How to Use This List
This reading list provides 10 key empirical papers for each of the 10 literature review topics. These are starting points, not the full universe of work on each question. Use them to orient yourself, then follow citation trails in Google Scholar to find additional sources.
Part I — Empirical Overview: Survey the key findings in your chosen area. What do scholars know? Where do they agree and disagree? These readings will help you map that terrain.
Part II — Theoretical Critique: Analyze the empirical literature through one GPE theoretical lens (Liberal, Neomercantilist/Realist, or Critical/Marxist). What does the theory reveal that the empirical work misses? What assumptions does it challenge? Draw on course readings and Helleiner for this section.
You do not need to use all 10 readings listed for your topic. Your final bibliography should contain 8–10 sources that you have identified as most relevant to your specific research question. Some may come from this list; others you will find through your own Google Scholar research. The search process is part of the assignment.
Topics & Readings
1 Global Inequality and Development ▼
‣ Has economic globalization reduced global poverty while increasing within-country inequality?
‣ What does the empirical record say about the effectiveness of foreign aid in promoting economic development?
‣ Did the Washington Consensus policy package deliver on its promises, and what has replaced it?
2 International Trade and Tariffs ▼
‣ Do the gains from trade outweigh the distributional costs, and for whom?
‣ Does the empirical evidence support infant industry protection or unilateral tariff escalation as effective development strategies?
‣ Has the "globalization backlash" produced measurable changes in trade and immigration policy?
3 Economic Sanctions and Statecraft ▼
‣ Under what conditions do economic sanctions achieve their stated foreign policy objectives?
‣ How effective have the post-2022 sanctions on Russia been in constraining its war economy?
‣ Is China's emerging countersanction regime fundamentally different from Western economic statecraft, or a mirror image of it?
4 Global Financial Crises and Regulation ▼
‣ What empirical patterns explain why financial crises recur despite post-crisis regulatory reforms?
‣ Does IMF conditionality promote economic recovery, or does it deepen recessions in borrowing countries?
‣ How did the 2008 global financial crisis reshape the architecture of international financial governance?
5 The Green Energy Transition and Climate Finance ▼
‣ Is the global flow of green finance sufficient to meet climate mitigation goals, and who benefits from it?
‣ How does the geopolitics of critical minerals (lithium, cobalt, rare earths) shape the energy transition?
‣ Do green industrial policies like the Inflation Reduction Act accelerate decarbonization or primarily serve national competitiveness goals?
6 Supply Chains, the “China Shock,” and Geoeconomic Fragmentation ▼
‣ How has import competition from China reshaped labor markets and political preferences in advanced economies?
‣ What does the empirical evidence show about the actual extent of nearshoring and friendshoring since 2020?
‣ What are the measurable economic costs of US-China decoupling for both countries and for third parties?
7 The Global South and Global Financial Governance ▼
‣ What patterns characterize recurring sovereign debt crises in developing countries, and why do they persist?
‣ How has China's rise as a major bilateral creditor changed the dynamics of debt restructuring?
‣ Does the empirical evidence support the claim that international financial institutions exhibit lending bias toward certain countries or policy orientations?
8 The Return of Industrial Policy ▼
‣ What does the empirical evidence from East Asia, the US, and the EU tell us about whether industrial policy "works"?
‣ How do the CHIPS Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the EU Green Deal compare in design and early outcomes?
‣ Is the current global surge in industrial policy a departure from the liberal trade order, or compatible with it?
9 Globalization and the Rise of Populism ▼
‣ What is the empirical link between trade-induced labor market disruption and populist voting?
‣ Do left-wing and right-wing populisms respond to the same economic grievances, or to fundamentally different ones?
‣ Has the populist surge produced measurable changes in economic policy, or has it been more rhetorical than substantive?
10 Democracy, Authoritarianism, and Economic Performance ▼
‣ Does the empirical record show that democracies outperform autocracies on long-run economic growth?
‣ What explains China's sustained economic growth under authoritarian governance, and is the "China model" replicable?
‣ How does regime type shape a country's capacity to respond to economic crises?
Part 1: Description & Annotated Bibliography
Due: Monday, April 13 at 11:59 PM (10% of final grade)
This first deliverable asks you to stake out a research question, survey 5–7 key sources, and begin thinking critically about the state of the field. It has three components, described below.
Prioritize peer-reviewed journal articles from reputable outlets in political science, economics, and sociology. Occasionally, working papers from recognized institutions (World Bank, IMF, NBER, Peterson Institute) and chapters from major university-press monographs are acceptable. Avoid news articles, opinion pieces, Wikipedia, and blog posts — these are not scholarly sources.
Step 1 — Topic Description (~500 words)
Write a concise overview that does the following:
1. Define the issue. What research question or puzzle are you investigating? Frame it as a clear, answerable question — not a vague area of interest.
2. Establish context. What are the broad trends? Provide descriptive statistics, key facts, or indicators that help the reader understand the scope and scale of the problem (e.g., GDP figures, trade volumes, inequality coefficients, migration flows).
3. Identify the actors. Who are the key players — states, international organizations, firms, social movements? Why do their actions or positions matter?
4. Motivate the question. Why should anyone care? Connect the topic to ongoing policy debates, current events, or unresolved scholarly disagreements. A good motivation answers the "so what?" question.
Step 2 — Annotated Bibliography (5–7 sources)
For each source, provide the following:
A. Full bibliographic citation — use a consistent format (Chicago Author-Date is recommended). Every entry should look the same.
B. Summary (2–3 sentences). What is the author's main argument, finding, or contribution? Be specific — don't just say "this article is about trade." Identify the thesis, method, and key results.
C. Critical engagement (2–3 sentences). How does this source relate to your research question? What is most useful about it — and where are its limitations? Note specific pages, data points, or quotes you may want to revisit in your final paper.
Korzeniewicz, Miguel (2015). "Commodity Chains and Marketing Strategies: Nike and the Global Athletic Footwear Industry," in Lechner, Frank & John Boli (eds), The Globalization Reader. Chichester: Wiley, pp. 175–185.
Summary: Korzeniewicz analyzes the design, production, distribution, and marketing of athletic footwear, using Nike as a case study. The article maps Nike's commodity chain across "core" and "noncore" societies, showing how value is captured at the design and branding stages rather than in manufacturing.
Critical engagement: Linking production and consumption within a single commodity chain is a powerful analytical move, but the article is dated — rising consumer demand in emerging markets and the politics of authoritarian states courting global brands complicate Korzeniewicz's framework. See especially p. 173 on 12-hour workdays in Chinese factories and p. 178 (Lauridsen quote) for evidence relevant to labor rights debates.
Step 3 — Reflection (~500 words)
Drawing on the sources you have annotated, write a short reflective essay that addresses:
Major themes. What patterns, points of agreement, or recurring findings emerge across your sources? Are there identifiable "camps" or schools of thought in the literature?
Gaps and limitations. Where is the existing research thin, outdated, or geographically narrow? What questions remain unanswered?
Your position. Based on what you've read so far, where does your research question fit? Is it a case of a broader phenomenon, a challenge to conventional wisdom, or an extension of existing work?
Open questions. What puzzles you? What would you need to learn more about before writing the final paper? Being honest about uncertainty is a sign of intellectual maturity, not weakness.
Use Google Scholar as your primary search engine — it is more than sufficient for this assignment. Pay attention to both the recency and the citation count of each publication; focus on "seminal" works that other scholars reference frequently.
Follow citation trails: when you find a good article, look at what it cites and what cites it. This is the fastest way to map a literature.
Check the Annual Reviews in Political Science, Sociology, and Economics for excellent survey articles that can orient you quickly.
Install Zotero (free) and the browser connector. It will save you hours of formatting headaches. I also highly recommend the ZotFile plugin for managing PDFs.
Part 2: Final Literature Review
Due: Friday, May 8 at 11:59 PM — no extensions (25% of final grade)
The final paper is a 2,500–3,000 word essay in narrative form — not a list of article summaries. It should read as a coherent, well-structured argument about the state of knowledge on your topic. Think of it as telling the story of a scholarly conversation: who said what, where they agree, where they disagree, and what remains unresolved.
Your final paper must go beyond summarizing the empirical literature. You are required to analyze the state of the literature and its empirical findings through one of the theoretical perspectives discussed in class — Liberal, Neomercantilist/Realist, or Critical/Marxist. What does your chosen theoretical lens reveal about the assumptions, blind spots, or implications of the empirical work? Where do the theory and the evidence reinforce each other, and where do they diverge? This analytical layer is what distinguishes a strong literature review from a descriptive summary.
Suggested Structure
Introduction (~500 words). Clearly define the problem or issue. Provide relevant numbers, descriptors, and indicators of change or stagnation. Explain why this topic matters — give the reader at least two or three compelling reasons to keep reading. End with a sentence or two that previews the structure of the paper.
Scholarly Context (~1,500 words). This is the heart of the paper. Organize the literature thematically — do not simply summarize one source after another. Identify 2–4 key themes, debates, or findings that run through the literature, and discuss how different scholars contribute to each theme. Use specific evidence (data, arguments, page numbers) from your sources. Show that you can discriminate among sources — not all are equally rigorous or relevant.
Conclusion (~500 words). This is where your own voice should be strongest. What are you still puzzled by? What is missing in the literature? How, if at all, should the field refocus? What would be needed — new data, new methods, attention to new cases — to advance understanding of your topic?
What "Exceeds Expectations" Looks Like
The grading rubric evaluates four dimensions. Here is what the top tier looks like for each:
Problem & hypothesis (10%): You define and elucidate the research question with precision, develop a compelling rationale, and persuasively explain the project's multifactorial contribution to the field.
Relevance & context (30%): You demonstrate exceptional understanding of why your project matters, skillfully align the literature with your specific context, and set an in-depth frame for your problem.
Knowledge of the field (30%): You show exceptional depth — comprehensive use of recent and seminal sources, and you clearly discriminate among them (not every source is treated as equally authoritative).
Writing quality (30%): Exemplary prose; the components of the paper are connected seamlessly; no grammatical, punctuation, or spelling errors.
The "book report" structure. Don't summarize Article 1, then Article 2, then Article 3. Organize by theme, not by source.
Weak source selection. Relying on textbooks, news articles, or non-peer-reviewed material signals a shallow engagement with the field.
No critical voice. A literature review is not just a survey — it requires you to evaluate, compare, and identify gaps. The reader should hear your analytical perspective, especially in the conclusion.
Missing bibliography. Always include a properly formatted bibliography at the end of the essay. Use a consistent citation style throughout.
In-Class Presentation
April 25 & 30 (5% of final grade)
You will give a short presentation to the class summarizing your research question, key findings from the literature, and preliminary conclusions. Details on format and length will be discussed in class. Think of it as a progress report — an opportunity to get feedback from your peers before writing the final draft.