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The Political Economy of Development (944M1)

30 credits, Level 7 (Masters)

Spring teaching

Why are some countries rich and some countries poor? How do countries become rich and why do so many countries stay poor? How are dynamics of class, race and gender affected by, and how do they influence patterns of development?

This module provides you with the political economic tools to understand and answer such questions.

Topics covered in this course include:

• global poverty and inequality
• global value chains
• the rise of China
• the global food crisis
• alternatives to growth-based development.

This module uses critical ideas from political economy to challenge the way things work in the world today. It encourages you to think deeply about current systems and problems, while also exploring ideas for creating a more fair and freeing future.

Contact hours and workload

This module is approximately 300 hours of work. This breaks down into about 33 hours of contact time and about 267 hours of independent study. The University may make minor variations to the contact hours for operational reasons, including timetabling requirements.

We regularly review our modules to incorporate student feedback, staff expertise, as well as the latest research and teaching methodology. We’re planning to run these modules in the academic year 2024/25. However, there may be changes to these modules in response to feedback, staff availability, student demand or updates to our curriculum.

We’ll make sure to let you know of any material changes to modules at the earliest opportunity.