Globalization and Diffusion

This course introduces students to the literature on globalization and the diffusion of culture and institutions. It covers literatures in sociology and political science as well as some anthropology and history. This course will not discuss economic, financial, or migratory globalization in depth. In the first part, we will survey the major theories of the global diffusion of culture and institutions: world polity theory, global field theory, the policy diffusion literature, etc. In the second part, we discuss select topics, such as the role of local power relations in diffusion processes or the consequences of diffusion for patterns of cultural similarity and difference across the world.