The first section, The Global Context, sets out the political, economic and legal environment within which the multilateral organizations operate. Participants will also gain insight into the moral, ethical and social realities facing international managers, who must understand the legal environment, encourage ethical behaviour, analyse lobbying strategies, and weigh difficult trade-offs in the real world.

Courses in this section include:

• World Politics and Global Political economics 
• International Law  and its effects on international organizations and non-governmental organizations
• International Economics
• How Organizations are Governed
• Institutions and Social Responsibility
• Public Private Partnerships 

   

  World Politics and Global Political Economy

  This course provides an introduction to the interrelated issues in international relations and global political economy. The course will cover the main theories of international relations using applied case studies and involving the following recurrent themes: power, motivation and choice, nation-states, anarchy, sovereignty, interdependence, and political and economic market failure. Students will systematically explore the players, their goals, the constraints within which players operate, the interactions between players, and the strategies they pursue. The Second part of the course approaches the political and economic implications of this setting; applying theories such as liberalism, dependency, and mercantilism, participants will analyze the political and economic basis of interaction among states and non-state actors in trade, money, transnational corporations, and commodities, including the new global trends towards regionalization and sectoralism in trade and finance. Against this background, participants will examine the current controversies over globalization.

  International Law and its Effects on International Organizations and Nongovernmental Organizations

  This course provides a basis for reflection on the legal issues of relevance to international and nongovernmental organizations. Participants will learn about the origins of international law, the relationship between states and between states and international organizations and nongovernmental organizations. Resolution of disputes, introductory elements to international economic law and issues of maintenance of international peace and security will be covered. In addition, current controversies on the actual impact of international law in constraining the behaviour of States in the international system will be considered from a variety of perspectives.

  How did the international legal order acquire its features? What are the basic principles constituting the foundations of the international legal order? And who are its main protagonists? By way of introduction, the course will attempt to shed light on the concepts of "subject" and "source" of international law, as well as on the constitutive principles of the international legal order, with due reference to their evolutionary nature. These key elements will represent necessary and useful instruments for the understanding of the core of this course: international organizations.

  International Economics

  This course provides a rigorous framework for analyzing the economy at the aggregate level. Its goal is to introduce the student to the practice of constructing theoretical models to explain real-world economic phenomena. The student should leave this class with the ability to use models and supporting evidence to understand the interactions between macroeconomic variables such as the price level, the interest rate, the exchange rate, and real GDP in both the long run and the short run.

  The first half of the course focuses on the long-run economy. We will investigate how the interaction between households and firms determines the equilibrium levels of macroeconomic variables such as consumption, investment, productivity, and employment. This framework will allow us to explore current applications such as the ongoing debate on social security reform and budget deficits around the world.

  The second part of the course examines how factor accumulation (e.g., capital, labor, and land) and technological progress interact to determine the growth rate of the economy.  We then turn to the sources of short-run variation. There is considerable disagreement about the causes and cures of the business cycle. Classical economists assume that prices and wages adjust quickly to restore equilibrium, and argue that markets are self-correcting. Keynesians believe that prices are sticky and that shocks can push the economy away from equilibrium. We will examine both of these views in terms of a common analytical framework, the IS-LM model, and test whether their predictions are consistent with recent evidence. Applications of the IS-LM model include the 2001 recession in the U.S., the East Asian financial crisis, and the recent rise in oil prices.  

  How Organizations are Governed

  Governance for the purpose of this course is defined as the exercise of power in corporate entities. The entities studied will be international organisations, NGOs and private sector bodies. Most of the discussion will revolve around case studies. The course will have a strong practical focus, including a substantial element of role-play in board settings.

  The objectives of the course are to provide an overview of the origins, development and effectiveness of governance mechanisms in the international, NGO and private sectors; a well-informed and critical appreciation of current debates about how to improve governance; and practical experience of how boards operate. The theoretical core will draw selectively on New Institutional Economics, Public Choice and Stakeholder theory. Case studies will cover governance problems in the private sector (e.g. WorldCom and Equitable Life); problems in the international sphere (e.g. Oil for Food); and proposed or implemented schemes for improving governance in each sector (e.g. Sarbanes-Oxley, UK codes of practice for corporate governance, including in the NGO sector, the WFP Governance Project, the Sutherland Report on the WTO and the Report of the UN High Level Panel).

  Most of the time in course sessions will be devoted to role-play by the whole class in a board setting. The roles of chair, presenter, discussant, secretariat and member will rotate. Each session will be observed and reported on by students and the tutor. The subject matter for discussion will be based on the course readings, notably the case studies.

  Institutions and Social Responsibility

  This course will focus on the origins of institutional social responsibility and how it has developed in recent years. We will look at the various actors involved - from the private and public sectors and from civil society ? who helped steer organizations towards adopting corporate/institutional social responsibility policies, and seek to understand their specific roles and the extent of their influence. In addition, students will be expected to understand and make sense of the various themes surrounding social responsibility, with a particular focus on the following:

  • Labour and human rights
  • The environment
  • Philanthropy and community outreach
  • Reporting, monitoring and consumer linkage
  • Partnership with NGOs, IOs and governments

  An extensive reading list will be given to guide students through the semesters as well as a list of several case studies concentrating on specific organizations and their experiences with social responsibility.

  Public Private Partnerships

  This course intends to develop participants' capacity to understand the mechanisms and the tools regulating Public Private Partnerships (PPP). The course approaches the situations where public and private organizations can successfully collaborate and gives analytical frameworks to manage, coordinate and control this partnerships. Sometimes, new organisations (Joint Ventures, Special Financial Vechicles) are created to manage PPP initiatives. The course explores the different organisational structures of the vehicles which can be used to run a PPP initiative.

  Participants will be engaged in real case study situations to strengthen their analytical skills and problem solving capacity.