It is being suggested that long-term growth is hampered by countries being heavily dependent on natural resources, for instance extractive industries or agriculture. Why might such dependence on natural resources be a problem?

Innovations and Economic Development (923N1)

Essay Topics

Word length – MAX 3,000. Any excess length will not be considered for assessment purposes.  Teaching Block 1 – 2022-23

1. It is being suggested that long-term growth is hampered by countries being heavily dependent on natural resources, for instance extractive industries or agriculture. Why might such dependence on natural resources be a problem? What does the recent literature suggest might be learnt from Latin America on how to avoid the problems related to natural resource dependence? What are the implications for energy transition?

The essay mark constitutes 70% of your final mark

What constitute an excellent essay?

An excellent essay will have provided an in-depth analysis of carefully selected theoretical, empirical and/or policy documents using a suitable theoretical approach to tackle the chosen topic. Such an analysis should contain elements of originality, in the sense that the argument should be developed through the use of a combination of theory and empirical evidence or policy documents that should not have been already found in an existing study available in the literature. The student should therefore have consulted new references on her/his chosen theoretical approach (ideally beyond the references on that approach introduced in the module).

UNITS IN THIS MODULE

• Growth and Development in a Globalized World: Alternative or Complements?
•  Structuralists, Structural Change and Economic Development
• The political economy of Inclusive Structural Change
• Mining: the dark side of the energy transition. How to face the new challenges that will emerge in mining emerging economies?
• Global Value Chains (GVCs): standards and gainful insertion in global markets
•  GVCs and the Globalisation Crisis
•  Science, Technology and Innovation for the Sustainable Development Goals
• Innovation and Industrial Policy for Sustainable Development

Units in other modules

• Introduction: power and democracy
• Science, modernity and colonialism
• Democracy and the Politics of Incertitude
• The Politics of Participatory Methods, Practices and Institutions
• Technological Society
• Situatedness and pluralising ways of knowing
• Opening Up: From Methods to Practices for Innovation Democracy
• Technology enriching democracy?
• Grassroots innovation
• Introduction: Modern catastrophes?
• The power of developmentalism
• Bending Words in Struggles for and Against Sustainability
• Pathways (1): Framing, Entrenchment and Pluralising Progress
• Pathways (2): Resilience, Diversity and Transformation
• Transition to Sustainability: The Multi-Level Perspective and offshoots
• Political Ecology
• Cultures of Control, Care and Conviviality in Sustainable Development
• Social Movements for Sustainability