Lecturer in International Political Economy

Established in 1933 as the first exclusively graduate school of international affairs in the United States, The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy is a multi-disciplinary academic community dedicated to preparing tomorrow’s leaders with a global perspective. Our faculty engages in cutting‑edge research and educates master’s and doctoral students to apply political, economic, legal, and business insights in shaping effective policies and executive decisions worldwide.

Tufts University is a world‑renowned research institution committed to the creation and application of knowledge.

The Fletcher School encourages faculty participation in School‑wide interdisciplinary dialogue and values collaboration across its programs.

The Fletcher School seeks a lecturer in Global Political Economy for the Spring 2026 term to teach two courses, one each in:

• Master of Global Business Administration (GBA)
• Master of Arts in Law & Diplomacy (MALD)

In addition to these programs, Fletcher offers:
Master in Global Affairs (MGA), Master of Law in International Law (LLM), Master of International Business (MIB), Global Master of Arts (GMAP), and PhD programs.

The GBA program is an online, mid‑career degree combining core business courses with international relations, economics, and law. Students, averaging 38 years old, come from diverse sectors including business, NGOs, military, and public service.

Courses run for a traditional 13‑week semester. Weekly expectations include approximately 90 minutes of pre‑recorded content and a 90‑minute live Zoom session. The live sessions are interactive, incorporating discussion, breakout rooms, and review of recorded content. The syllabus, course content, and structure have been prepared; this lecturer position focuses on facilitating live class sessions.

The MALD is Fletcher’s flagship residential degree, designed to equip students with the skills to address complex global challenges responsibly and innovatively. Students pair two fields of study to gain both depth and breadth of knowledge and complete a capstone project focused on real‑world problem solving.

We seek a lecturer for The Politics of the Global Economy course for the GBA spring 2026 term (January‑May 2026).

• Global Political Economy – Examine historical and contemporary approaches to international economic exchange, exploring systemic, domestic, and ideational explanations for economic fluctuations over time. For example, the levels of global trade and capital flows were extremely high prior to World War I, sunk rapidly during the interwar period, increased after World War II, exploded after the end of the Cold War, and shrunk after the 2008 financial crisis.
  
  What causes these fluctuations in the international system? This section is organized into a series of debates (systemic/domestic, ideas/interests) so as to better distinguish what these range of theories have in common and where they diverge.
• Historical Overview – Analyze the global political economy from its origins to Brexit, using analytic tools from the first section and highlighting feedback mechanisms between states, firms, individuals, and economic outcomes.
• Contemporary Issues – Assess post‑2016 developments in the global political economy, including responses to the 2008 financial crisis, the role of the dollar in the post‑Brexit economy, corporate power trends, and the future of the liberal economic order.

This course surveys the theories and issue areas of the global political economy in the past, present and future. The first section of the course will evaluate existing concepts and theories used to explain the variations in international economic exchange over time. The second section offers a historical overview of the global political economy from birth to the post‑Covid world. The last section will look at present and future situations in the global political economy to see whether the theories…