Does a global order require global governance regimes and institutions? Can the world be effectively governed? Is justice a legitimate concern of global governance? This course identifies the critical issues of global economic and environmental governance in a highly interdependent world and formulates policy responses to them. Free trade, financial stability, development and climate Change mitigation are the paradigmatic cases for what economists term “externality”, thus raising the need for coordination of governmental actions at the global, or supra-national level. International economic and climate policy coordination is widely seen as fostering economic growth and sustainable development of its member states. Yet the benefits and burdens are often unevenly distributed within states.

This seminar will examine the politics of global economic and environmental governance, focusing on how global norms, rules and formal international institutions facilitate cooperation and mitigate conflict in the world economy. Our broader objective is to attain a sufficient level of historical and contemporary knowledge of global economic and environmental governance to be fully versant in current policy debates and to provide critical analyses of the relevance, legitimacy and effectiveness of these global institutions today.

The course is divided into four sections. The first section introduces to the various concepts, major theories and approaches to global governance. The second section analyzes the core architectural elements of the current system of global economic and environmental governance, including the WTO, IMF, World Bank and UNFCCC. In section III, we will build a nexus between trade, finance, development aid and environment as these issues have fundamental impact on global sustainable development. The concluding section examines the emerging trend of the nexus of economic and environment that will reshape current patterns in global governance.