The Global Political Economy: Power, Inequality, and Globalization

*Taught Online*  Since the 1970s, economic inequality has been on the rise. Today, the world’s richest 1% own 44% of the world’s total stock of wealth. The problem is especially acute in the United States, where three individuals alone now own more than the bottom half of the country combined. This course draws on the work of economists, political scientists, historians, journalists, and activists to examine the causes and character of economic inequality, including how it intersects with identity markers like gender and ethnicity, both in the US and around the world. It argues that inequality is neither natural nor inevitable but rather a function of the historically determined distribution of power within given political economies. The concluding modules will explore the attitudes and ideologies that have served to justify and normalize inequality and consider proposals advanced in recent years aimed at redressing the balance of the power and wealth between the few and the many.

See sample syllabus here.