International Political Economy is a course for senior undergraduate and graduate students designed to provide a conceptual and empirical background necessary to understand globalization and the changes taking place in the international economy. While concepts from international economics will be studied in this course, the focus of this course is not on economic theory per se but rather on analyzing critical empirical issues in the current international economic system. We will particularly analyze issues related to the political economy of international trade. More specifically, we examine subjects including protectionism, the politics of trade conflict at the GATT/WTO, trade reforms in the developing world, and the role of multinational corporations in the world economy. For each topic, we will analyze a variety of theoretical explanations along with some historical and contemporary examples.