OUTCOME: Ability to understand and analyze global theory and relevant research methods through an Area of Focus. Suggested Areas of Focus include, but are not limited to, Global Culture and Ideology, Global Politics/Peace and Conflict, Global Political Economy, and International Development/Humanitarian Action.
How did you focus the larger question of globalization?
To focus my analysis of globalization, I concentrated on International Development and Humanitarian Action, looking at cases from the US to Ghana to Uganda and South Sudan. I particularly focused on complexity theory and the lessons it can provide for development of countries. Complexity theory comes from evolutionary biology, however, and so it treats things as complex systems that we may not fully (do not fully) understand. This teaches us that we will have great difficulty in knowing ahead of time what a direct intervention into another nation (ostensibly to solve a problem) will do. Sometimes, as with some types of medicine, the treatment is worse than the affliction.