VIKASH YADAV
International Relations Department
This fall I am teaching an FSEM and an intermediate level course on Development.
This fall I am teaching an FSEM and an intermediate level course on Development.
At the polar ends of a spectrum there are essentially two modes for birthing and maintaining a complex social order: ruthlessness and spontaneity. The ruthless seek to carve a new order or sustain a dying one primarily through violence unconstrained by conventional ethics and law. By contrast, the advocate of the spontaneous sees the autopoietic emergence of durable but flexible complexity in the world all around them — in language, natural selection, the ecosystem, the urban built environment, the free market, and even the international order. This course examines both modes of social organization as ideal types, assesses the morality of their morality, and opens space to think about the revival of a realistic liberalism in a world where moral purity is impossible.
As the world order created by the United States comes to a close and the center of power shifts from the North Atlantic to the Indo-Pacific, a new, multiplex world order is unfolding. This foundation-building course equips students with the concepts, theories, and historical and cultural knowledge needed to assess a rapidly transforming world order — one that shapes our identity, security, and opportunities for employment, prosperity, and justice. The course is cross-listed with Asian Studies, Entrepreneurial Studies, and Peace Studies.
This reading-intensive course provides a rigorous intellectual and historical foundation for understanding liberal political economy. Students examine the moral underpinnings, theoretical assumptions, core concepts, and historical context in which classical political economy developed — engaging canonical thinkers from Adam Smith to Max Weber, Karl Polanyi, and Deirdre McCloskey. The course is a keystone in the Political Economy and Development concentration and is cross-listed with Political Science, Economics, and Entrepreneurial Studies.
This course examines comparative models of economic development with a focus on the developmental states of East and South Asia. Students engage with the political economy of South Korean and Taiwanese industrialization, China's state capitalism, and India's contested path to prosperity, while also exploring the rise of eco-developmental states and the green energy transition. The course serves as a keystone in the Political Economy and Development concentration in International Relations.
Globalization is a process through which trans-boundary flows of goods, capital, labor, and ideas come to be increasingly interdependent on a planetary scale. This course investigates the political economy of the Second Age of Globalization from 1980 to 2015 — examining how technological innovations, global value chains, and the legal authority of states have shaped and constrained the process. Globalization is a fragile phenomenon; it is neither inevitable nor unstoppable.
The end of the Second Age of Globalization (1980–2015) has given way to a revival of authoritarian populism, protectionism, and industrial policy in major economies around the world. This course examines the underlying socio-economic forces that brought down the old order — from the Great Recession to Brexit — and explores why revolutionary technologies, innovations in global production, and rapid growth in a global middle class were insufficient to sustain market integration on a planetary scale. Students also examine possible trajectories of the unfolding post-globalization era: regionalism, territorial expansion, and economic nationalism. The course is a keystone in the Political Economy and Development concentration.
This course examines the politics, societies, and international relations of South Asia, with a focus on India and Pakistan. Students explore the region's democratic experiments, nationalist movements, economic trajectories, and security dilemmas — drawing on both area studies scholarship and international relations theory. The course counts toward the Security & Diplomacy and Political Economy and Development tracks in International Relations.
The future looks Indian. This course unpacks the complex politics of contemporary India through a deep dive into the political economy of India since liberalization in 1991. The course is organized around four archetypes — the Bollygarch (the oligarch), the Neta (the politician), the Goonda (the goon), and the Gharib (the poor and excluded) — weaving together their narratives to illuminate India's fractal socio-economic complexity and its growing significance for the reshaping of the world order.
This course examines the political economy and foreign policy of the People's Republic of China as it rises to great power status. Students analyze China's model of authoritarian political capitalism, its role in global value chains and international institutions, and its increasingly assertive posture in the Indo-Pacific — situating China's rise within broader debates about the future of the liberal international order.
This methods course trains students in the principles and practice of data visualization as applied to international relations. Drawing on structured problem-solving frameworks and visual communication theory, students learn to find, evaluate, and present data in compelling and rigorous ways. The course combines practicum workshops with formal presentations, and counts toward the methods requirement in International Relations. Open to both undergraduate and graduate students.
This advanced political economy course investigates the historical project to revive political and economic liberalism after its collapse at the end of the long nineteenth century. Students engage directly with the written works of the major neoliberal thinkers of the twentieth century — Walter Lippmann, Friedrich Hayek, Karl Popper, and Milton Friedman — and examine the Mont Pèlerin Society as a transnational intellectual movement. The course concludes with a case study on ordoliberalism, an influential statist offshoot of neoliberal thought.