BA Global Studies

The Global Studies major is designed to provide students with a rigorous interdisciplinary education in the major issues confronting today's globalized world, as well as its historical antecedents (most notably in the latenineteenth century). The major features three thematic pillars that capture the principal dimensions of the unprecedented depth and breadth of interconnections among nationstates, ethnic and religious groups, and individuals. Culture and society courses concentrate on the tensions between local ways of life with deep historical, linguistic, ethnic, and religious roots and today's pressures for transnational cultures and multiple identities, fueled by the communication of ideas and the movement of people all around the world. Governance and conflict courses focus on challenges to the nationstate from forms of governance above (regional and global forms of governance) and below (autonomy and secessionist movements) and from security threats beyond interstate warfare (ethnic conflict, terrorism, civil wars). Markets courses address the interactions among global, regional, national, and subnational economic processes and market dynamics, their effects on different societies with respect to economic growth, poverty, inequality, and the interactions among market forces, political institutions, and public policy.