DIPL 2105 AA/AB Sustaining Global Ecology

The course will analyze and discuss the policy, polity and politics involved to balance economic growth and development with environmental protection. We will do so in the overall context of an international system that is characterized by globalization. Emphasis will be on the conceptual links between sustainable development and access to free trade by developing countries on the one hand and environmental and social standards on the other hand. Students will engage in considerable case study research. We will, for instance, explore how transnational politics (of actors such as the European Union or NAFTA, but also so-called INGOs, international nongovernmental organizations) have shaped environmental policy. The course, in general, will focus on both, actors and theory in global sustainable ecology