Select a country other than the United States. Suppose that you are an advisor to the President of that country. The President is newly elected and wants to get up to speed. She asks you to write a report, 4-5 pages double-spaced (not including figures or bibliography), on how globalization has affected development in the country.

Before the paper is due, we will have studied several areas of globalization, including: trade, multinational corporations, finance, aid, and culture. Select four of these areas. For each of the four, give the President a summary of the last ten years, and an analysis of who benefits, who is hurt, and whether you think the overall impact on development has been positive. Finally, the President asks you to look to the future: what is the most promising area of globalization and what is the biggest threat from globalization that she should be aware of going forward?

Grading Criteria:

Your grade will depend on the directness and quality of your response. Specifically:

• Did you address the four areas of globalization?
• Did you address each question above?
• Relevance of citations and outside research
• Quality of writing (clear formatting, removal of unnecessary words and phrases, main takeaways in the summary, etc.)
• Creative thinking and analysis

Formatting:

The final paper should be 4-5 pages, double-spaced, 12-point font, standard (1 inch) margins, in Arial or Times New Roman font. In the past, some students have written it as an essay; others as a briefing for the actual President. While the latter is desirable, the former is okay too.

Characteristics of A Papers:

The best papers address each part of the assignment and use formatting (e.g., section headings) to make this clear! This is a common challenge for students. At my previous school, we trained the master’s students to write these memos. One of the biggest challenges was about a) addressing everything the policymaker asked for, and b) having formatting that allowed a skimmer to easily understand the main takeaways (this always included section headings and a short executive summary). Consider this for the paper: address the question and using formatting to make your answer easy to understand.