58123 Society, Economy and Globalisation
UTS: Communication: Social and Political ChangeCredit points: 8 cp
Result Type: Grade, no marks
Requisite(s): 58122 Introduction to Social Inquiry
There are also course requisites for this subject. See access conditions.
Handbook description
Global social forces shape social change and it could be said that the most powerful actor in contemporary globalisation is global business. To understand the problems of global society and develop possible solutions we must understand the global political economy. This subject addresses global business as a class formation, assesses its influence on policy-making and interrogates its market ideology. Implications investigated are its power for political institutions and governance, and for social development, in terms of equity and sustainability. A snapshot is developed, with students focusing on a specific commodity, such as wheat, to chart its passage through global society. These global value chains are explored from sites of extraction to manufacture, retail, consumption and disposal. Social, political and ecological impacts are highlighted using quantitative and qualitative data drawn from internationally-available data sets. Students use insights gained from these investigations to create a survey that explores popular perceptions of globalisation and consumer culture, and of the global commodities on which so many rely. Working as a group, students develop an online survey instrument and analyse results using data analysis information technology.
Subject objectives/outcomes
At the completion of this subject, students are expected to be able to:
- outline major themes in readings on globalisation and social change
- compare the strengths and weaknesses, and the ethical and political dilemmas of quantitative research methodologies
- design and undertake survey research into globalisation and social change
- interpret research results in light of key concepts in political economy, economic sociology, and globalisation studies
Contribution to graduate profile
This subject makes a major contribution to the student's capacity to think analytically, and inquire critically, using concepts drawn from political economy, globalisation studies and comparative sociology.
A critical capacity to respect a plurality of perspectives in relation to the problems involved in comparison, generalization and measurement of social phenomena.
The students ability to apply their knowledge and skills to generate data and to communicate effectively the outcomes of their research and learning in qualitative and quantitative ways.
Teaching and learning strategies
The subject consists of a weekly lecture and seminar over 13 weeks. Weekly lectures present key concepts in globalisation, political economy and social change which are debated and discussed by students in online forums. Tutorials provide opportunities for students to compare the strengths and weakness of various research methodologies and receive feedback on their survey designs. Final results of the students' projects are presented in tutorials in which students receive peer feedback on their interpretation of their findings prior to final submission of their research essay.
Content
- the problem of measurement in the social sciences
- exchange, social change and global markets
- state regulation and international governance
- classical liberalism, Marxism, Keynesianism and neoliberalism
- value theory
- land, labour, and capital
- commodity production and economic growth
- agricultural, industrial and post-industrial societies
- the modern business corporation
- statistics and globalisation
- designing a research project & conducting a survey
- quantitative data analysis
Assessment
Assessment item 1: Facilitation Statement (Weeks 2-6, up to 1000 words each)
| Objective(s): | b, d |
| Weighting: | 25% |
| Task: | Students submit a discussion report incorporating major themes discussed in class and in the readings. |
| Assessment criteria: |
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Assessment item 2: Survey Instrument
| Objective(s): | a, c, f |
| Weighting: | 25% |
| Task: | Develop a proposal for developing, applying and analyzing a survey that investigates an aspect of globalization in everyday life. Central consideration should be given to designing a survey instrument capable of yielding data that can be investigated through a statistical program. |
| Assessment criteria: |
|
Assessment item 3: Essay
| Objective(s): | a, b, c, d |
| Weighting: | 50% |
| Task: | Conduct survey research into an aspect of globalisation as outlined in item 2, and analyse survey results using SPSS, writing up the research in the form of an essay. |
| Assessment criteria: |
|
Minimum requirements
Attendance is important in this subject because it is based on a collaborative approach which involves essential workshopping and interchange of ideas with other students and the tutor. An attendance roll will be taken at each class. Where possible, students should advise the tutor in a timely manner if they are unable to attend.
Students who fail to attend 85% of classes may be refused to have their final assessment item assessed (see Rule 3.8).
Required text(s)
Weekly course readings on UTSOnline.
Recommended text(s)
Classic Works in Economic Sociology
Heilbroner, R. (2000) The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times and Ideas of the Great Economic Thinkers, 7e,
Collins, Randall (1980) 'Weber's last theory of capitalism: A systematization', American Sociological Review, vol.45, pp.925–4.
Durkheim, Emile (1984) 'Organic Solidarity and Contractual Solidarity', Chapter VII in The Division of Labor in Society, Free Press, New York, pp.149-175.
Marx, Karl (1999) Capital: An Abridged Edition, Oxford University Press, New
York.
Polanyi, Karl (1980) The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins
of Our Time, Beacon Press, Cambridge, MA.
Schumpeter, Joseph (1975) Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, Harper Torchbooks,
New York.
Smith, Adam (2000) The Wealth of Nations, Modern Library, New York.
Weber, Max. (1978) Economy and Society, University of California Press, Berkeley,
pp. 63-211, 302-7, 311-354.
Commodity Chain Analysis and Case Studies
Hartwick, E. (1998) 'Geographies of consumption: a commodity-chain approach', Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, vol. 16, no. 4, p.423 – 437.
Fold, Niels and Bill Pritchard (ed) (2005) Cross-continental Food Chains, London, Routledge,
Gellert., Paul (2003) 'Renegotiating a Timber Commodity Chain: Lessons from Indonesia on the Political Construction of Global Commodity Chains', Sociological Forum, vol. 18., no. 1, pp. 53-84.
Gereffi, G. M. Korzeniewiecz and R. Korzeniewiecz (1994) 'Introduction: Global Commodity Chains', in Commodity Chains and Global Capitalism, Westport, Praeger.
Daviron, Benoît., and Stefano Ponte (2005) The Coffee Paradox : Global Markets, Commodity Trade and the Elusive Promise of Development, New York , Zed Books & CTA.
Barlow, Maude (1999) Blue Gold: the Global Water Crisis and the Commodification of the Worlds Water Supply, International Forum on Globalisation, San Francisco.
Korzeniewiecz, Miguel (2004) 'Commodity Chains and Marketing Strategies: Nike and the Global Athletic Footwear Industry' in The Globalization Reader, J. Lechner & J Boli (eds.) 2e, Blackwell, Malden, MA.
Topik, S., C. Marichal, Z. Frank (2006) From Silver to Cocaine: Latin American Commodity Chains and the Building of the World Economy, 1500-2000, Duke University Press, London.
Bunker, S. and P. Ciccantel (2005) Globalization and the Race for Resources, John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.
Waldby, Catherine and Cooper, Melinda (2008) The Biopolitics of Reproduction, Australian Feminist Studies, vol. 23, no. 55, pp. 57 – 73.
Perkins, John H. (1997) Geopolitics and the Green Revolution : Wheat, Genes, and the Cold War, New York : Oxford University Press,.
Shiva, Vandana. (2000) Stolen Harvest : the Hijacking of the Global Food Supply, Cambridge, MA: South End Press.
Bond, Patrick & Dada, Rehana & Erion, Graham (2007) Climate Change, Carbon Trading and Civil Society: Negative Returns on South African Investments . Centre for Civil Society : 1-1.
Globalisation
Held, D., McGrew, A., Goldblatt, D. and Perraton, J. (eds) (1999) Global Transformations: Politics, Economics and Culture, Polity, Cambridge
Lechner J. and John Boli (eds.)(2004) The Globalization Reader, 2e, Blackwell, Malden, MA.
Hoogvelt, A (2001) - Globalization and the postcolonial world: The new political economy of development Johns Hopkins University Press
Arrighi, G. (1994) The Long Twentieth Century, London, Verso.
Ayres, Robert. (1999) The Turning Point: The End of the Growth Paradigm, Earthscan, London.
Bair, Jennifer (ed.) (2009) Frontiers of Commodity Chain Research, Stanford University Press.
Buell, Frederick. From Apocalypse to Way of Life: Environmental Crisis in the American Century, Routledge, New York, 2003.
Chossudovsky M. (1998) The Globalisation of poverty: impacts of IMF and WB reforms, Pluto Press, Sydney.
Fine, Ben. 'Economics Imperialism and Intellectual Progress', History of Economics Review, vol. 32, 2000, pp. 10-35.
Fischer-Kowalski, Marina and Walter Hüttler, 'Society's Metabolism: Review of the Intellectual History of Materials Flow Analysis Part II: 1970 - 1998', Journal of Industrial Ecology, no. 30, 1998, pp. 107-136.
Gilpin R. (1987) The Political Economy of International Relations, Princeton University Press, New Jersey
Hirst P. and Thompson G. (1996) Globalisation in Question, Polity Press, England.
Hoogvelt, A. (1997) Globalisation and the postcolonial world: the new political economy of development, Basingstoke, Macmillan.
Hornborg, Alf. (2001) The Power of the Machine: Global Inequalities of Economy, Technology and Environment, Altamira Press, CA.
Keohane, Robert (2002) Power and Interdependence in a Partially Globalized World, Routledge, New York.
Kumar, Krishan. (1978) Prophecy and Progress: The Sociology of Industrial and Post-Industrial Society, Penguin, Hammondsworth UK,
Linklater A. (1998) The Transformation of Political Community, Polity: Cambridge.
Mirowski, Philip. 'Macroeconomic Instability and the 'Natural' Economic Process in Early Neoclassical Economics', Journal of Economic History, vol. 44, no. 2, 1987, pp. 345-354.
Moore, Fiona. (2005) Transnational Business Cultures: Life and Work in a Multinational Corporation, Aldershot, Hants, England.
Munck, R. (2002) Globalisation and Labour: The New Great Transformation, Zed Books, London.
Polanyi K. (1944) The Great Transformation, Beacon Press, Boston
Rostow, Walt. (1961) The Stages of Economic Growth: a non-Communist Manifesto, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Ruggie, John. 'International Regimes, Transactions and Change: Embedded Liberalism in the Postwar Economic Order', International Organization, vol. 36, no. 2, 1982.
Sklair, L. (1995) Sociology of the global system, London, Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Smelser, Neil J. and Richard Swedberg, (2005) The Handbook of Economic Sociology, Princeton : Princeton University Press
Soros, George. (1998) The Crisis of Global Capitalism: Open Society Endangered, Little, Brown and Company, London.
Strange, Susan, The Retreat of the state: the diffusion of power in the world economy New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Van Der Pijl, K. (1998) Transnational classes and international relations, London, Routledge.
Wackernagel, M.L, et. al Ecological Footprints of Nations, Centre for Sustainability Studies, Universidad Anahuac de Xalpa, Mexico City, 1997.
Wallerstein, Immanuel, (2004) World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University
