Political Economy of Global Finance (YorkU, AS4295/GS5295 3.0, Undergraduate/Graduate)

Why should political science students be concerned with money, financial instruments and international capital movements? The standard interdisciplinary answer is that finance and politics “affect” one another. For instance, governments have to pay close attention to the stocks and bond markets, whereas investors depend on political and legal conditions; economic performance and class positions are influenced by, and in turn bear on interest rates and asset values; and international interdependence is further complicated by cross-boarder capital movements. The seminar deals with such connections but also goes beyond them, seeking to understand finance itself as a dominant form of politics.

Discussion is organized around several key themes, including: (1) Concepts and Building Blocks: What are financial markets, who are the key players and why are they there? (2) The Alchemy of Finance: How do financial markets work? What different theories and ideologies are used to explain, justify and criticize the functioning of modern finance? How is finance a form of “governance”? Who is being governed, by whom and to what end? (3) The Globalization of Finance: What is capital flow and how is it related to ownership and power? What is the connection between the power of capital, state sovereignty and international monetary stability? How have their relationships changed over time? (4) Political Economy of Global Finance: Is international finance a precondition for prosperity, or is it a “fictitious” bubble, de-linked from the underlying “real” political economy and hence a source of global instability? What types of international financial architectures are possible, and what do they imply for the political economy of power and well being, locally as well as globally?