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 to better 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 a detailed understanding and knowledge of:
• The contents and contribution of a number of key texts deemed to have been of major significance in the evolution of political economy as a discipline.
• The principal critiques of these contributions within the field.
• 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 the development of political economy as a field of study and identify their specific contributions, demonstrating historical and sociological awareness in doing so.

• Develop a self-critical and independent approach to learning at an advanced level;
• Independent thought in analysing and critiquing existing scholarship and academic debate on the subject area and in evaluating their contribution at an advanced level;
• Advanced review essay-writing skills and the ability to work to a deadline;
• Advanced ability to independently identify, search and utilise relevant sources for the project at 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 seminars devoted to examining the context and contents of the text, its contribution to the discipline of political economy, as well as the principal critiques formulated against it.
• 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 different key texts (which cannot 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.

■ Students who do not attend monitored activities shown under Teaching Methods and Learning Hours, or who fail to complete the summative or formative assessment(s) specified above, may be subject to the Academic Progress procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University.