Systems Thinking and the Global Political Economy

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Interdisciplinary Programmes

Systems Thinking and the Global Political Economy

IA 108- Fall- 6 ECTS

Course Description

The political, economic, social and environmental concerns with globalization have raised the need for change in some of the key dynamics of the global political economy. Yet, change is and will be difficult due to: the complexity of interconnections between and within countries and to the diversity of opinion and even conflict among stakeholders.

Adopting a systems-thinking approach help to better envision inter-relationships and boundaries and highlight points of leverage as well as inhibitors of change. This course will make a pragmatic use of this approach to explore the current challenges of the international trade, investment and monetary domains.

PROFESSOR

Cédric Dupont

Office hours

ASSISTANT

Raghav Sachdeva Office hours

Syllabus (draft; final version will be available on September 10)

Course format

Given the current uncertainty about the sanitary regulations this Fall, this course adopts an online blended learning approach combining asynchronous and synchronous learning parts. For synchronous parts, to avoid discriminatory treatments and complicated rotation rules for physical attendance, the instructor will use a virtual classroom format with all students attending remotely. Asynchronous parts will be divided in a number of small activities associated with the synchronous parts. Remote participation will be enhanced through the use of interactive tools, in particular MURAL (mural.co) an easy to use digital workplace. Further details about the blending of those elements will be provided later. Office hours will be held online with students pre-registering with the instructor for 20 minutes slots.

- Page 2 - Course Objectives

The primary goal of this course is to approach key issues/domains in the global political through the lens of systems. This means to focus on how the relationships between different elements and how they lead to properties and consequences that cannot be predicted without a holistic approach. The course will first draw upon the multiple pathways COVID-19 has impacted the global economy to help students think about complexity. Then, it will then be structured upon students’ group work on different steps of a pragmatic systems-approach on issues/topics to be collectively decided at the beginning of the course. Ultimately this course aims at helping students to rigorously design interventions to steer global political economic systems to produce effects in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Upon completion of this course, students should thus be able to:

 Use systems-thinking to understand some of the major current tensions in global political economy;

 Identify on that basis possible points of interventions;

 Effectively engage in collective intelligence processes.

Course requirements

Collective intelligence is central to this course and therefore group work is a major component of students’ evaluation:

a) Group work 1: System-mapping (20% of the course grade) (October 21)

Groups submit and deliver a short presentation that draws the boundaries of the system associated with issue/problem that they chose to address. Priority should be given to visuals with a background paper to justify the choices made.

b) Group work 2: Identification of leverage (20% of the course grade) (

Groups submit and deliver a short presentation that identifies points of leverage (and resistance) that could be used for a systems-intervention. Priority should be given to visuals with a background paper to justify the choices made.

c) Group work 3: Systems intervention (20% of the course grade)

Groups submit and deliver a short presentation that describes and justify how they plan to intervene in the system so that it will deliver a desirable outcome. Priority should be given to visuals with a

background paper to justify the choices made.

d) Class participation (40% of the grade)

As this class makes large use of collective intelligence, active participation of each student is essential.

This includes participation in synchronous sessions as well as reactions to asynchronous parts. The participation grade will reflect the amount and quality of participation, as well as attendance.

Schedule and Reading Assignments (PRELIMINARY)

The course is research-oriented and thus there will be few compulsory readings after the fourth session. The instructor will give specific reading suggestions to different groups depending on their topics. The schedule below refers only to the synchronous sessions that will occur during the official time slot of the course. Some of those sessions will be plenary (all students) and some sub-divided to accommodate feedback sessions to individual groups. The schedule of asynchronous sessions will be available later.

PART 1: BUILDING BLOCKS

September 16 (Session 1): Global political economy: features, dynamics and trends

- Page 3 -

Ravenhill, John (ed) 2019. Global Political Economy. Oxford University Press (selected chapters)

September 23 (Session 2): Global Political Economy and COVID-19

Baldwin, Richard and Beatrice di Mauro (eds) 2020. Economics in the Time of COVID-19.

London: CEPR Press (selected chapters).

Reinhart, Carmen and Vincent Reinhart 2020. Pandemic Depression. The Global Economy will never be the same. Foreign Affairs (Sept-Oct).

September 30 (Session 3): Systems-thinking: the “theory” (Core conceptual issues and methodological diversity)

Reynolds, Martin and Sue Holwell (eds) 2019. Systems approaches to making change: a practical guide. 2nd Edn. London: Open University and Springer (selected chapters).

Meadows, Donella 2008 Thinking in Systems: A Primer. Hartford: Chelsea Green Publishing.

October 7 (Session 4): Systems-thinking: the “practice” (practical steps in applying systems- thinking for the design of policy intervention)

Omidyar Group. Systems-practice. A practical workbook.

PART 2: SYSTEMS-PRACTICE

October 14 (Session 5): Systems-mapping: key steps and issues through a few examples

October 21 (Session 6; in subgroups): Preliminary feedback by instructor on group work 1 to different groups individually

October 28 (Session 7): Submission and presentation of group work 1 with feedback from all

November 4 (Session 8): Identification of leverage: key steps and issues through a few examples

November 11 (Session 9; in subgroups): Preliminary feedback by instructor on group work 2 to different groups individually

November 18 (Session 10): Submission and presentation of group work 2 with feedback from all November 25 (Session 11): Systems-intervention: key issues through a few examples

December 2 (Session 12; in subgroups): Preliminary feedback by instructor on group work 3 to different groups individually

December 9 (Session 13): Submission and presentation of group work 3 with feedback from all

December 16 (Session 14): Conclusion: toward a big picture: synthesis of the work of the different groups

CD, August 2020