Mauricio A. Font
Biography
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Globalization has become a premier issue worldwide, and nowhere is the debate more dramatic than in developing and transitional societies. This is where most of the world's population lives, social conditions are most precarious, and the search for improvement in human security and well-being is the most immediate. This seminar advances a political economic approach to development focused on actors, processes, and institutions defining the impact of globalization in these societies.
Social scientists and historians have laid bare key issues about the development impact of globalization. Globalists often maintain that globalization creates great opportunities for development. Critics argue that globalization in itself, as well as ideas and policies promoting it, often do not. Advocates cite Ireland, Spain, Chile, China, and South Korea as cases of successful strategies of liberalization and globalization. Joseph Stiglitz and other skeptics have argued that the market fundamentalism of international organizations is based on flawed thinking about the role of markets and can actually lead to costly bad advice to developing and transition countries. Instead, they advocate a more tolerant or even sympathetic stance toward policy diversity and various forms of state intervention. Particularly in the developing South, skepticism about globalization and neoliberalism has often fueled protest, opposition, and the search for alternative strategies. In this context, the study of development needs to supplement economic analysis with a sound understanding of (a) social, political and cultural factors shaping the impact of globalization and (b) the emergence, trajectory, and prospects of alternative movements, ideas and practices.
This course opens with an extended discussion of how the study of social change and development is changing in response to globalization, paying attention to theoretical, historical, comparative, and policy contexts. Subsequent readings and discussion focus on interrelated substantive areas: the meaning of development and globalization, varieties of capitalism and development paths, reform processes and the search for effective strategies of integration into world society, what state and nonstate actors do to address issues of poverty and inequality, the role of transnational networks and communities, political dynamics and democracy, sustainable development, global demographic trends and migration, new urban dynamics, the international rules governing economic exchange, and related themes.
For inquires, contact mfont@gc.cuny.edu. |
