Facoltà di Economia

Aggiornato A.A. 2021-2022

Course Description

The course will investigate some of the main features of global governance in a historical perspective, considering its evolution in the period 1945–2008 – from the aftermath of World War 2 to the global financial and economic crisis of 2008. The course aims at providing some of the factual grounding and conceptual apparatus necessary to better understand the contemporary world’s governance and its challenges.

It will present students with the onset, changes, and evolution of the international arrangements made to govern political and economic relations (e.g.: international organizations, international regimes and agreements, regional organizations).

The course will constantly highlight the visions and interests shaping the global governance along its evolution, and bring to the fore the key actors imposing, shaping or challenging the governance rules and structures. In this endeavour, it will present the development of hegemonic powers and alternative visions of how to run the world politically and economically. In addition to the obvious Cold War hegemons – the United States and the Soviet Union – that shaped the post-1945 global governance, the course will shed light on the historical reasons that over the last 40 years projected the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to become the current economic and political superpower.

Find more information in the Syllabus

Aggiornato A.A. 2020-2021

Course Description
The course covers the history of global governance 1945–2008, that is from the aftermath of World War 2 to the global financial and economic crisis of 2008 and aims at providing some of the factual grounding and conceptual apparatus necessary to better understand the contemporary world and its governance.
It will present students with the onset, changes, and evolution of the international arrangements made to govern political and economic relations (e.g. international organizations, international regimes and agreements, regional organizations) as well as the development of the bipolar world order 1947-1989 comprising hegemonic powers with clashing ideals of how to run the world.
The course will thus devote particular attention to the spreading of capitalism and socialism, decolonisation and the rise of the Third World, the remoulding of the Western system to meet these challenges. It will also devote particular attention to the exemplary regional experience that is European integration and its entanglements with global dynamics.
The course will constantly highlight the visions and interests shaping the global governance along its evolution, and bring to the fore the key actors imposing, shaping or challenging the governance rules and structures (be they governments, specific leaders, groups, movements, civil society actors, etc.).
The course will also offer two talks by distinguished guest academics on two pivotal years for political, economic and financial global relations: 1979 and 2008.


Find more information in the Syllabus