Today we will be meeting online [via Teams]. Next week we will be back in the classroom. I would like to finish discussing the topic of debt, while transitioning to the topics on rule of law and trade agreements. I have provided you with plenty of material for next week’s discussion on media and the propaganda model. Please review that material so we can have some good participation.
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- Your second essay should be published on Project Pathumwan by Friday, December 2nd. If you would like to have some feedback on your second outline and you would like to have enough time to review and incorporate the feedback into your essay, try to get it to me by this week sometime, so I can get it back to you by the 23rd of November along with the feedback from your first essay.
- If you have not received a response from me related to the second outline by the 23rd, please message me, because there is a chance it was overlooked or it was missing somehow.
Rule of Law and Trade Agreements
Legal Institutions: if we want to understand who the system is ultimately designed to benefit/serve, we need to understand…
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- What are the rules?
- Who writes the rules?
- In whose interest are the rules written?
- Who enforces the rules?
- How are the rules enforced?
- Are the rules equitably enforced or two-tiered?
Joseph Stiglitz Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 in Making Globalization Work.
John Pilger (2001) “New Rulers of the World” : Indonesian Investment Conference | IMF/World Bank | Interview with Nicolas Stern | Interview with Stanley Fischer| Seattle Protests, WTO, and MAI
Alain Supiot, “The World Bank Helps Investors Choose the Law They Want,” The Real News Network, June 18, 2019.
Kennard, M. & Provost, C. (2016, July 25) Inside the Corporate Utopias Where Capitalism Rules and Labor Laws Don’t Apply, In These Times.
Jonathan D. Ostry, Prakash Loungani, and Davide Furceri, “Neoliberalism: Oversold?” FINANCE & DEVELOPMENT, June 2016, Vol. 53, No. 2
Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins, “The Rotten Roots of the IMF and the World Bank,” The Nation
Dave Johnson, “Stop Calling the TPP a Trade Agreement – It Isn’t,” Moyers & Company, 27 May 2015
Video: “The World According to Monsanto” (GMO seeds, intellectual property)
Video: “Michael Hudson: Why the US has a unique place in the history of imperialism?” India & Global Left. November 5, 2022.
Video: Glenn Greenwald and Noam Chomsky, “How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful”
Video: “The Investigators: ALEC – The Backroom Where Laws Are Born”
Article + Video: “TPP ‘worst trade deal ever,’ says Nobel-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz“, CBC News, April 1st, 2016.
Glenn Greenwald, “In Europe, Hate Speech Laws are Often Used to Suppress and Punish Left-Wing Viewpoints,” The Intercept, 29 August 2017.
Glenn Greenwald, “How the Rich Subverted the Legal System,” Tom Dispatch, 25 October 2011.
Nathan J. Robinson, “Why Does International Law Even Matter?” Current Affairs, 14 April 2018.
Zayed Siddiki, “Digital authoritarianism in Bangladesh: Weaponising a draconian law to silence dissent in the pandemic era,” EngageMedia, July 14, 2022.
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- Kate Hodal, “Workers claiming they had to sleep with the chickens face Thai court charges,” The Guardian, 6 June 2017.
- Kate Hodal, “Thailand: poultry workers cry fowl amid claim they ‘slept on floor next to 28,000 birds’,” The Guardian, 1 August 2016.
- Yasmin Lee Arpon, “Thailand’s deadly rich kids,” The Straits Times, 9 April 2017.
- Lindsay Murdoch, “Red Bull heir Vorayuth Yoovidhya stonewalls prosecutors years after alleged hit-and-run,” The Sydney Morning Herald, 2 April 2017.
- Veera Prateepchaikul, “Even if ‘Boss’ were arrested, what happens next?” Bangkok Post, 3 April 2017.
- Democracy Now! “Glenn Greenwald: Brazil’s Right Wing Jailed Ex-President Lula Because They Couldn’t Win at the Polls,” 9 April 2018.
Debt Issues:
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- Marwaan Macan-Markar, “Laos’ debt pressure raises specter of a China vassal state,” Nikkei Asia, September 6, 2022.
- Ben Norton, “IMF Warns of ‘Wave of Debt Crises’ Coming in Global South, With War, Interest Rate Hikes, Overvalued Dollar,” Scheerpost, November 15, 2022.
- Setsuo Otsuka, “Superstrong dollar threatens debt crisis across emerging economies,” Nikkei Asia, September 2, 2022.
Media:
Start with chapter 1 of Herman, Edward S. and Noam Chomsky (2002, 1988) Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon Books. Then check out the following articles:
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- Herman, E.S. (2000) “The Propaganda Model: a retrospective,” Journalism Studies, 1(1), p. 101-112.
- Chomsky, N. (1997) “What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream,” Z Magazine, October.
Then watch this documentary, “Manufacturing Consent” (1992) by Mark Achbar and Peter Wintonick, with my accompanying notes. Alternatively, you could start here and then go back and review the readings. Key highlights include (32:50 – 46:05), (2:38:35 – 2:42:53).
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- Chapter 2 in Chernomas, R., & Hudson, I. (2016). The Profit Doctrine: Economists of the Neoliberal Era. Pluto Press.Must read: an important chapter related to the institutional analysis of the education system, specifically the economics discipline.
Then watch this documentary, “Manufacturing Consent” (1992) by Mark Achbar and Peter Wintonick, with my accompanying notes. Alternatively, you could start here and then go back and review the readings. Key highlights include (32:50 – 46:05), (2:38:35 – 2:42:53).
Additional articles that are relevant to this topic, but ones we likely will not have time to discuss:
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- Herman, E.S. (1993) “The Media’s Role in U.S. Foreign Policy,” Journal of International Affairs, 47(1), p. 23-45.
Also check out, my Beginner’s Guide to Media.