ClassInfo - Spring 2018 Sociology Classes

Spring 2018 | SOC 3417W Section 001: Global Institutions of Power: World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and World Trade Organization (69767)

Instructor(s): Serife Genis
Class Component:: Lecture
Credits:: 3 Credits
Grading Basis:: A-F only
Instructor Consent:: No Special Consent Required
Instruction Mode:: In Person Term Based
Class Attributes:: UMNTC Liberal Education Requirement
Meets With:: GLOS 3415W Section 001
Times and Locations:: Regular Academic Session

01/16/2018 - 05/04/2018

Tue, Thu 11:15AM - 12:30PM

UMTC, West Bank

Blegen Hall 235
Enrollment Status:: Closed (14 of 14 seats filled)

Course Catalog Description:

Introduction to World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and World Trade Organization. Emphasizes their daily practices and political, economic, and cultural effects around the world. Politics/business of development. Free market and trade. New transnational professional class. Social activism.

Class Notes:

Click this link for more detailed course information: http://classinfo.umn.edu/?sgenis+SOC3417W+Spring2018

Class Description:

This course will introduce students to three of the world's most powerful global institutions -- the World Bank (IBRD), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Trade Organization (WTO) - and one fairly weak one, the United Nations, and its many affiliated agencies such as UNHCR (for refugee support). The course will emphasize three dimensions: We will look behind their doors to understand their daily practices; we will learn about the political, economic, and cultural terrain in which they operate and which they help to create; and we will observe them in key sites in the global South and North. General course themes will include the history, politics, and business of development; the ways that global expertise and experts are created and work within new transnational policy networks; changing global-elite perspectives on poverty and wealth generation, on the "free market," trade, and liberalization; and the workings and politics of transnational social activism. Through readings, lectures, discussions, films, small research projects, and writing assignments, the course will take students to the Wall Street banking sector (from where the Bank and IMF borrow), the Washington, D.C. beltway (where key policies are often formed), the Mekong river delta and the Mexican countryside (where loans and projects have an impact), and to the peacekeeping forces of the UN in Rwanda and their refugee support teams in East Africa, in order to better understand how and why these global institutions have expanded globally and locally, the political order which they try to create, and alternative political forms that emerge in their wake.

Writing Intensive Requirement: The course fulfills the writing intensive requirement and a liberal education theme of global perspectives.

Global Perspectives Theme (CLE): The course also fulfills the CLE criteria for the Global Perspectives theme in that it focuses on the world beyond the U.S. and yet situates the U.S. in a larger, complex mapping of the world.

Grading:

Eighty percent of the final grade will be based on performance on the papers, weighted somewhat to the paper's length. Papers will be evaluated based on content as well as quality of writing. Twenty percent of the final grade will be based on performance on quizzes, participation in class discussions and debates, and oral presentations.

Exam Format:

Written assignments, oral presentations, participation in class discussions and debates.

Class Format:

This course will be run as a mix of lecture (to help explain the concepts and readings) and active student research and participation. We will try to understand global institutions and their arenas of power and knowledge from an array of techniques and perspectives, including an historical and relational approach that links changes in the Global South with changes in the Global North. We will watch a few films critically, read texts closely on economic globalization from an ardent advocate and reputable economic journalist, from an ethnographer of the World Bank, scholars of international trade, and from social activists challenging the power of global institutions, militaries, and abusive corporations. Finally, we will conduct our own research projects on a variety of possible topics, such as water privatization, prominent and controversial court cases before the World Trade Organization, and the effects of particular global policies on the lives of people in places such as the Mekong river valleys of Laos and Thailand, the townships of South Africa, the mountains of Bolivia, and perhaps even in the streets of Minneapolis. (Our group research projects will be explained on the first day of class and again later in the course.) Students are expected to participate actively in class discussions, debates, presentations, and small-group research projects.

Class attendance and participation (including occasional oral presentations) are required; active engagement in the course work and regular attendance in class are essential for a decent grade.

Workload:

We will read an average of approximately 75 pages per week.

Around 20 pages of written assignments are due (with 1.5 spacing), consisting of three 4-page papers, one 6-page research-based paper, and short one-page writing assignments, with each assignment reflecting a different type of writing style.

Textbooks:

https://bookstores.umn.edu/course-lookup/69767/1183

Instructor Supplied Information Last Updated:

28 November 2017

ClassInfo Links - Spring 2018 Sociology Classes

To link directly to this ClassInfo page from your website or to save it as a bookmark, use:: http://classinfo.umn.edu/?subject=SOC&catalog_nbr=3417W&term=1183
To see a URL-only list for use in the Faculty Center URL fields, use:: http://classinfo.umn.edu/?subject=SOC&catalog_nbr=3417W&term=1183&url=1
To see this page output as XML, use:: http://classinfo.umn.edu/?subject=SOC&catalog_nbr=3417W&term=1183&xml=1
To see this page output as JSON, use:: http://classinfo.umn.edu/?subject=SOC&catalog_nbr=3417W&term=1183&json=1
To see this page output as CSV, use:: http://classinfo.umn.edu/?subject=SOC&catalog_nbr=3417W&term=1183&csv=1

ClassInfo created and maintained by the Humphrey School of Public Affairs.

If you have questions about specific courses, we strongly encourage you to contact the department where the course resides.