IPE

This scheduled weekly interdisciplinary seminar provides the context to reflect on concrete experiences at an off-campus internship site and to link these experiences to academic study relating to the political, psychological, social, economic and intellectual forces that shape our views on work and its meaning. The aim is to integrate study in the liberal arts with issues and themes surrounding the pursuit of a creative, productive, and satisfying professional life. Students receive 1.0 unit of academic credit for the academic work that augments their concurrent internship fieldwork.

Independent study is available to those students who wish to continue their learning in an area after completing the regularly offered courses in that area.

Independent study is available to those students who wish to continue their learning in an area after completing the regularly offered courses in that area.

Many sociologists have joined economists in the study of that entity we call the economy. Apart from this interest, however, the two groups share very little in common. The disagreements include the importance of rationality and selfishness, the proper methodologies, the nature of explanation, and even the definition of the field of study. This course surveys the different ways in which economists and sociologists approach the material world and the key debates between them.

Wine is a simple thing. The idea of wine, however, is very complicated, since it reflects both wine itself and wine's complex and dynamic social and economic terroir of values, attitudes, and interests. Because wine intersects social processes in so many ways, the question of which idea of wine will prevail, or how the contractions between and among the different ideas will be resolved or not, has important implications.

Rigorous examination of topics of current interest in International Political Economy. This course is designed to allow students to participate in focused discussion and thoughtful analysis of a number of topics in IPE while they research and write their senior theses.

This course examines the efforts of states in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) to adapt to the international political economy. It examines and assesses the constraints and opportunities states face and how they have tried to reshape their political and economic institutions. Attention is paid to relationships that exist between the state, business, labor, civil society, international capital, and foreign governments. Topics include the relationship of economic reform to democratization, regional integration, religious radicalism, and corruption and illicit transactions.

Eating food is critical to everyday life, and yet many have the luxury to treat daily sustenance as an afterthought. For some, the connections between food and the larger environmental and social systems that sustain human life are largely invisible. This experiential course explores these interactions through an extensive and intensive investigation of the Northwest food system from farm to fork.

This course examines theoretical explanations of international political economy relationships and events. Students become acquainted with important theoretical debates and research methods used to answer questions in IPE. Students identify and research questions suitable for the senior thesis.

This course combines Economic and IPE approaches to understand and compare different governments' choices to influence markets and how those choices affect incentives and the behavior of economic agents (consumers, suppliers, laborers, employers, policymakers, etc.) in markets which are "misbehaving". In one way or the other, the markets considered in this class do not meet the economic goals of efficiency, equity, stability, or growth, requiring government action. This action, however, often creates distortions of its own.