All students are expected to do the required reading for each week in preparation for the lectures and seminars. Active and informed participation is expected in each week’s seminar from all students.

External students will have the opportunity to share their thoughts on each week topic through posting comments on a forum on blackboard; a specific question will be posted to start the discussion each week and this will correspond to the 10% class participation.

Each student will submit five reflective journals anytime throughout the semester. The journals will be at least 250 words in length, but not more than 500, and will be a reflection of the key ideas raised in the readings from any given week. Journals must be submitted at the corresponding tutorial (that is if you decide to write your journal about "Problem Solving Theories" it must be submitted in the week 3 tutorial). No late journals will be accepted. A reflexive journal is not just a summary of the readings. Rather, you will engage with the material analytically and critically. 

Journals can combine topics from two or more classes but in these cases with still only count as one submission. Each journal will count for 5% of your overall grade and the entire exercise 25% of your entire mark. Journals must be typed, 12 font, double-spaced and you must use references. The word limit does not include references.

The class test will be one essay on the material covered in the first 4 weeks of the course. The test will be an hour in length. Externals will do the test on-line and will have 1hr to complete the test from the time of opening the link.

The major essay is due Monday October 26. The essay length is 3000 words. 

Questions:

1. In what ways is IPE/GPE an analysis not only of the material world but of the constructed reality that defines the way the world is organised? 

2. Which IPE/GPE perspective offers a better explanation and remedy for the current global economic crisis?

3. Do you agree with Philip McMichael that globalisation is a ‘historically specific project of global economic (financial) management’ prosecuted by a ‘powerful elite of financiers, international and national bureaucrats, and corporate leaders’ to restructure developing states and their economies? See McMichael in Roberts and Hite, The Globalization and Development Reader: Perspectives on Development and Social Change, 1996: 218.

4. Does world-systems analysis provide a persuasive explanation for the disparities in wealth and power in the global political economy? What are the major criticisms of this approach and are they valid?

5. “Now, when I say question the whole society, it means ultimately coming to see that the problem of racism, the problem of exploitation, and the problem of            war are all tied together. These are the triple evils that are interrelated.” (Dr Martin Luther King Jnr.)

In what way can the quote from Dr King be interpreted as a critique of how racism (and other forms of bigotry and discrimination) is generated by the capitalist system?

Submission of Essays

All essays are to be submitted through turn-it-in on the ilearn website. Please remember to have your name and page number on each journal submission.

There will be strictly NO extensions on submission deadlines for essays other than on certified medical grounds. Late submissions of essays will be penalised at the rate of 2 marks a day. For example, if you submit your essay 3 days late, and if the paper would have normally been awarded a 75 (out of 100), then 6 marks will be deducted, resulting in 69 as the final grade for the paper.

All work submitted for this course will be graded according to the guidelines issued by the Department of Modern History, Politics and International Relations which are attached at the end of this course guide. Also, rubrics will be made available for the journals and essays.

There will be no written examination at the end of the semester.