In this lecture series students will get familiar with key global challenges around the issues human rights and needs, democracy, peace, inequality, environmental problems or climate change. The analytical focus will be on the „big underlying systems“ such as the international trade order, the global financial and monetary system, and the international economic order, connected with their institutional base such as the UN system, the Bretton Woods twins, the World Trade Organization, the G20 or the Basel Committee.

The lectures include alternatives and potential solutions to all of the issues dealt with, partly developed in the lecturers personal political activities in the international Attac movement, the OWINFS, S2B, and Global Tax Justice Network, and in his current „twin projects“: project „Bank for the Common Good“ and the international movement for an Economy for the Common Good and Ethical World Trade. A cross-cutting alternative will be the concept of „Sovereign Democracy“, including practical tools of decision-making.

The goals of the lecture series are:

• to provide relevant and useful information on global challenges;
• to get to know different perspectives on and analytical approaches to global issues;
• to acquire the ability of critical reflection on current political, economic, and cultural practices;
• to acquire the ability to create alternative global solutions;
• to acquire a higher degree of democratic competence and „sovereign consciousness“;
• to acuire the ability to think and act holistically.

Literature:

 Core titles:

•  Felber, Christian (2015): Change everything. Creating an Economy for the Common Good, Zed Books, London.
• Felber, Christian (2017): Money. The new Rules of the Game, Springer, Cham.

 Optional titles:

•  Bakan, Joel (2005): The Corporation. The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power, Free Press, New York.
• Felber, Christian (2017): Ethischer Welthandel. Alternativen zu TTIP, WTO & Co, Deuticke, Wien. (in German and Spanish only)
• Kohn, Alfie (1992): No Contest. The Case against Competition. Why we lose in our race to win, Houghton Mifflin, Boston/New York.
• Raworth, Kate (2016): Dougnut Economics. Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century-Economist random house business books, London.

The content introduced in a unit can be reproduced creatively by 3-5 students in the following unit in form of a presentation of the issue in several alternative solutions or in a role play, where diverse perspectives on the issue are presented/played. After the short presentation or game (15 min.), I will talk with the students for another 10-15 minutes, opening the space for general debate.

This oral exam accounts, together with active participation in the debates in class, for the full mark of the course. 

Exam modalities may change. 

Students from other faculties or universities will be given a place on the course subject to room capacities.