Tags
GED
Admissions requirements
Institutions of Governance and Development or Introduction to Development Studies.
Description
The world is an unequal place. It hosts the unparalleled wealth and opportunities of the rich OECD countries, alongside the crushing poverty of the ‘bottom billion’. Moreover, this enormous development gap may never been greater than it is today. But what is this concept of ‘development’? How does it work? And, perhaps most importantly, what can we do to enhance it? These are the questions at the core of development studies and the International Development track at LUC. Institutions in Time explores the ways in which institutions, or the rules and organisations that structure society, change over time and the ways in which this may affect human development. To this end, the course will take students through the different ways of analyzing long historical processes and explore the usefulness of theories of institutional change as a means to understand the process that drives development. Students are also challenged to apply their (newfound) knowledge to case studies, in order to get a better appreciation of the complexity of structural societal change. Most importantly, the course helps students to think critically about assumptions of linear progress and simple, technocratic solutions in international development, and to formulate their own thoughts on what might actually ‘work’.
Course objectives
Upon successful completion of the course, students will:
Be able to describe core challenges of international development empirically and identify different theoretical approaches to these challenges.
Have shown proficiency in reproducing concepts and theories of institutional change.
Have practiced applying concepts and theories of institutional change to key research problems in the field of international development.
Timetable
Once available, timetables will be published here.
Mode of instruction
This course will be taught through two-hour interactive seminars. Seminars will generally include a short introduction by the instructor, after which students will be asked to present, debate, or otherwise reflect actively on the relevant theme and readings.
Assessment
Class participation, 10%;
Assignments, 30%;
Short essays, 30%;
Final essay, 30%.
Blackboard
There will be a Blackboard site available for this course. Students will be enrolled at least one week before the start of classes.
Reading list
TBA
Registration
This course is open to LUC students and LUC exchange students. Registration is coordinated by the Curriculum Coordinator. Interested non-LUC students should contact course.administration@luc.leidenuniv.nl.
Contact
Dr. David Ehrhardt, d.w.l.ehrhardt@luc.leidenuniv.nl.