Resources for Development and Global Politics

2017-10-02T19:18:47+03:00

Development

http://www.globalgoals.org/ The homepage of the United Nations’ development goals, set in 2015 as a follow up to the Millennium Development Goals set in 2000. A good resource for looking at a range of development issues related to the Global Politics course, including poverty, the environment, and gender. The Global Goals are not uncontroversial, so this could be a good resource for looking at criticisms of development policies and models.

https://www.oxfam.org/ For an NGO perspective, and one that is often critical of national and international initiatives, I would consult Oxfam. They frequently publish excellent reports on major development issues. This is the link for the Oxfam International confederation, but it is also worth looking at national Oxfam pages, especially Oxfam America and Oxfam GB.

http://data.worldbank.org/ and http://report.hdr.undp.org/ For data to help students get a picture of the state of development around the world, I will certainly be using information from The World Bank (the link above is to a page that is highly search-able – by country, by topic, by indicator) and from the UNDP’s annual Human Development Report.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EN5esbvAt-w This is a link to a video posted on the YouTube channel of Al Jazeera English (which you can search within if you subscribe to it): an interview with Amartya Sen about what influenced him and his ideas about inequality and development.

Development and Underdevelopment: The Political Economy of Global Inequality, edited by Mitchell A. Seligson and John T Passé-Smith. Here is a link to the page on the publisher’s website where you can read the introduction and see the table of contents. https://www.rienner.com/title/Development_and_Underdevelopment_The_Political_Economy_of_Global_Inequality_5th_edition

Inequality

http://www.pbs.org/show/makers-women-who-make-america/ "Makers: Women who made America" -- to get a historical overview of the roots of gender inequality.

https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/ows/seminars/tcentury/FeminineMystique.pdf The first chapter of Betty Friedan's the Feminine Mystique on the homepage of the National Humanities Center helps with understanding the ills of the modern family.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/audio/2016/may/28/cyberbullying-online-harassment-jessica-valenti-podcast Guardian podcast that brings up a contemporary problem and how feminism can provide an answer:

Violence

http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violence Steven Pinker charts the decline of violence from Biblical times to the present, and argues that, though it may seem illogical and even obscene, given Iraq and Darfur, we are living in the most peaceful time in our species' existence.

http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/159653 Why We Can’t Look Away from Violence Against Black People

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-07/domestic-violence-an-everyday-event/5655742 Domestic violence: the 'silent epidemic' claiming the life of one woman every eight days

General resources for Global Politics

http://www.worldpopulationatlas.org/ Developed at the University of Sheffield in 2009 with the University of Michigan - which has brilliant electoral distortion maps by the way, on US politics. There are over 700 maps available, which reimage the world in ways that are highly useful to teaching new perspectives. For example, prisoners awaiting trial: http://www.worldmapper.org/images/smallpng/294.png

www.politicalcompass.org Our essential point is that Left and Right, although far from obsolete, are essentially a measure of economics. As political establishments adopt either enthusiastically or reluctantly the prevailing economic orthodoxy — the neo-liberal strain of capitalism — the Left-Right division between mainstream parties becomes increasingly blurred. Instead, party differences tend to be more about identity issues. In the narrowing debate, our social scale is more crucial than ever.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/country_profiles/default.stm Full profiles provide an instant guide to history, politics and economic background of countries and territories, and background on key institutions. They also include audio and video clips from BBC archives.

http://mondediplo.com/ Le Monde diplomatique is a world famous voice in journalism dating back to 1954 (it began as a journal to keep diplomats up to date on world events). Based in Paris, under the umbrella of the French daily newspaper Le Monde, it soon acquired an international reputation for its incisive monthly articles. In 1996 it won editorial and financial independence by forming its own company

Reading list

Resources for Development and Global Politics

Links

https://www.theatlantic.com/world/