William Easterly, White Man’s Burden, pp. 60-162.
- QUIZ 2
Review Concepts: Planners; searchers; Live Aid and Live8; Group of Eight (G8); United States Agency for International Development (USAID); development banks; Big Push; structural adjustment program (SAP).
Week 06
2/22/11: Aid Bureaucracies; Debt Crisis, Health Crisis
- William Easterly, White Man’s Burden, pp. 165-265.
2/24/11: Foreign Policy & Aid
- William Easterly, White Man’s Burden, pp. 269-338.
Review Concepts: Principal; agent; participatory development.
Week 07
3/1/11: Homegrown Development
- William Easterly, White Man’s Burden, pp. 341-384.
Review Concepts: Neo-imperialism
3/3/11: MID-TERM EXAMINATION
Week 08
3/8/11: Problematizing Poverty
- Arturo Escobar, Encountering Development, pp. 3-54.
3/10/11: Economics & the Space of Development
- Arturo Escobar, Encountering Development, pp. 55-101.
[SPRING BREAK]
Week 09
3/22/11: The Dispersion of Power
- Arturo Escobar, Encountering Development, pp. 102-153.
3/22/09: Power and Visibility
- Arturo Escobar, Encountering Development, pp. 154-226.
- QUIZ 3
Week 10
3/29/11: The Purpose of Development
- Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom, pp. 3-53.
3/31/11: Capability Deprivation (*AAS Conference - Class Session Rescheduled for 3/30 @ TBA)
- Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom, pp. 54-110.
Week 11
4/5/11: Democracy & Development
- Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom, pp. 111-188.
4/7/11: Women’s Agency; Culture and Rights
- Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom, pp. 189-248.
- QUIZ 4
Week 12
4/12/11: Individual Freedom & Society
- Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom, pp. 249-298.
Review Concepts: Capability deprivation approach, freedom, utilitarianism, libertarianism, “missing women,” Pareto optimality, Arrow-Debreu theorem, gender and poverty; famine prevention, Malthusian pessimism, Asian values, Condorcet’s paradox.
4/14/11: Failure of Capitalism in the Rest
- Hernando de Soto, The Mystery of Capital, pp. 1-37.
Week 13
4/19/11: Mysteries of Capitalism
- Hernando de Soto, The Mystery of Capital, pp. 39-103.
4/21/11: America’s Property Rights Regime; Critique
- Hernando de Soto, The Mystery of Capital, pp. 104-228.
- QUIZ 5
Review Concepts: Braudel’s bell jar, capital, inclusive capitalism; titling, extralegality; preemption, pre-capitalist social contract.
Week 14
4/26/11: Micro-credit; History of the Grameen Bank
- Muhammad Yunus, Banker to the Poor, pp. 1-130; 131-262 (skim).
4/28/11: Case Study
- Aminur Rahman, Women and Microcredit in Rural Bangladesh, 1-97.
Week 15
5/3/11: Micro-lending and Sustainable Development
- Aminur Rahman, Women and Microcredit in Rural Bangladesh, 98-154.
Week 16
FINAL EXAMINATION: Sunday, 5/8/11 @ 8:30 – 11:30 am