The objectives of the course include: (i) introducing the structure and practices of key institutions in global economic governance (such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization); (ii) giving an overview of major theoretical approaches to the study of international economic institutions–in other words, how they are created, how they interact, and how they evolve; and (iii) providing a comprehensive understanding of current trends and challenges in global economic governance.
This course offers an introduction to key concepts, theories, and debates on global economic governance. It aims to provide students with a comprehensive understanding of what shapes the creation, evolution, and performance of institutions in today’s economic system. The course starts with a review of major theories on institutional design and change. It then considers the process of institutional proliferation that has characterized the international financial system over the past five decades, transforming it into a multitiered network of bilateral, regional, and international institutions; this, with a view to exploring the impact that such institutional complexity may have on the effectiveness of the system. The course then moves on to consider issues of power and hierarchy, as it shows how different types of distributional conflicts affect governance outcomes. Finally, the course presents the various mechanisms through which policies and institutions can spread, and some methods for modeling them.
