GLOBAL POLITICAL ECONOMY AND INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS INTL 450 MGMT 455 FALL 2015 Associate Professor Caner Bakir Lecture dates: Monday/Wednesday: 10-11.15 Lecture venue: CASE Z48 Office: CASE154 Office hours: Monday/Wednesday: 9-10am Phone: 338 1674 e-mail: cbakir@ku.edu.tr Assistant: Judith Lynn Woods e-mail: jwoods15@ku.edu.tr Office: tba Office hours tba Course Description States and Multinational corporations (MNCs) play a critical role in the national and global economy. As globalization process reduces barriers to production, finance and trade, international business is gaining ground. States are increasingly interacting with MNCs in this environment. This course focuses on how the global political economy has emerged, how States and MNCs interact with special reference to the recent debates and evidences in International Political Economy and International Business fields. This course adopts an institutional perspective to deliver its three main objectives: 1. To examine the evolution of the global political economy and its effect on state and business actors; 2. To examine the responses of immobile states and mobile MNCs to the challenges and opportunities posed by economic and financial globalization process; and 3. To understand State and International Business relations with special reference to interactions among structures, institutions and agents. At the end of the course, students will be able to understand globalisation process and its impact on states and firms structural, institutional and agency-level factors that inform state and firm behaviour, understand and evaluate the relationships among states and firms, and corporate political behaviour analyse and distinguish various forms of corporate power with special reference to some of the theoretical models apply written and oral communication skills
Course Requirements The grading scheme is as follows: (1) Class participation 20% (2) Midterm exam 20% (3) Final project 60% 1) Class Participation. (20%) Student participation is of utmost importance to success of this course. Reading material has been assigned for each week and must be completed before class. Students should bring relevant issues taken from current newspapers. This will serve as a basis for discussion. Thus, students will be graded by class participation (20%). There will be guest speakers where students have participation opportunity. 2) Midterm exam (20%) There will be essay type midterm exam. 3) Final Project (60%). As main assignment in this course, you will conduct a project to apply the analytical concepts and theoretical frameworks we learned in class. A wide variety of firms are involved in political activities, in industries as varied as oil and gas, air transport, information technology, tobacco and pharmaceuticals. These firms have been influencing governments through campaign contributions, direct lobbying, government membership on company boards, voluntary agreements, political action committees (PACs) and, at times, even bribery (Lawton, McGuire and Rajwani, 2013: 86). These firms bargain with nation states, translate their economic power potential into exercise of political power to influence public policy outcomes that they favour. You will have to choose a recent such political activities of a corporation for theoretically informed analytical discussion. The final project will include multiple components (more detailed instructions on final outcome will be handed out during the semester): a) Final paper outline (5% of the total grade): 2-3 pages (double spaced), describing the firm and issue you want to examine. The outline will be submitted to me so that I can let you know whether you can proceed with your proposal or implement suggested changes. Due 23 November. b) Presentation (15% of the total grade): At the end of the course, every group (or student) will present their analysis of firm political behaviour. The presentations will be based on ppt, should be around 15-20 minutes, and done in class.
c) Final Paper (40%): After all the presentations have concluded, you will have to submit your final project of approx. 20 pages (double spaced including references). The paper should contain a detailed description of an issue, sufficient theoretical background information, application of theoretical perspectives on an issue and its analytical discussion. You are required to meet with Dr Bakir on an individual basis to discuss topics for the final project paper. Topic proposals for the final project paper must be approved and submitted on or before November 23. You are strongly encouraged to meet with him earlier to discuss possible topics. Papers are due in the second week of January 2016. Plagiarism and Collusion Plagiarism is the presentation of work which has been copied in whole or in part from another person s work, or from any other source such as the internet, published books or periodicals without due acknowledgement given in the text. Collusion is the presentation of work, which is the result in whole or in part of unauthorized collaboration with another person or persons. Both Plagiarism and Collusion are methods of cheating. Students must observe academic honesty and integrity in order not to face disciplinary actions. Suggested Reading Material The below sources are the key readings. There might be additional reading material and documentaries throughout the semester. Students may also visit corporate watch website for some relevant news about corporate political behaviour at http://www.corpwatch.org/ Week 1: An Introduction: Interactions among Structures, Institutions and Agents Bakir, C. 2013. Bank Behaviour and Resilience: The Effect of Structures, Institutions and Agents (Palgrave MacMillan), chps 1 and 2. Hall, Peter A. and David Soskice, 2001. Varieties of Capitalism: An Introduction to the Varieties of Capitalism, in Peter A. Hall and David Soskice (eds.). Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press. Pp. 1-68. Week 2-3: Economic and Financial Globalisation and International Business Environment Strange, S. 1994. Rethinking Structural Change in the IPE: States, Firms and Diplomacy in Richard Stubbs & Geoffrey R. D. Underhill (Eds.). Political economy and the changing global order. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stopford J. & Susan Strange. 1991. Rival States, Rival Firms: Competition for World Market Shares, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chapters 1 and 4. Strange S. 1991. Big Business and State. Millennium, 20(2), Pp. 245-50. Kenneth P. Thomas. 2000. Competing for Capital: Europe and North America in a Global Era. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press. Chapter 1. Documentary followed by discussions: Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy (based on a book by Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw, 3rd edition, 2002.) Week 4-5: Multinational Corporations Alan Rugman & Simon Collision. International Business, 5th Edition By Financial Times / Pearson Education, 2009. Chps.1-3. Dunning, J. H. 2000. The eclectic paradigm as an envelope for economic and business theories of MNE activity. International Business Review, 9, 163-190. Dunning, J. H. 2001. The eclectic (OLI) paradigm of international production: past, present and future. International Journal of the Economics of Business, 8(2), 173-190. Dunning, J. H. 1995. Reappraising the eclectic paradigm in an age of alliance capitalism. Journal of International Business Studies, 26(3), 461-491. Week 6: Globalisation and Multinational Corporation as a Political Actor Lawton, T. McGuire, S. and Rajwani, T. 2013. Corporate Political Activity: A Literature Review and Research Agenda, International Journal of Management Reviews, Vol. 15, 86 105. Wilks, S, 2013 The Political Power of the Business Corporation. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, chps 1, 2 and 3. Mikler, J. 2013. Global companies as actors in policy and governance, in the Handbook of Global Companies John Wiley and Sons. Pp.1-16. Week 7: Economic power potential of corporations and its translation into exercise of political power Fuchs, D. 2013. Theorizing the power of global companies, in the Handbook of Global Companies John Wiley and Sons. pp.77-95.
William D Coleman. 1996. Financial Services, Globalization, and Domestic Policy Change: A Comparison of North America and the European Union. Basingstoke: Macmillan, chp.2 Week 8: Interest Organisations Coleman, chp. 3. Week 9: State Capacity and Bureaucratic Power Coleman, chp.4. Week 10: MNC-State Relations I: Theories of Bargaining Between States and MNCs Robert Grosse. 2005. The bargaining view of government-business relations,pp.275-289, International Business and Government Relations in the 21 st Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Eden, L., Lenway, S. and Schuler, D. 2005, From the Obsolescing to the Political Bargaining Model, in R. Grosse (ed.), International Business and Government Relations in the 21st Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 251 71. Luo, Y. 2001. Toward a cooperative view of MNC-host government relations: Building blocks and performance implications. Journal of International Business Studies, 32(2): 401-420. Ramamurti, R. 2001, The Obsolescing Bargaining Model: MNC-Host Developing Country Relations Revisited, Journal of International Business Studies, 32 (1), pp. 23 39. Strange, S. 1992. States, Firms and Diplomacy, International Affairs Vol. 68, No. 1 pp. 1-15 Claes, D. H. 2013. States and Firms in the International Oil Market in Governing the global economy: politics, institutions, and economic development, Dag Harald Claes and Carl Henrik Knutsen eds. London: Routledge, pp.292-310. Dunning, John. 1998. An overview of relations with national governments New Political Economy 3:2, 280-284 Boddewyn, J. 1988. Political Aspects of MNC Theory, Journal of International Business Studies, 19 (3), pp. 341 63. Week 11-12: MNC-State Relations II: State Capacity and MNC Investments Bakir, C. 2015 Bargaining with Multinationals: Why State Capacity Matters, New Political Economy, 20:1, 63-84.
Bakir, C. and Caliskan, C. 2013. Global companies and emerging market countries, in the Handbook of Global Companies John Wiley and Sons. Pp.227-237. Bakir, C. 2011. "A Southern Multinational and an Emerging European State in an Entry Bargaining Process" in Louis Brennan eds., The Emergence of Southern Multinationals and their Impact on Europe, London: Palgrave Macmillan. (2011), pp. 342-364. UNCTAD. 2006 World Investment Report 2006. Chapter VI; National and International Policies, Geneva. pp.201-245. Encarnation, D.J. and Wells, T.L. 1985, Sovereignty en Garde: Negotiating with Foreign Investors, International Organization, 39 (1), pp. 47 78. Thomas Murtha and Stefanie Lenway, 1994. "Country Capabilities and the Strategic State: How National Political Institutions Affect Multinational Corporations'' Strategies," Strategic Management Journal vol15, 113-129. Week 13-14: Final Project Presentations and Guest Speakers Week 15 Overview