About

Geopolitics and Globalization is a course of basic training that should be taken in the second semester of the first academic year in the Grade of International Business. It is focused on the basic features of the increasing interrelation between economies caused by the revolution in information and transport technologies. It tries to analyse its main implications both for different groups of countries and for the political and cultural world equilibriums.

Today everyone uses the word, “globalization,” but there is little agreement on what it means, and thus, not surprisingly even less agreement on whether it is a good thing, a bad thing, or a mixed thing for the world economy. The course will not solve this debates but following it will allow a more precise and more accurate understanding of what the term means and what globalization implies for the world economy and politics.

For the future graduate the course offers the possibility of learning the basics of the present international economic world consolidated as a result of the current wave of globalization as well as getting some training in analysing the relation between the changeable economic environment and the responses of companies and countries. It is closely related to others course of the Grade like International Economy and International Finance and Financial Markets.

The course targets are reached by different forms of learning, combining the lectures with tutorial work, individual and in team. It also tries to encourage robust analysis, better methodological training and critical spirit. The syllabus is structured around the following axes:

  • The tendencies, key features and differential elements of the current globalization wave with regard to the previous ones.
  • The knowledge of the international geopolitical situation since the end of the Cold War, as well as of some of the principal theories developed for its understanding.
  • Apprehension of the specific circumstances that characterize at present geopolitical stages of special interest.
  • The behaviour of the different groups of economies (advanced, emerging, less developed) during the different waves of globalization.