Global Arc

The junior policy research seminar serves to introduce departmental majors to the tools, methods, and interpretations employed in policy research and writing. Students may choose from a range of topics.

The junior policy research seminar serves to introduce departmental majors to the tools, methods, and interpretations employed in policy research and writing. Students may choose from a range of topics.

People have plowed up, cut-down and otherwise heavily manipulated more than 75% of the world's land, and the degree and extent of this manipulation continues to expand to meet rising demands for food and wood products. This course will explore the consequences for biodiversity and climate change, the drivers of change and scenarios for the future. Students will think through the complex issues behind conservation planning for biodiversity and gain understanding of what is known and not known about the global carbon cycle. Major class papers and a final presentation by each student will explore solutions.

Course introduces use of economics in understanding both the sources of and the remedies to environmental and resource allocation problems. It emphasizes the reoccurrence of economic phenomenon like public goods, externalities, market failure and imperfect information. Students learn about the design and evaluation of environmental policy instruments, the political economy of environmental policy, and the valuation of environmental and natural resource services. These concepts are illustrated in a variety of applications from domestic pollution of air, water and land to international issues such as global warming and sustainable development.

India's post-independence journey is a lens to study fundamental questions of economic development and political economy. Despite attempts at big-push industrialization, followed by economic liberalization in the 1990's, the country struggled to create jobs and provide public goods at par with rapid population growth. Extreme economic inequality is now only one concern amidst environmental degradation, gender-based violence, and a Hindu-nationalist political agenda. When, and how, will India achieve sustainable development? The seminar will draw on scholarly works and Indian cinema for a well-rounded economic, social and political commentary.

This course will introduce students to the variety of forms of constitutional government and the way that human rights are understood and enforced by courts around the world. We will trace the emergence of a global constitutional culture and focus more directly on the constitutions of South Africa, India, Germany, France, Hungary, Israel and Canada. We will give primary emphasis to the rights provisions in national constitutions, but will also take transnational constitutional regimes through examining decisions of the European Courts of Human Rights. Two ninety-minute seminars.

The course examines the history of financial innovation and its consequences. It examines the evolution of trading practices, bills of exchange, government bonds, equities, banking activity, derivatives markets, and securitization. How do these evolve in particular state or national settings, how are the practices regulated, how do they relate to broader development? What happens as financial instruments are traded across state boundaries, and how does an international financial order evolve? What are the effects of international capital mobility? How is resulting conflict and instability managed, on both a national and international level?

Special topics in security and sustainability will explore areas of policy related to conflict and cooperation, development, environment, climate and energy, science, technology and security as well as trade and financial policy both domestically and internationally.

Special Topics in Institutions and Networks will house courses related to communications, media influence and information networks, international organizations and global governance, law and legal systems, political systems and social networks.

Special Topics in International Policy and Development will house courses related to policy and development specifically in regions outside of the US.