GOVT 3557 - U.S. Exceptionalism Questioned: Comparative Political Economy

(crosslisted) AEM 3557, ILRIC 3557, NBA 5300
(SBA-AS)

Fall. 4 credits. Letter grades only.

P. Katzenstein.

Do you want to learn the discussion-based case method as taught at the Harvard Business School? Do you want to learn how to write a long research paper? Do you not want to take a final examination? If so this course may be for you. Since the beginning of the republic, American intellectuals, politicians and businessmen have extolled the exceptionalism of America. In a world of diverse forms of capitalism, can this view be sustained? Is America a shining city on the hill or a darkened city in the valley? Comparison is an effective way to discern and assess what is unique and what is general in the distinctive form of America’s capitalist democracy. In this course the liberal market economy of the United States with its distinctive strengths and weaknesses is put side-by-side with different forms of liberal, corporatist and statist market economies that characterize different European countries in the emerging European polity. The diversity of capitalism points to one overarching conclusion: all of these countries are arguably capitalist, democratic market economies belonging to “the West;” and each of them has distinctive strengths and weaknesses. Like all other countries, America is ordinary in mobilizing its formidable capacities and displaying its glaring weaknesses as it copes with change. (AM,CP, IR)