Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Introduces students to the variety of systems of governance in the world today, examines the historical and cultural sources of their different developmental trajectories, and assesses the challenges they face in the future. Breadth-Humanities/Social Sciences.

COURSE DETAILS:

This course introduces students to the politics of developing nations in the world. It revolves around their different developmental trajectories, and assesses the challenges of the emerging dynamics of globalization to their development prospects. The course is theme-based. It visits a wide variety of themes, including but not limited to the legacies of colonialism, the achievement of independence, nation and state-building processes, democratization, culture, poverty, corruption, and conflict. The primary focus is not on the study of individual countries, but students learn about a variety of countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Furthermore, the course helps students develop analytical skills to identify the key political and economic differences between the developed and developing world, as well as the significant variation in the latter.

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

By the end of the course, students will have gained an understanding of the political realities of the developing world, have learned about the major challenges that developing nations face in the contemporary global environment, have gained insights into key historical developments such as colonialism, imperialism, and modernization, and will be able to identify the major historical trends that have shaped contemporary realities since the Industrial Revolution, be able to critically assess the competing explanations and policy solutions to the aforementioned realities and challenges, and have developed their own comparative, evidence-based study on a critical issue concerning the developing world.

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING: