Module SGIA3821: Advanced Readings in Political Economy

Department: Government and International Affairs

SGIA3821: Advanced Readings in Political Economy

Prerequisites

• Any level 2 SGIA module.

Corequisites

• None

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None

Aims

• To enable students to demonstrate a comprehensive and detailed knowledge of a number of key texts in political economy.
• To enable students to identify and assess the methodological properties of major IPE texts.
• To support students’ independent mapping of scholarly responses to major texts.
• To address the context within which texts were written in relation to their legacies and controversies.

Content

• Through seminar discussions, the module will introduce the students to key texts which are considered to have shaped the discipline of political economy. These texts will be selected according to the following criteria: they have established a broader research tradition within IPE; they have impacted on broader political and economic thought; they have generated their own theoretical and methodological procedures; they have strongly influenced ideological thinking. Illustratively, these texts might include those of: Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Joseph Schumpeter, Friedrich Hayek, John Maynard Keynes, Karl Polanyi, António Gramsci, Samir Amin, Mariana Mazzucato, Adam Tooze, Branko Milanovic, and Dani Rodrik.
• Seminars will be dedicated to an in-depth examination of a particular text. Students will be guided in reading and analysing the text, drawing on additional reading material to understand the historical, geographic and structural context for the composition of the text as well as its contribution to the discipline and the principal critiques that it has prompted.

Learning Outcomes

• Through the module students will gain an understanding of:
• Students will have a detailed knowledge and understanding of the contents and contribution of seven texts deemed to have been of major significance in the evolution of political economy as a discipline.
• Students will have a detailed knowledge and understanding of the principal critiques of these contributions within the field.
• Students will have a detailed understanding of how debates around primary texts authored in different historical periods and contexts have shaped the discipline of political economy.

• To demonstrate deep and detailed understanding of major IPE texts.
• To demonstrate an advanced ability to identify, engage with and critique conceptualisations and/or theorisations developed within the selected texts.
• To locate major texts within broader intellectual fields, demonstrating historical and sociological awareness in doing so.
• To be able to assess the contribution made by the texts to the development of political economy as a field of study.
• To discern the methodological underpinnings of major texts and identify how this has shaped the nature of the claims and arguments therein.

• Develop a self-critical and independent approach to learning;
• Independent learning within a defined framework of study at an advanced level;
• Independent thought in analysing and critiquing existing scholarship on the subject area and in evaluating its contribution;
• Ability for independent thinking informed by the academic debate at an advanced level.
• Advanced review essay-writing skills and the ability to work to a deadline;
• Retrieving and using competently and confidently resources to which they have been directed;
• Identifying resources on their own initiative and assessing their suitability and quality for the project in hand.

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• The module will comprise 14 two-hour seminars.
• Key primary texts will be examined in detail. Each text will have one seminar devoted to examining the context and contents of the text and one seminar focused on examining the principal critiques of the text and its contribution to the discipline of political economy.
• The students will be formatively assessed via a review essay examining the contents and contribution of one text. This will provide an opportunity to practice critical review and to receive feedback on how to improve written work for summative assessment.
• The summative assessment will be via two equally-weighted review essays focusing on the content and contribution of two different key texts (neither of which can be the text studied for the formative assignment).

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

Students will submit a 1,500 word review essay focusing on one key text mid-way through the Michaelmas Term.

■ Attendance at all activities marked with this symbol will be monitored. Students who fail to attend these activities, or to complete the summative or formative assessment specified above, will be subject to the procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University