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Global Development Studies

Director

Monica DeHart
253-879-3491

Administrative Support

Ashli O’Strander

Program Description

What is the meaning of development? What are the trade-offs associated with industrialization, economic growth, and globalization? What are the political, economic, social, cultural, and environmental challenges faced by low-income countries?

The Global Development Studies (GDS) Program offers an interdisciplinary minor that focuses on the transformations associated with development. Since development entails transformations at the individual, local, national, and global levels, the program consists of courses that address multiple thematic and regional dimensions of development processes.

Courses in the program allow students to explore the empirical, philosophical, and policy dimensions of development. Faculty members at Puget Sound with development expertise teach in several departments and thus can provide students with a comprehensive set of skills and experiences for future development studies or work.

 

Who You Could Be

  • Peace Corps volunteer
  • Foreign service officer
  • Fulbright researcher
  • Import coordinator
  • Immigration attorney
  • Environmental policy consultant

What You'll Learn

  • How the concept of development has historically been defined and practiced
  • Connections among the political, economic, and sociocultural dimensions
  • Assumptions that have shaped development and policy goals, and the diverse kinds of evidence used to evaluate their effectiveness
Jessica Dyck '18
ALUMNI
Jessica Dyck ’18

"The ability to critically think about global health inequities and the challenges that the world faces when it comes to policy-making and funding of health care gives me perspective when I am working in my community."

SAMPLE COURSES
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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.

Code
Social Scientific and Historical Perspectives
Prerequisites
ECON 101.

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.

Code
Knowledge, Identity, and PowerSocial Scientific and Historical Perspectives

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.

Code
Social Scientific and Historical Perspectives
Prerequisites
Permission of the instructor.

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?

Code
Social Scientific and Historical Perspectives

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.

Code
Social Scientific and Historical Perspectives
1/8

Experiential Learning

Where our students have interned:

  • AfricAid (communications intern)
  • Center for Strategic and International Studies (research intern)
  • World Justice Project (communications intern)
  • UNICEF (nutrition intern)
  • Refugee Women's Alliance (education intern)
  • Center for Global Education (development intern)

STORIES

Read more about Educating the Community
Community
Students

Educating the Community

Read more about Expanding His Horizons
Faculty
Arches

Expanding His Horizons

Q: What first got you interested in studying tourism and development?A: My interest grew out of my own experience. When I was a junior in college, I spent a semester studying in Australia, and after that, I traveled…
Read more about Connections
Community
Faculty
Students

Connections

Where Our Graduates Work

Where our graduates work:

  • Bureau of Labor Statistics (economist)
  • AmeriCorps (sustainability coordinator)
  • Population Services International (community manager)
  • Ariadne Labs (researcher)
  • Economic Opportunity Institute (development manager)

Where Our Graduates Continue Studying

Where our students continue their studies:

  • Brandeis University (M.S., sustainable international development)
  • University of Edinburgh (Ph.D., social policy)
  • Johns Hopkins University (Master of Public Health)
  • University of Washington (Master of Public Administration)
  • University of Pennsylvania (Master of Social Work)
  • London School of Economics and Political Science (M.Sc., international political economy)
Meet the Faculty
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Isha Rajbhandari
Associate Professor, Economics

An urban and regional economist, Prof. Rajbhandari studies the policy implications of energy booms on local and regional economies with a particular focus on migration, occupations, and job growth.

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Monica DeHart
Professor, Sociology and Anthropology and Director, Global Development Studies

Prof. DeHart focuses on the intersection of development and identity politics in Central America, particularly the roles that gender, class, race, and ethnic difference play in shaping identity and trans-Pacific relations.

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Matthew Warning
Professor, Economics

Prof. Warning teaches development economics and  econometrics, while focusing his research in the areas of impact evaluation methods and rural poverty in developing countries.

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Emelie Peine
Professor and Director, International Political Economy

While teaching a wide array of IPE courses, Prof. Peine conducts research focused on the role of multinational agribusiness in the global food regime, as well as local food systems and food availability.

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Nick Kontogeorgopoulos
Professor, International Political Economy, and Dean of Experiential Learning

Prof. Kontogeorgopoulos's research interests center on alternative forms of tourism in Southeast Asia. He teaches courses on tourism, international development, and international political economy.

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BEYOND THE CLASSROOM

Austin Bosworth '19 in Thailand
TRAVEL-STUDY TO THAILAND

Austin Bosworth ’19 traveled to northern Thailand as part of a course on the political economy of Southeast Asia, and later studied abroad in Uganda, where he interned with Green Bio Energy.

Wildes Ho '19 on Pac Rim
A PACRIM ADVENTURE

During the 2017–18 year, Wildes Ho ’19 studied in several Asian countries as part of Puget Sound's Pacific Rim Study Abroad Program, and conducted an independent study project on wet markets.

Anja Stokes '19 in Tanzania
TANZANIA WILDLIFE CONSERVATION

While studying abroad in Tanzania with the SIT Wildlife Conservation and Political Ecology Program, Anja Stokes ’19 studied the impacts and mitigation strategies of climate change.