Graduate

Dr. Cornelia Woll's Introduction to the International Political Economy provides students at Sciences Po Paris with a multidisciplinary perspective on the international political economy; Woll stitches together insights from political science, sociology, anthropology, economics, and history to grant her students a thorough understanding of the evolution of the modern international political economic order. Of particular interest to Dr. Woll are the tensions between capitalism and democracy and between national diversity and the integration of nations into cooperative units.

Professor Alex Gourevitch’s The Political Theory of the Economy uses historical analysis to provide students with an understanding of what an economy is, where it comes from, and why modern economies have taken their contemporary form. And the course investigates a series of critical theoretical questions underlying any economy: What is an economy? Do economies differ from government and, if so, how? What principles can be used to criticize an economy? How do we compare economies to any possible alternatives?

Professor Bill Janeway’s Venture Capital in the Innovation Economy discusses, first, the theoretical underpinnings of economic growth and economic churn, and then the financing of innovation through venture capital. 

In Economic Sociology, Dr. Bruce Carruthers explores the sociological effects of the behaviors of economic agents.

Professor Bruce Carruther’s Global Capitalism and Law investigates the consequences of the clash between an increasingly global economy and legal structures and institutions at the level of the nation-state. This mismatch between the scale of markets and the scale of the legal frameworks that regulate those markets makes for a possible flashpoint with social, political, economic, and legal repercussions.

In The Political Economy of Government Regulation, Professor Daniel Carpenter puts forward a survey of government regulation in an attempt to answer the following questions: How do regulations arise? Who influences them? Do they achieve their desired outcomes, and how would we know? The course provides Professor Carpenter’s students with an opportunity to reflect on the political atmosphere surrounding any governmental regulation and thus prepares these students to think carefully about regulation and its role in the public sphere.

Early on in the undergraduate experience, Harvard students have the opportunity to take Professor Eric Beerbohm's Foundations of Political Theory which serves as a powerful introduction into these issues. The students are, from the beginning, challenged in their beliefs and thus prompted to think critically about the political institutions around them.

Professor Beerbohm's Ethics and Public Policy discusses the manipulation of citizens within democracies. This course not only describes the special vulnerabilities of democratic societies in this regard, but goes further to examine possible solutions.

Globalization, Professor Henry Farrell’s graduate political science course, covers the major political debates of globalization. These debates have defined modern political life, and the debates have become increasingly important given the rise of domestic populism throughout much of the world. 

Professor Jeff Spinner-Halev’s Contemporary Theories of Justice focuses on three themes within contemporary political theory: markets and equality, culture and religion, and responsibility, with the latter covering structural injustice, environmental justice, historical injustice, etc.