Fall 2007 Course Description
Advanced Topics in Public Policy
| Section Title: |
Globalization and its Discontents: the Politics of Transnational Social Movements and Other Non-State Actors |
| Instructor(s): |
Joshua Busby |
| Course: |
P A 388K - Advanced Topics in Public Policy
(previously Seminar in Topics in Public Policy) |
| Unique Number: |
65615 |
| Day & Time: |
Thursdays, 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM |
| Room: |
SRH 3.108 |
| Waitlist Information: | For LBJ Students: UT Waitlist Information
For Non LBJ Students: LBJ School Waitlist Instructions |
| Syllabus: |
Download PDF |
This course fulfills requirements for the following specialization(s):
- Natural Resources and the Environment
- International Affairs
- Nonprofit and Philanthropic Studies
Description: Globalization?the increased speed, scope, and scale of transactions among peoples and countries--has in the last twenty years both empowered non-state actors and emboldened them to challenge the international system. This class will address how reduced costs of transportation, sharing information, and other technological changes have given a variety of non-state actors?including anti-globalization activists, principled advocacy movements, philanthropists, secessionists, terrorists, and drug traffickers?increased capabilities to get what they want. However, states are still the dominant actors in the international system so this class will examine some of the limits and conditions under which these actors are able to achieve their aims. This class will therefore look at both the benign and more malign faces of global civil society. The first part of the class will discuss the new landscape for non-state actors, focusing on the late 20th century and early 21st. The second part of the class will look at the self-identified anti-globalization movement and address their motivations and their degree of influence. The third part of the course will focus on principled transnational advocacy movements seeking to take advantage of globalization to push for new regimes to deal with global problems. These include the campaigns to ban landmines, write-off developing country debt, fight global AIDS, protect religious freedom in Sudan and China, create an International Criminal Court, combat small arms, among others. This part of the class will seek to answer why some of these campaigns succeed in some places and fail in others. The fourth part of the class will deal with the negative face of global civil society and discuss how other weak actors?secessionist movements, terrorists, drug traffickers?take advantage of the changed global environment to champion a different set of interests and causes.
Return to Fall 2007 Course Schedule
