Currently, I am taking my senior seminar for political science majors, POLS-Y490. The political science major, like many other majors offered here at IU, require all students to take a senior seminar course, which involves intense writing and research of a given topic.
The section of the class that I am taking is covering global income inequality and is taught by Dr. William Winecoff, a professor of Political Science. Professor Winecoff has an interest in the intersection of economics and politics. His bio states that “Most of my research considers the politics of global finance and other networked systems.”
This is not the first class that I have taken with Professor Winecoff. Back during the spring semester of my sophomore year, in 2020, I took a class with him on economic crises, and how they are intertwined with politics. This class was less research-focused, instead we did simulations of economic negotiations, most notably the Bretton Woods negotiations, which took place after WWII and established the order of the global financial system which remained in place until 1972. In these simulations, we simulated what would have happened had the negotiations had different outcomes.
For my project in this class, I am examining the differences between countries that were formerly under Soviet influence, namely those in Eastern Europe, and the differences in how these countries have developed economically. When you examine each of these countries and examine how they have each progressed economically, many interesting patterns begin to emerge. For instance, countries that have joined the EU are, on average, much more successful from an economic standpoint than those that have not. However, it must also be noted that for a country to be admitted into the EU, they are required to meet certain economic targets. These targets include such things as debt to GDP ratio as well as how much they are likely to contribute to the central institutions of the European Union. Therefore, having a higher level of economic success is a requirement to join the EU, rather than an effect of membership.
While being a member state of the EU does not, in itself, give countries the basis to initially achieve economic success, it can allow countries that are already members to more easily survive economic setbacks. A prime example is shown through Greece and Cyprus in the early part of the last decade; both received bailouts from Brussels. This likely prevented their economies from sliding into an even worse state. Also benefiting them was the fact that both countries use the Euro as their main currency. Thi gave them an advantage in terms of economic recuperation, as larger currencies tend to be more stable.
It should also be noted that once a country has joined the EU, they can trade freely with other countries of Europe, which allows their economy to grow and develop at a far more rapid pace than would otherwise be possible.
In my main paper for this class, I am digging deeper into these phenomena, what causes them, and what their other effects are. To accomplish this, I am analyzing data from a variety of sources, which include: The International Monetary Fund, The European Central Bank, as well as other, similar sources. Also included are average life expectancy and the happiness index.