This course is intended as an introduction to the field of political economy. It is the first part of a two-part sequence in political economy, along with 14.773 Political Economy: Institutions and Development. Combined, the purpose of the two classes is to give you both a sense of the frontier research topics and a good command of the tools in the area.

This course explores the relationship between political institutions and economic development, covering key theoretical issues as well as recent empirical evidence. Topics include corruption, democracy, dictatorship, and war. Discusses not just what we know on these topics, but how we know it, covering how to craft a good empirical study or field experiment and how to discriminate between reliable and unreliable evidence.
MITx Online Version
This course is part of the Micromaster’s Program in Data, Economics, and Design of Policy through MITx Online. The course is entirely free to audit, though learners have the option to pay a fee, which is based on the learner’s ability to pay, to take the proctored exam, and earn a course certificate. To access the course, create an MITx Online account and enroll in the course 14.750x Political Economy and Economic Development.

This course seeks to provide students with a general understanding of the form of collective action known as the social movement. Our task will be guided by the close examination of several twentieth century social movements in the United States. We will read about the U.S. civil rights, the unemployed workers’, welfare rights, pro-choice / pro-life and gay rights movements. We will compare and contrast certain of these movements with their counterparts in other countries. For all, we will identify the reasons for their successes and failures.

This course is a general overview of the recent political science literature on violent non-state actors. Its aim is to examine why non-state actors (such as warlords, terrorists, militias, etc.) resort to violence, what means and tactics they use, and what can be done to counter that violence. In that regard, the class will cover works pertaining to the production side of non-state violence (i.e. the objectives and organization of insurgents/terrorists/militias/warlords, their mobilization strategies and support base, how they coerce opponents, etc.); as well as the response that violence elicits from governments or other actors (i.e. counter-insurgency or counter-terrorism strategies, among others). Apart from introducing the basic variables and theoretical and empirical findings in the literature, this course will also grapple with questions of definition, operationalization of variables, and general methodology relevant to conducting research in this area of violent conflict. Though thematically-driven, this course will also reference cases from the contemporary battlefields of insurgency and terrorism (be it Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, the West Bank and Gaza, Colombia, etc.) as they relate to the pertinent themes.