POL380H1S L5101

Topics in International Politics

Global Governance

Themes

A principal aim of this course is to remedy the neglect of the constitutional aspect of globalization by challenging one of its principal sources, which is the arbitrary separation of international politics and economics that has characterized much of the literature on globalization. The course will focus attention, especially on three overarching questions about the impact of the constitutional ideal, which are: 1) How has the constitutional ideal shaped the post-Soviet/post-1989 international politico-economic order in general, and the concepts of governance, security, development, peace, justice, and human rights in particular? 2) What are the consequences of ignoring the constitutional roots of the market-oriented nature of the international political order and its institutions? 3) Why did the promotion of constitutional globalization end up supporting the transnational capitalist classes and thereby fail to vindicate the optimism about “the universalization of Western liberal democracy” expressed by Francis Fukuyama in The End of History and the Last Man (1992).