Course Description
The field seminar offers an introduction to international and comparative political economy. Political economy is a subfield of political science which studies economic processes ‘along the lines of distributional conflict and inequalities, contested processes of rule-making, and the power of interests and ideas (…). It implies that the functioning of an economy is always conditioned and shaped by politics’ (May et al., 2024, p. 2). International (also sometimes called global) political economy is primarily concerned with how national political economies are embedded in global economic relationships and international economic institutions, highlighting their interrelationship but also the interdependencies and hierarchies that characterize the global economy. Comparative political economy, meanwhile, focuses on differences in how economic processes are socially embedded and organized, comparing them both over time or across space: it investigates at how different constellations of interests, ideas, and institutions shape different ‘varieties’ of capitalism, and the implications this has for innovation, (re-)distribution, and politics itself. While the field seminar offers a general introduction to key concepts, theories, and approaches in comparative and international political economy, the focus will be on their application to real-world developments and challenges. The seminar will thus be organized into three thematic blocs, which are themselves interrelated. The first bloc focuses on the political economy of climate change, exploring how politico-economic approaches can shed light on national differences in climate politics and policymaking while also discussing the global causes and consequences of developments on the national level. The second bloc focuses on the political economy of technological change, exploring how politico-economic approaches can help us understand the course and character of technological change. The third bloc, finally, will focus on how the ongoing geopolitical transformations affect political economies as well as the discipline of political economy itself, exploring dynamics like the weaponization of interdependence, the return of geoeconomics, and the securitization of economic policymaking.
