Course description
The main aim of this course is to enable students to get clear, coherent and comprehensive sense of how globalization works, what are its main trends, drawbacks and how it can do better. Students will be able to understand and interpret anti-globalization periods and trends in a rapidly changing world. Participants of the course will understand the advantages of globalization that come from increased trade, migrations, capital mobility and foreign direct investments. On the other side students will learn how financial globalization caused the global financial crisis in 2008 (Big Recession). The course focuses also on adverse social implications of globalization as gender issues, inequality, environment and poverty. Student will consider different concepts, solutions and institutional changes, domestic and international, which are necessary to improve outcomes and smooth out globalization's drawbacks. Students will learn how to make globalization more effective, fair, sustainable and inclusive.
Doing so the course is structured into the following main parts:
1. Definitions of globalization

2. Globalization in history's mirror (The golden age of globalization and gold standard 1896-1914, Antiglobalization period and autarkic policies 1914-1945, Bretton Woods and the welfare state 1945-1973, Hyperglobalization and neoliberalism 1973-2008, Big Recession and state intervention in 2008).

3. Globalization patterns and trends (International capital flows, trade, foreign direct investment, multinational corporations, outsourcing, migrations, income-capital ratio and global inequality, patents, profits, global value chains….). Global convergence/divergence.

4. Financial globalization (Global financial markets, Bretton Woods consensus and its dissolution, financial de-regulation, financial innovations and misbehavior of the financial markets, country risk and importance of credit ratings, the role and impact of IMF, WB, WTO).

5. Global financial crisis in 2008 and its implications (Origins, cyclical or structural crisis, solutions, public debts costs, dilemmas, implications for capitalism, geopolitical implications)

6. Globalization's human face and antiglobalization arguments (Inequality, powerty, child labour, position of women, democracy, wages and labor standards, environment issues, race to the bottom in national regulation regarding ecological and social standards…).

7. Globalization and Capitalism in the 21st century – How to cope with globalization in your country? (Definition and classification of different capitalistic economic systems, How Anglosaxon/Continental/Scandinavian/Asian economic system copes with globalization, national state and globalization, clash between politics and globalization, clash between globalization and democratic choices as public welfare systems, labor standards…..).

8. Appropriate global governance or how to make globalization better (Optimal globalization speed, New Bretton Woods institutional agreement, international labor/environmental standards and fair trade, democratizing globalization and new forms od democracy, sustainable development UN goals and saving the planet, corporate social responsibility and responsible consumer, regional trade agreements and EU, regulating global finance, G7-G20 and global tax on financial transactions, regulating migrations and labor mobility, global commons…..).

Teaching methods
The course includes lectures (providing the theoretical and methodological frameworks) and class discussions (Debate “pro et contra”). Each week, the students will be given reading assignments for the following lecture in order to actively participate at the course. Students will be invited to propose issues that have been raised in their country of origin or of their special interest. Two teams of students shall be required to prepare by the following week a public debate »pro et contra« on the selected topic. Both teams shall present their arguments during a public debate following a previously defined protocol. Cross examination allows the two teams to challenge the opponents, request clarification of arguments and refute their claims. The forum with other students in the class, taking place at the end of the discussion, shall have a similar form. After the end of the debate, the class shall select the winning team by raising hands (score bonus). The written report is a prerequisite for taking part in the debate and it shall be the basis for the final assessment of each team's work. All other students (not actively engaged in the debate groups) have to write their weekly reports in which they will argument their positions regarding the thesis.

Evaluation methods
•Written final exam: 50%
•Weekly reports (individual work) and active class participation: 25%
•Debate “pro et contra” (group work): 25%

Learning outcomes
After completing this course, students will be able to:

•Understand and interpret main globalization trends and periods.
•Learn about adverse social and economic implications of globalization acrros different countries.
•Understand how particular capitalist economic system copes with globalization.
•Comprehend trilemma between globalization, democracy and national determination.
•Assess specific risks in global financial world (foreign exchange risk, country risk).
•Learn how financial globalization caused the global financial crisis in 2008 (Big Recession).
•Learn how we can make globalization work better.

Bibliography (selected chapters)
•Jagdish Bhagwati (2005): In defense of globalization. Oxford University Press.
•Joseph E. Stiglitz (2006): Making globalization work, Norton and Company, New York
•Thomas Piketty (2014): Capital in the twenty first century, Belknap University of Harvard University Press.
•Frieden Jeffry (2006): Global capitalism : Its fall and rise in the twentieth century, Norton and Company, New York.
•Rodrick Dany (2011): The globalization paradox: Democracy and the future of the world economy, Norton and Company, New York.
•Debate topics.
•Supplementary texts/articles.