Global Development Studies

In this course, students learn tools for analyzing critical issues in global development. Students work with data from low-income countries to examine the economic strategies of households and the policy choices of governments. Examples range from using household-level data from Mexico to identify the effect of central government policies on poverty and inequality to examining how market failures and unremunerated household labor lead to underinvestment in the education of girls and women.. The course draws heavily from the book Poor Economics for rich narratives about the lives of the poor and for recent insights from behavioral economics that can inform development policy.

This course serves as an introduction to global development and provides an overview of several problems associated with development and globalization. There are two themes that run throughout the course. First, what are the tradeoffs inherent to the process of industrialization, globalization, and economic growth? Second, what are the political, social, and economic challenges faced by low-income countries? In pursuing these two themes, this course will cover several topics related to development and globalization: the historical trajectory and meaning of the development idea; the role played by colonialism in shaping the contours of the contemporary world; the policy dimensions of development and globalization; the tradeoffs associated with the modernization of agriculture; the causes and consequences of the debt crisis; patterns of health and illness in low-income countries; the environmental impact of industrialization and growing global consumerism; and the challenges faced by women in low-income countries. Crosslisted as IPE/GDS 211.

This capstone course allows Global Development Studies (GDS) minors to consolidate their knowledge and engage in meaningful conversations about that knowledge with other students in the program. Students in this seminar undertake an in-depth examination of a specialized topic of interest within the field of global development. Working both as a class and in small groups through the semester, students are expected to research, write, and present a senior thesis.

This course studies the interaction between states, markets and civil society, in the fight against global poverty. More precisely it analyzes the roles of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), Corporations and social entrepreneurs. The course addresses a number of issues: What do NGOs do and how do they finance their operations? Can multinational corporations play a role in the fight against global poverty, and if so, how? How can we make sense of so-called ’social enterprise’? What is the role of the state in regulating and encouraging private solutions to poverty? Are these private solutions further proof of economic liberal dominance or a move toward a new form of capitalism tailored to serve social needs?

This course examines how culture, identity, and ethics are implicated in economic development efforts around the globe and here at home. Through a critical examination of major development theories and their assumptions about the nature of the global system and the meaning of difference within it, the course explores whose ideas about development matter, how they manifest in terms of particular policies and politics, and what stakes they pose for different social groups. In particular, the course explores how race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, health, environment, and education, among other things, have structured development differences. In doing so, the course interrogates the role that colonialism, science, capitalism, and activism have played in shaping development norms and challenges to them. The course engages interdisciplinary and cross-cultural approaches to development through a combination of theoretical and ethnographic texts, as well as experiential learning. This course counts as one of the core courses for the Global Development Studies Designation.