Final Exam Essay Questions

The following questions are designed so that you can draw from readings, lecture materials,
and your own thoughts. The readings and lecture materials are the grist for the mill of your own
synthesis and analysis. You are expected to do more than simply cite an author’s name or jot
down a catchword for a complex idea. Instead, we want you to integrate into these essays a
close reading of the assigned materials and lectures. We would rather see an idea worked
through fully than an essay simply full of facts and factoids. Rather than simply citing an
author’s name, we want you to present the author’s elaborated idea (along with his or her last
name). You should have an argument you would like to make in relation to each question, and
the overall structure should be one that will present your own argument to answer each
question. At the exam itself, you will write on two of the following questions. The two questions
will count for 70 percent of the exam. The remainder will be questions on world geography,
current events, the readings, and course lectures. You may have with you in the exam, in
addition to the required blue books, one 8-1/2” x 11” sheet of paper with anything you care to
write on it.

1. Dani Rodrik has a distinctive understanding of globalization and what sorts of policies
should be adopted to tame it. Indirectly, Rodrik engages with a number of other authors in
the JSIS 201 syllabus. Discuss Rodrik’s perspective. Relate his thinking to that of at least
three other authors on the syllabus. Would you describe him as contradicting or
complementing these other works? Conclude by describing where you stand on the issue of
globalization, and defend your position.

2. The following New York Times article from last month implicitly refers to many issues raised
in lecture and in the readings for the course. What is the connection between the article
and course materials? Analyze what you believe to be the most important elements in the
article. Analyze how the article relates to at least three of the readings for the course—
books, articles, or documents. How do they support or contradict what you learned in
lecture and in the readings? State and defend your own position on the tension between
the IMF and Pakistani politicians.

“Pakistan to Accept $6 Billion Bailout From I.M.F.”

By Salman MasoodMay 12, 2019

  ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan and the International Monetary Fund

announced Sunday that they had reached a preliminary agreement on a $6 billion bailout
for the country’s emaciated, debt-ridden economy, a rescue that Prime Minister Imran
Khan had opposed before taking office but has since reluctantly embraced.
JSIS 201 Final Exam Essay Questions 2

Officials have described Pakistan’s soaring current account deficit — a measure of the
imbalance between imports and exports — as an existential crisis. The country is deep in
debt to China, and its slowing economy is expected to contract even further this year.

Negotiations with the I.M.F. on a bailout package had been underway since October.
Pakistan has had an uneasy relationship with the lending body, and nationalist politicians
often characterize it as a tool of American dominance.

Pakistan already owes the institution $5.8 billion from past bailouts, and has only once
completed its past programs.

“Pakistan is facing a challenging economic environment, with lackluster growth, elevated

inflation, high indebtedness, and a weak external position,” Ernesto Ramirez Rigo, who
led the I.M.F. mission to Pakistan, said in a news release Sunday. “The authorities
recognize the need to address these challenges, as well as to tackle the large informality
in the economy, the low spending in human capital, and poverty.”

He added that the agreement was subject to approval by the I.M.F.’s executive board.

Under the bailout package, Pakistan will have a market-determined exchange rate, which
means that the Pakistani rupee is likely to undergo further devaluation. The interest rate
will also be hiked up.

The upcoming budget “will aim for a primary deficit of 0.6 percent of G.D.P.,” Mr.
Ramirez Rigo said, “supported by tax policy revenue mobilization measures to eliminate
exemptions, curtail special treatments and improve tax administration.”

Pakistan has repeatedly struggled with generating tax revenue. Mr. Ramirez Rigo said the
bailout package would try to improve public finances and reduce public debt “through tax
policy and administrative reforms,” and “ensure a more equal and transparent distribution
of the tax burden.”

He added that a plan for “cost-recovery in the energy sectors and state-owned
enterprises” would help reduce “the quasi-fiscal deficit that drains scarce government
resources.”

Mr. Khan, who took office last August, was a vociferous critic of the I.M.F. as an
opposition politician, and during last year’s election campaign he vowed not to turn to it
for assistance. But he has been forced to break that pledge — even while promising a
sweeping expansion of social welfare programs that would contradict the global body’s
insistence on austerity.

Among other belt-tightening moves, the bailout package is expected to lead to cuts in fuel
subsidies, putting more burdens on a struggling population. The government has already
cut some subsidies and taken other measures the I.M.F. was expected to demand, like
JSIS 201 Final Exam Essay Questions 3

depreciating the currency and tightening fiscal and monetary policy. Such moves are
likely to be a further drag on growth.

Mr. Khan’s rivals have seized the chance to tie him to the pain that the bailout is likely to
bring, referring to his government as P.T.I.M.F. — a play on P.T.I., the initials of Mr.
Khan’s political party, and a reference to the fact that top members of his current
economic team have worked for the I.M.F. in the past.

In the last stages of the bailout talks, Mr. Khan replaced almost all the top members of
that team, most notably Asad Umar, a popular politician with a populist bent who was
removed as finance minister last month. Mr. Umar, who was involved in the I.M.F. talks,
has said that he was not prepared to inflict pain on the Pakistani people to meet the fund’s
requirements. He also opposes the privatization of state-run enterprises, something that
the I.M.F. often demands of countries that receive bailouts.

The new adviser to the prime minister on finance, Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, who has the
powers of finance minister, has worked for both the I.M.F. and the World Bank. Mr.
Khan also recently appointed a former I.M.F. employee, Dr. Reza Baqir, as head of
Pakistan’s central bank.

3. Bretton Woods is the name of a town in New Hampshire. But it became a code phrase for
describing a global economic order that was conceived in 1944 and was declared dead in
1973 by President Richard M. Nixon. Discuss the significance of the Bretton Woods system
both in terms of its role in the reconstruction following WWII and establishing a new (or
renewed) world economic structure. What were its strong and weak points? Who were the
winners and losers under this new system? What ultimately led to its being declared
“dead”? Would you argue that the changes in 1973 warranted its death notice? Use at least
three authors or documents from the readings to make your argument.

4. The following is an excerpt from Winston Churchill’s ‘Iron curtain’ speech delivered on 5
March 1946:
From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the
Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern
Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these
famous cities and the populations around them lie in the Soviet sphere and are all subject in
one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in many cases
increasing measure of control from Moscow.

Discuss the context within which the “Iron curtain” speech was given. During the Second
World War, Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union fought as allies against the Axis
powers. Explain why within a short time after the WWII ended, the differences and
tensions between the former allies eventually developed into the Cold War. Do you believe
Churchill’s speech was a necessary antidote to Soviet aggression or fanned flames in ways
that exacerbated world tensions? Use at least two authors in your analysis.
JSIS 201 Final Exam Essay Questions 4

5. In a job interview with the United Nations Development Program, you are asked to write an
essay recommending policies that will most help the Least Developed Countries to achieve
the Millennium Development Goals. The UN official interviewing you says that it will be
impossible to achieve all the goals, so you should focus on just two goals from the Eight
Millennium Development Goals. You need to defend your choice of those two goals. You
then need to recommend which policies you would recommend in order to achieve those
goals. Support your position by bringing in the arguments from at least three authors on
your JSIS 201 syllabus.

The Eight Millennium Development Goals are:

a. to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger;
b. to achieve universal primary education;
c. to promote gender equality and empower women;
d. to reduce child mortality;
e. to improve maternal health;
f. to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases;
g. to ensure environmental sustainability; and
h. to develop a global partnership for development.

6. Ever since the Maastricht Treaty (1992), the European Union has been deeply integrating its
regional market by removing various transaction costs and streamlining regulations. In
1999, with the adoption of a single currency (the euro), the EU seemed successful in
marching towards a single market. The euro became the most traded currency next to the
US dollar, and reserves in euros will also second only to the dollar. The trade volume within
the EU states (intra-EU trade) has more than doubled since 1992, and the EU
remains the largest trading block in the world. Despite the EU’s apparent success, the
European debt crisis beginning in 2009 and the Brexit fiasco, which began with a
referendum in 2017, became a testament to the existing ruptures in the EU. Which
countries or groups of people have been most disadvantaged by the EU’s integrated market
and why? Discuss how erasing various transactions costs worked against those
countries/groups. What factors account for the two crises–-the 2009 European Debt Crisis
and Brexit in 2016? In your answer, draw on at least two of the following authors: Rodrik,
Matthijs, and Stiglitz. State your solution to the crisis, explaining why that will be the most
desirable course of the action for countries in the EU.

7. In his landmark speech at West Point in West Point in 2002, just months after 9/11,
President George W. Bush said the following:
In defending the peace, we face a threat with no precedent. Enemies in the past needed
great armies and great industrial capabilities to endanger the American people and our
nation. The attacks of September the 11th required a few hundred thousand dollars in the
hands of a few dozen evil and deluded men. All of the chaos and suffering they caused
came at much less than the cost of a single tank. The dangers have not passed. This
JSIS 201 Final Exam Essay Questions 5

government and the American people are on watch, we are ready because we know the
terrorists have more money and more men and more plans.

The gravest danger to freedom lies at the perilous crossroads of radicalism and technology.
When the spread of chemical and biological and nuclear weapons, along with ballistic
missile technology -- when that occurs, even weak states and small groups could attain a
catastrophic power to strike great nations. Our enemies have declared this very intention
and have been caught seeking these terrible weapons. They want the capability to
blackmail us, or to harm us, or to harm our friends -- and we will oppose them with all our
power.

For much of the last century, America's defense relied on the Cold War doctrines of
deterrence and containment. In some cases, those strategies still apply. But new threats
also require new thinking. Deterrence -- the promise of massive retaliation against nations -
- means nothing against shadowy terrorist networks with no nation or citizens to defend.
Containment is not possible when unbalanced dictators with weapons of mass destruction
can deliver those weapons on missiles or secretly provide them to terrorist allies.

Some argued that Bush’s speech was a major change in US strategic policy, while others
argued that the speech indicated continuity in American policy. Where do you stand in this
argument? Did Bush’s speech indicate the coming of a new American imperialism? Support
your position with the arguments of authors listed in the syllabus. What was the source of
Bush’s thinking? In retrospect, evaluate the course of action the US took.

8. World orders have had fairly long lives. Pax Britannica, for example, lasted from the end of
the Congress of Vienna in 1815 until the beginning of World War I a century later. After
World War II, the United States under the leadership of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt
initiated a new world order. What were the chief features of that new order? How did it
differ from the previous order that disintegrated with the beginning of World War I? What
kinds of flaws in the old order did Roosevelt and his advisors attempt to address? Were they
successful? Draw on at least three authors or documents on the reading list to support your
argument.

9. Pax Americana took shape in the last years of World War II and the War’s immediate
aftermath. Almost immediately, though, the new order faced challenges, and those
challenges continued through the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. What would
you consider the major three challenges to the world order in the years 1945-2015 to have
been? Did they modify international relations sufficiently to create a new order, or did they
simply bring about adjustments in the existing world order? Defend your position using at
least three authors listed in the syllabus.

10. President Donald Trump complained in his 2016 campaign for the presidency that the
existing order overly burdened the United States. What was the essence of his complaints?
In what ways did he feel the United States was overburdened by the old order? Has he
managed in his two-plus years in office to achieve his goal of destroying the order he
JSIS 201 Final Exam Essay Questions 6

criticized in his campaign in 2016? Financial Times reporter Ed Luce argued that “Dick
Cheney’s heirs are laying the groundwork for an Iran conflict.” Luce seems to be implying

that the strategy of the Bush-Cheney administration, particularly its Iraq policies, was a
model for President Trump and that there is not much difference between them. Do you
think Luce is correct? Use at least three authors or documents read in the course to
support your argument.

11. Read the following two documents on the early stages of the Cold War:
Document I:

After World War II it was clear that without American participation there was no
power capable of meeting Russia as an equal. If we were to turn our back on the world,
areas such as Greece, weakened and divided as a result of the war, would fall into the
Soviet orbit without much effort on the part of the Russians. The success of Russia in
such areas and our avowed lack of interest would lead to the growth of domestic
Communist parties in such European countries as France and Italy, where they were
already significant threats. Inaction, withdrawal, “Fortress America” notions could only
result in handing to the Russians vast areas of the globe now denied to them.
This was the time to align the United States of America clearly on the side, and the
head, of the free world.…
But I also wished to state, for all the world to know, what the position of the United
States was in the face of the new totalitarian challenge. This declaration of policy soon
began to be referred to as the “Truman Doctrine.” This was, I believe, the turning point in
America’s foreign policy, which now declared that wherever aggression, direct of
indirect, threatened the peace, the security of the United States was involved.
“I believe,” I said to the Congress and to a nationwide radio audience, “that it must be
the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted
subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.
“I believe that we must assist free peoples to work out their own destinies in their own
way.
“I believe that our help should be primarily through economic and financial aid which
is essential to economic stability and orderly political processes.”
After I delivered the speech, the world reaction to it proved that this approach had
been the right one. All over the world, voices of approval made themselves heard, while
Communists and their fellow travelers struck out at me savagely. The line had been
drawn sharply. In my address I had said that every nation was now faced with a choice
between alternative ways of life.
“One way of life,” I said, “is based upon the will of the majority, and is distinguished by
free institutions, representative government, free elections, guarantees of individual
liberty, freedom of speech and religion and freedom from political oppression.
JSIS 201 Final Exam Essay Questions 7

“The second way of life is based upon the will of a minority forcibly imposed upon the
majority. It relies upon terror and oppression, a controlled press and radio, fixed
elections, and the suppression of personal freedoms….”
H.S. Truman, Memoirs, Volume II: Years of Trial and Hope.

Document II

The fundamental changes caused by the war in the international scene and in the
position of individual countries have entirely changed the political landscape of the
world. A new alignment of political forces has arisen. The more the war recedes into the
past, the more distinct become two major trends in post-war international policy,
corresponding to the division of the political forces operating in the international arena
into two major camps: the imperialist and anti-democratic camp, on the one hand, and
the anti-imperialist and democratic camp, on the other. The principal driving force of the
imperialist camp is the U.S.A. Allied with it are Great Britain and France. The existence of
the Attlee-Bevin Labour Government in Britain and the Ramadier Socialist Government
in France does not hinder these countries from playing the part of satellites of the United
States and following the lead of its imperialist policy on all major questions. The
imperialist camp is also supported by colony-owning countries, such as Belgium and
Holland, by countries with reactionary anti-democratic regimes, such as Turkey and
Greece, and by countries politically and economically dependent on the United States,
such as the Near-Eastern and South-American countries and China.
The cardinal purpose of the imperialist camp is to strengthen imperialism, to hatch a
new imperialist war, to combat Socialism and democracy, and to support reactionary
and anti-democratic pro-fascist regimes and movements everywhere.
In the pursuit of these ends the imperialist camp is prepared to rely on reactionary
and anti-democratic forces in all countries, and to support its former adversaries in the
war against its wartime allies.
The anti-imperialist and anti-fascist forces comprise the second camp. This camp is
based on the U.S.S.R. and the new democracies. It also includes countries that have
broken with imperialism and have firmly set foot on the path of democratic
development, such as Rumania, Hungary and Finland. Indonesia and Viet Nam are
associated with it; it has the sympathy of India, Egypt and Syria. The anti-imperialist
camp is backed by the labour and democratic movement and by the fraternal Communist
parties in all countries, by the fighters for national liberation in the colonies and
dependencies, by all progressive and democratic forces in every country. The purpose of
this camp is to resist the threat of new wars and imperialist expansion, to strengthen
democracy and to extirpate the vestiges of fascism.
A. Zhdanov, Speech delivered at the Informatory Conference of representatives
of a number of Communist Parties held in Poland in the latter part of September
1947.
(Zhdanov was one of Stalin’s major collaborators. This speech was given at the
occasion of Kominform’s foundation in 1947. The ideas presented in this speech
are known as the “Zhdanov Doctrine”).
JSIS 201 Final Exam Essay Questions 8

The two documents differ wildly in key assumptions but, surprisingly, also share certain
assumptions. Discuss the differing and similar visions of how the world was organized in
the late 1940s. What do the two documents tell us about the structure of the world?
What do they tell us about a world heading towards nuclear confrontation? How do the
documents square with material presented in lecture and in the readings regarding the
origins of the Cold War?

12. In a job interview with the World Bank you are asked to explain why a cleavage exists
between the North (industrialized world) and the South (developing, or third, world). Argue
why inequality has persisted and why there have been sharp disagreements about the
structure of the world order, basing your points in existing theories. State why you reject
alternative explanations to the one you have chosen. Conclude by analyzing which policies
born from your perspective might lessen inequality and lead towards an order that both
North and South could accept.