Boston University

 

North-South Relations

 

CAS IR 395S/PO 352S

Summer I, 2008

TWR 10:00-12:30

IRC 220

 

Strom Thacker	Office: 152 Bay State Road, No. 446
Email: sthacker@bu.edu	telephone: 617.353.7160
Web site: http://www.bu.edu/sthacker/	Office hours: Weds. 12:30-2:00pm & by appt.

Objectives:

            This course examines the fundamental issues that arise out of the relations between the industrialized countries of the “North” (e.g., the U.S., Europe, Japan) and the developing countries of the “South.” The class focuses primarily on themes and issues in North-South relations rather than specific countries or regions; to the extent that we cover specific geographical areas, we will pay greater attention to Latin America and East Asia than to other developing areas. The course begins with a brief treatment of some of the conceptual approaches available to advance our understanding of North-South relations and their general historical trends. The tremendous development challenges facing the South both historically and currently dictate that the course pay close attention to issues of political economy and development. We will therefore dedicate several sessions to exploring a series of specific politico-economic issues relevant to North-South relations, such as imperialism, trade, foreign aid, investment, regional economic integration, and finance. The course will then consider a number of less traditional issues that have emerged on the agenda of North-South relations in recent years, including migration, illegal drug trafficking, and the protection of the environment. We will not focus explicitly on North-South security and military affairs. The course will conclude with an assessment of the future of North-South relations.

 

Prerequisites:

            There are no formal prerequisites for this course. A background in micro and macroeconomics is useful but not required. See the instructor if you have questions.

 

Requirements:

            Grades will be based on 1) a series of unannounced (or “pop”) quizzes on the day’s assigned readings, 2) a 4-page paper, and 3) a final exam. You will not do well in this class if you do not attend class and do the reading. You will be allowed to drop one quiz score. The final exam will cover readings, lectures, class discussions, films, simulations, and all other course requirements. Guidelines for the paper will be passed out the first week of class or can be found at http://www.bu.edu/sthacker/395paper.htm. Email and Internet access is required.

 

Academic integrity:

All work for this class is expected to be individual, i.e., not the result of collaboration or a group project. It is imperative that any and all sources used in papers be cited properly. For guidance, see the guideline for source citation on page three of this syllabus or at http://www.bu.edu/sthacker/source.htm and the CAS Academic Conduct Code (available at CAS or at http://www.bu.edu/cas/academics/programs/conductcode.html). Cases of academic misconduct will be referred to the Dean’s office.

 

Grading:

•     40%        Reading quizzes (unannounced—approximately 8-12 total quizzes)

•     20%        Paper, due at 10:00 a.m., Thursday, May 29

•     40%        Final exam: Thursday, June 26, 10:00 a.m.

•     Borderline grades will be rounded up or down according to the level and quality of the student’s class participation.

Grades are calculated on a 100-point scale, converted to letter grades as follows:

 

93-100       A	90-92         A-	87-89         B+	83-86         B	80-82         B-
77-79         C+	73-76         C	70-72         C-	60-69         D	Below 60   F

 

Absences and late work:

            Students are expected to attend all class sessions and to take all quizzes and the exam at their scheduled times. No make-ups will be given without timely documentation excusing an absence for medical, religious or personal reasons, or for official Boston University business. Every effort should be made to notify the instructor as soon as possible (preferably in advance) of the reason for an excused absence. Late papers will be penalized five (5) points for the first day late, and three (3) points each day thereafter.

 

Readings:

            Students are required to complete all reading assignments before class. Quizzes and frequent class discussions will require a thorough understanding of the readings.

 

            The following required texts are available for purchase at Barnes and Noble at Boston University, and all are on reserve (call numbers in parentheses) at Pardee Library, SMG, 595 Comm. Ave (3^rd floor):

 

•     Chasek, Pamela S., David L. Downie and Janet Welsh Brown (CDB). 2006. Global Environmental Politics, Fourth Edition. Boulder, CO: Westview Press (GE170 .P67 2005). ISBN 0813343321.

•     Haggard, Stephan. 1995. Developing Nations and the Politics of Global Integration. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution (HC59.7 .H274 1995). ISBN 0815733895.

•     Krueger, Anne O. 1995. Trade Policies and the Developing Nations. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution (HF1413 .K73 1995). ISBN 0815750552.

 

            *Other readings are available on-line via http://courseinfo.bu.edu/courses/08sum1casir395sa1/ (click Course Documents, then Course Packet) and marked by an asterisk (*).

 

Periodicals:

            In order to stimulate lively and timely discussions in class and in sections, students are required to read the section dealing with issues of the developing world of one of the following publications on a regular basis (i.e., daily for newspapers, weekly for magazines):

 

New York Times	Christian Science Monitor
Wall Street Journal	The Economist
Financial Times

 

            Discounted subscriptions to The Economist are available at https://www.economistacademic.com/index.cfm?action=sso. Enter Faculty ID 1304 where indicated.

USE OF SOURCE MATERIALS*

 

Correct use and acknowledgment of source materials is vital to any research project. Only through accurate documentation can the reader distinguish the writer’s original contribution from those of others. This allows the reader (1) to consult the source of a fact or opinion if he or she so desires and (2) to assign credit or blame judiciously — to the writer or to the writer’s sources. Moreover, failure to acknowledge source material properly constitutes plagiarism and is subject to the appropriate penalties.

 

The basic rule is this: If you use material drawn from something beside your own first-hand experience, and the material is not “common knowledge,” that is, something that “everybody knows,” give credit to your source.

 

If you quote directly, even a word or phrase, use quotation marks and footnote.**

 

If you paraphrase (i.e., take the ideas and put them into your own words), footnote.

 

If you organize material in the unique manner of someone else, give that person credit in the text and, usually, in a footnote as well.

 

A good rule of thumb is to ask yourself: “Could a reader who consulted the works listed in my bibliography recognize in my paper sentences, phrases, and even striking words; patterns of organization; interpretations or attitudes or points of view or whole ideas or facts, as deriving from any one of these sources?” If the reader could, you must footnote those passages. Any clear parallels between your paper and any of its sources that a reader would discover from consulting these sources, you should already have told him or her through footnotes or informal acknowledgments.

 

If you borrow everything in your paper, footnote everything in your paper!

 

Once your paper is turned in, the reader has the right to assume that whatever appears in the paper, unless otherwise indicated, is your own work or is “common knowledge.”

 

It should be noted that a paper that is merely a patchwork of other people’s words and ideas is a poor paper. Because of the particular slant on the topic you have been asked to consider; because of the particular combination of sources you have consulted; because of the independence of your own creative mind, your paper should be organically different from any of the various sources that have contributed to it.

Course outline

Historical and conceptual frameworks

May 20: Introduction to the course

•*Garrett, Geoffrey (2004), “Globalization’s Missing Middle,” Foreign Affairs 83(6): 84-96.

•*Siegle, Joseph T., Michael M. Weinstein and Morton H. Halperin (2004), “Why Democracies Excel,” Foreign Affairs 83(5): 57-71.

Film: Small Fortunes: Microcredit and the Future of Poverty

May 21: Approaches to the study of development

•CDB (Chasek, Downie and Brown), Chapter 1

•*Dollar, David and Aart Kraay (2002), “Spreading the Wealth,” Foreign Affairs 81(1): 120-33; responses by Galbraith, Pitts, Wells-Dang, and Dollar and Kraay, Foreign Affairs 81(4): 178-83.

Film: Globalization: Winners and Losers

Imperialism

May 22: Theories of imperialism

•*Hobson, John A., “The Economic Taproots of Imperialism,” in Phil Williams, Donald M. Goldstein and Jay M. Shafritz (eds.) (1999), Classic Readings of International Relations, Second Edition. Fort Worth: Harcourt, pp. 59-62.

•*Lenin, V.I., “Imperialism: A Special Stage of Capitalism,” in Williams, et al., pp. 63-65.

•*Cohen, Benjamin J. (1973), The Question of Imperialism. New York: Basic Books. Chap. 7.

•*Davis, Lance E. and Robert A. Huttenback (1982), “The Political Economy of British Imperialism: Measures of Benefits and Support,” Journal of Economic History XLII(1): 119-32.

Trade and development

May 27: Simulation

•Read ahead for Wednesday!

May 28: The demand for a new international economic order (NIEO) and the South in the World Trade System

•Krueger, Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, and pp. 101-111

•* Love, Joseph L. (2005), “The Rise and Decline of Economic Structuralism in Latin America: New Dimensions,” Latin American Research Review 40(3): 100-125.

•*Bhagwati, Jagdish (2005), “From Seattle to Hong Kong,” Foreign Affairs Special Edition, December (web only).

Foreign aid

May 29: Aid and the NIEO

Papers due at the beginning of class

•*Spero, Joan E. and Jeffrey A. Hart (2003), “Financial Flows to Developing Countries,” The Politics of International Economic Relations, 6th Edition. Belmont: Thomson/Wadsworth, pp. 192-205.

•* Birdsall, Nancy, Dani Rodrik and Arvind Subramanian (2005) “How to Help Poor Countries,” Foreign Affairs 84(4): 136-52.

Film: The World Bank: The Great Experiment

 

June 3: The politics of aid

•*Frey, Bruno S. (1984), “Who Gives and Receives Foreign Aid?” International Political Economics. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Chapter 5

•*Lumsdaine, David Halloran (1993), Moral Vision in International Politics: The Foreign Aid Regime, 1949-1989. Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 156-167.

Foreign direct investment

June 4: Overview and host-country bargaining strategies

•*Robert Gilpin (1987), The Political Economy of International Relations, Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 231-52, 260-62 (HF1411 .G55 1987).

•*Alan S. Blinder (2006), “Offshoring: The Next Industrial Revolution?” Foreign Affairs 85(2).

•*Moran, Theodore H. (1985), “Multinational Corporations and the Developing Countries,” Multinational Corporations and the Developing Countries: An Analytical Overview,” in Theodore H. Moran (ed.), Multinational Corporations: The Political Economy of Foreign Direct Investment, Lexington: Lexington Books, pp. 3-24

The debt crisis of the 1980s

June 5: Crisis origins, management and politics

•*Kahler, Miles (1985),“Politics and International Debt,” International Organization 39(3): 357-82.

•*Spero & Hart, “Financial Flows to Developing Countries,” The Politics of International Economic Relations, pp. 206-33.

•*Haggard , Stephan and Robert Kaufman (1989), “The Politics of Stabilization and Structural Adjustment,” in Jeffrey D. Sachs (ed.), Developing Country Debt and the World Economy, Chicago: University of Chicago, pp. 263-74.

•Haggard, Chapter 1

Regional economic integration

June 10: Integration in Asia and Latin America

•Haggard, Chapters 2, 3 and 4

Currency crises in latin america and east asia

June 11: The Mexican peso crisis and tequila effect

•*Ramírez de la O., Rogelio (1996), “The Mexican Peso Crisis and Recession of 1994-1995,” in Riordan Roett (ed.), The Mexican Peso Crisis: International Perspectives. Boulder: Lynne Rienner, pp. 11-32.

•*Roett, Riordan (1996), “The Mexican Devaluation and the U.S. Response,” in Riordan Roett (ed.), The Mexican Peso Crisis: International Perspectives. Boulder: Lynne Rienner, pp.33-48.

June 12: The Asian crises, spread of the contagion, and policy options

•*Haggard, Stephan (2000), “The Politics of the Asian Financial Crisis,” Journal of Democracy 11(2): 130-44.

•*Esquivel, Gerardo and Felipe Larraín B. (1998), “Latin America Confronting the Asian Crisis,” mimeo.

•*Hausmann, Ricardo (1999), “Should There Be Five Currencies or One Hundred and Five?” Foreign Policy (Fall, no. 116): 65-79.

•*Larraín, Felipe and Jeffrey Sachs (1999), “Why Dollarization is More Straightjacket than Salvation,” Foreign Policy (Fall, no. 116): 80-92.

 

Migration and illegal drug trafficking

June 17: Migration

•*Zolberg, Aristide R. (1992), “Labor Migration and International Economic Regimes: Bretton Woods and After,” in Mary M. Kritz, Lin Lean Lim and Hania Zlotnik (eds.), International Migration Systems: A Global Approach, Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 315-334.

•*Jacoby, Tamar (2006), “Immigration Nation,” Foreign Affairs 85(6): 50-65.

•*Bhagwati, Jagdish (2003), “Borders Beyond Control,” Foreign Affairs 82(1): 98-104.

•*Huntington, Samuel P. (2004), “The Hispanic Challenge,” Foreign Policy March/April: 30-45, and responses in Foreign Policy May/June: 4-13, 84-91.

Film: Frontline: Go Back to Mexico!

June 18: Illegal drug trafficking

•*Thoumi, Francisco E. (2005), “The Causes of Illegal Drug Industry Growth in the Andes, Anti-Drug Policies and Their Effectiveness,” CEODD, Facultad de Economía, Universidad del Rosario, Bogotá, Colombia.

•*Andelman, David A. (1994), “The Drug Money Maze,” Foreign Affairs 73(4): 94-107.

•*Thoumi, Francisco E. (1994), “The Size of the Illegal Drug Industry,” in Bruce M. Bagley and William O. Walker III (eds.), Drug Trafficking in the Americas, New Brunswick: Transaction Books, pp. 77-96.

North-south environmental relations

June 19: The South and the environment; air pollution, ozone depletion, and climate change

•CDB, Chapter 2 and pp. 97-128

•*Victor, David G. (2006), “Recovering Sustainable Development,” Foreign Affairs 85(1): 91-103.

June 24: Toxic waste trade, toxic chemicals, whaling, trade in endangered species, biodiversity, fisheries, desertification, and forests

•CDB, pp. 128-95

Film: Frontline: Global Dumping Ground

June 25: The environment and north-south relations

•CDB, Chapters 4 and 5

June 26: Final Exam