Dr David Woodruff.

Primarily for MSc Comparative Politics (Politics and Markets) and MSc Political Science and Political Economy. Available as an outside option and for students on other programmes with the teacher's consent.

Compatibility and incompatibility of capitalism and democracy: theoretical and empirical perspectives; Constitutional restraints on economic policymaking in central banking and property rights; Democracy and economic inequality; World context and the compatibility of democracy and capitalism; Democracy and economic crisis.

This course examines the uneasy interaction between the two dominant concepts underpinning political and economic institutions in advanced industrial societies. It addresses in particular questions about the relationship of capitalism to democracy, both conceptually and empirical. We consider whether democracy undermines or supports capitalism, focusing on policies relating to central banking, redistribution, and property rights.  We also examine how capitalism may undermine or sustain democracy and whether contemporary international circumstances heighten the tension between democracy and capitalism.

One hour lecture and 90 minute seminar every week for 10 weeks in LT and two seminars in the Summer Term.

All students are expected to submit one non-assessed essay.

Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. Holmes, 'Precommitment and the Paradox of Democracy'. Mill, Considerations on Representative Government. Lindblom, 'The Market as Prison'. Olson, 'Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development'. Stiglitz, 'Central Banking in a Democratic Society'. Beard, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States. Kenworthy and Pontusson, 'Rising Inequality and the Politics of Redistribution in Affluent Countries.'

A two-hour unseen examination in the ST (100%).