Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Attention!

In this examination, you have a choice between Essays II and III . RESPOND either to Essay II or Essay III. However, Essay I is must, you are expected to answer this question.

TAKE-HOME FINAL EXAMINATION - Correction

December 28nd, 2006

History 311

Fall 2007

Bogazici University

Huricihan Islamoglu

TAKE- HOME FINAL EXAMINATION

Instructions:You are expected to write two essays maximum three pages each( type-written double spaced).Date-line for handing in the essays is Friday , January 11th, 2008. Please leave the essays at the Museum office.

Essay I

Discuss the continuity in the shaping of European capitalist market environments in the period beginning with the profitability crisis in early 1870s until the 1929 Crash. In responding to this question you should emphasize the organizational-institutional measures adopted in the different countries including organizational techniques in industrial production, trade control mechanisms, and expansion of the domain of national economies and empire. Do point to the relationships among these parameters as well as to the problems/ contradictions associated with their adoption which led to a world war, socialist revolutions in the early part of the 20th century. In what ways 1920s in Germany under the Weimer, one could speak of a a continuation of the measures of the pre-war period.

You have a choice between Essays II and III . RESPOND either to Essay II or Essay III.

Essay II

In what ways policy responses to the 1929 crash and orderings of advanced capitalist market societies, represented a radical departure from previous understandings of the ‘market social order’ which gave priority to social arrangements e.g. class relations involving corporatist policies representing a rapprochement between organized labor and monopoly; deliberate attempts to control labor as well as workers’ revolutions. In this relation discuss the introduction of concept of economy, of the concept of economy with consumption, production , investment functions which are manipulatable in a given national environment through policy- and all social classes being subject to dictates of the economy. As such- from that period onwards politics is no longer class politics but politics among nation states.(Discuss the film , Grapes of Wrath In terms of the submersion of class politics to the politics of the economy manipulatable by the technocratic state)

  1. Discuss how the different ways the new economic order of the market got to be constituted in the States under F.D.Roosevelt and in Nazi Germany.
  2. Discuss the continuity of this order into the post-WWII period and its collapse in the 1980s. Could one venture to say that in the latter period we are witnessing once again a situation in which the issue is once again about creation of a new social order (priority of class relations) and concerns of the economy are subjected to that issue.

III

Discuss globalization from the perspective of the re-organization of the financial sector. What were the historical factors in the 1970s and 1980s which led to the increased power of the financial sector?

The term globalization is often used to connote expansions of market activity on a scale which was not witnessed before, largely responding to changes in transportation and information technologies. What is often overlooked are the power relations and the institutional forms these power relations are giving rise to. This course had tried to show that it was these institutions which made possible the kind of global market development we have seen since the 1980s. Discuss this institutional environment referring to changes in the character of transnational organizations such as the IMF and the World Bank, the new central states with their privatized functions and their rule through boards or commissions, regional economies, especially EU.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Attendance

Attendance to class from friday on is obligatory. Those who are absent in any class until the end of the semester will receive 30 % reduction in their final grade.

Make-up class

On December 14th, Friday, a make-up class will be held, between 17:00-19:00 in the Museum Building.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

HIST 311 TAKE HOME MID-TERM EXAMINATION

History 311 November27 ,2007
Fall 2007
Bogazici University
Huricihan Islamoglu

TAKE HOME MID-TERM EXAMINATION
Instructions: You are expected to write essays (maximum five pages) for each of the questions below. Dateline for handing in the answers is December 5th,2007)

1. Discuss the nature of the free-tradist era(1815-1870) in relation to the establishment of British hegemony in the world economy. Based on K.Polanyi’s discussion what were the policy-measures enacted by the British government that made free-tradism possible.(33 points)
2.. In what ways the 1880 and 1890s shaping of world capitalist economy differed from the free-trade era? Discuss this in relation to the 1870s crisis of capitalism – its causes and consequences. Was war an inevitable consequence of the development of national market economies which emerged in the aftermath of crisis? Discuss this in relation to Germany.(33points)

Tuesday, October 2, 2007


The class on Wednesday (3rd October
2007) has been cancelled. The next class will be held on Friday (5th October 2007).

Time: 15:00 - 17:00
Place: M 2151

Saturday, September 29, 2007

The readings of the course are avaliable in HÄ°SAR COPY.