The governance of markets in challenging times: From classic authors to new approaches
Module: 5. Finance & Trade Concentration Elective | 6. Portfolio Elective
Abstract
The socio‐economic divisions and tensions in today’s society seem to run deep and even the most stable market economies are struggling to find effective solutions. What are the driving forces of these developments? Can the social market economy survive? What are the proposed solutions? This course provides future change makers in public and private sectors with a comprehensive overview on the structures and actors that shape markets. In the first part of the course, students will have the opportunity to debate key original texts from different disciplines (political science, sociology, economics, and history) central to the study of markets and their institutional set‐up. This includes classics (e.g., Smith, Marx), the liberal paradigm (e.g., Hayek, Friedman), economic sociology (e.g., Polanyi, Fligstein), but also new institutional economics, and historical approaches. These contending perspectives will enable students to contextualize more recent and alternative approaches. Thus, the second part of the course focuses on current propositions how to solve rising problems related to market governance, globalization, and neoliberalism. In this context, we will, for example, look at supranational market governance, solidarity economy and commons‐based approaches, degrowth and socio‐ecological transformation, gender perspectives in political economy, and postcolonial theories on the Global South. This course qualifies students to extrapolate insights from classic authors and newer approaches to reflect upon the governance of markets in challenging times.
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