TFAS Global Political Economy Seminar

Due to the ongoing safety and logistical challenges posed by the COVID-19 outbreak, The Fund for American Studies has had to cancel all in-person international programs for summer 2020. In light of this, we are inviting all previously enrolled students and select waitlisted students to join us for this summer’s virtual TFAS Global Political Economy Seminar.

Program Dates: June 29 – August 24, 2020

The TFAS Global Political Economy Seminar is a unique enterprise combining aspects of TFAS programs held in Prague, Singapore, and Washington, D.C. This premier virtual program will include a series of lectures and discussion sessions with companion reading materials held over the course of eight weeks this summer. The curriculum will examine the relationship between governments and markets, exploring three alternatives: socialism, the welfare state, and classical liberalism. By participating, you will not only learn from professors you would have met this summer, but a slate of others representing our international and Washington, DC programs.


FACULTY
David Azerrad headshot

David Azerrad,Hillsdale College

PROFESSOR, TFAS Asia

David Azerrad is an Assistant Professor and Research Fellow at Hillsdale College’s Kirby Center in Washington, D.C. His research and writing focuses on classical liberalism, conservative political thought and identity politics. Prior to joining Hillsdale, Azerrad was the Director of the B. Kenneth Simon Center for Principles and Politics at The Heritage Foundation. He has taught previously at American University and the University of Dallas. A native of Montreal, Azerrad received his Bachelor of Arts from Concordia University, his Master of Arts from Carleton University and his doctorate in politics from the University of Dallas.

Professor Anne Bradley

Anne Bradley,The Fund for American Studies

PROFESSOR, Washington, DC Academic internship program

Dr. Anne Rathbone Bradley is the George and Sally Mayer Fellow for Economic Education and the academic director at The Fund for American Studies. Through this position, Dr. Bradley works to enhance the impact and reach of TFAS economic education programs through courses, seminars, videos and social media. She also delivers lectures around the country and oversees curriculum development and evaluation for economics courses.

Previously, Dr. Bradley served as the vice president of economic initiatives at the Institute for Faith, Work & Economics, where she continues research toward a systematic biblical theology of economic freedom. In addition to her work with TFAS, she is a professor of economics at The Institute for World Politics and Grove City College. She is a visiting professor at George Mason University and has previously taught at Georgetown University and Charles University in Prague. She is currently an Acton Affiliate scholar and a visiting scholar at the Bernard Center for Women, Politics & Public Policy. She is a lecturer for the Institute for Humane Studies and the Foundation for Economic Education.

Samuel Gregg headshot

Samuel Gregg,Acton Institute

PROFESSOR, TFAS Asia

Samuel Gregg is the Research Director at the Acton Institute, a Fellow of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University, and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Gregg is also serving as President of the Philadelphia Society for 2019-2020. He directs the Acton Institute’s research and international outreach, including budgeting, personnel, and programming development and implementation.

He has written on questions of political economy, natural law theory, and Western culture. He is the author of thirteen books including On Ordered Liberty (2003), the prize-winning The Commercial Society (2007), Wilhelm Röpke’s Political Economy (2010), Becoming Europe (2013), and, most recently, Reason, Faith, and the Struggle for Western Civilization (2019). He has published forty-eight academic journal articles and over 300 articles in publications such as the Wall Street Journal EuropeFirst ThingsInvestor’s Business DailyWashington TimesAmerican BankerNational ReviewPublic DiscourseModern AgeThe SpectatorAustralian Financial Review, and Jerusalem Post. He has been cited in the New York Times, the Wall Street JournalForbesTime MagazineChristian Science Monitor, the Washington Post, the New Yorker, and in the Holy See’s L’Osservatore Romano. He has a D.Phil. in moral philosophy and political economy from Oxford University.

Adam Martin Headshot

Adam Martin,Texas Tech University

PROFESSOR, TFAS Prague

Adam Martin is Political Economy Research Fellow at the Free Market Institute and an associate professor of agricultural and applied economics in the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources at Texas Tech University. Dr. Martin earned his B.A. in economics and theology from the University of Dallas and his Ph.D. in economics from George Mason University. Prior to joining Texas Tech University, he was a lecturer in political economy and leader of the Rationality, Choice and Uncertainty Research Group at King’s College London.

Dr. Martin has also served as a post-doctoral fellow at the Development Research Institute at New York University and has been a visitor at the Center for the History of Political Economy at Duke University and the Social Ontology Group at Cambridge University.

Dr. Martin’s research interests include Austrian economics, economic methodology, economic development, and public choice. After receiving his Ph.D. in Economics from George Mason University in 2009, he was a post-doctoral fellow at the Development Research Institute at New York University. He has also been a visitor at the Center for the History of Political Economy at Duke and the Social Ontology Group at Cambridge.

Dr. Martin is a co-founder of the Carl Menger Undergraduate Essay Contest run by the Society for the Development of Austrian Economics. More information about him and about the contest can be found at his personal website, www.adamgmartin.com.

Josh Mitchell headshot

Joshua Mitchell,Georgetown University

PROFESSOR, TFAS Prague

Dr. Mitchell is currently a professor of political theory. He has been Chairman of the Government Department and also Associate Dean of Faculty Affairs at SFS-Q. During the 2008-2010 academic years, Dr. Mitchell took leave from Georgetown University, and was Acting Chancellor of The American University of Iraq-Sulaimani. His research interest lies in the relationship between political thought and theology in the West.

He has published articles in The Review of Politics, The Journal of Politics, The Journal of Religion, APSR, and Polticial Theory. In 1993, his book, “Not by Reason Alone: Religion, History and Identity in Early Modern Political Thought,” was published by the University of Chicago Press. A second book, “The Fragility of Freedom: Tocqueville on Religion, Democracy, and American Future,” was published in 1995, also by the University of Chicago Press. Dr. Mitchell’s book, “Plato’s Fable: On the Moral Condition in Shadowy Times,” was published by Princeton University Press in 2006. The University of Chicago Press will publish his book, “Tocqueville in Arabia: Dilemmas of the Democratic Age,” in August 2013. He is currently working on a book-length manuscript entitled, “Reinhold Niebuhr and the Politics of Hope.”

He has recently completed a book-length manuscript entitled, Identity Politics: An American Awakening, Without God, and Without Forgiveness.

Vincent Phillip Munoz headshot

Vincent P. Muñoz,University of Notre Dame

PROFESSOR, TFAS Asia

Dr. Vincent Phillip Muñoz is the Tocqueville Associate Professor of Political Science and concurrent Associate Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame. He is the founding director of Notre Dame’s undergraduate minor in constitutional studies and also directs Notre Dame’s Tocqueville Program for Inquiry into Religion and Public Life.

Muñoz writes and teaches across the fields of constitutional law, American politics and political philosophy with a focus on religious liberty and the American Founding. His first book, God and the Founders: Madison, Washington, and Jefferson won the Hubert Morken Award from the American Political Science Association for the best publication on religion and politics in 2009 and 2010. His First Amendment church-state case reader, Religious Liberty and the American Supreme Court: The Essential Cases and Documents was first published in 2013 and is being used at Notre Dame and other leading universities. In 2019, he joined the editorial team of American Constitutional Law, the leading constitutional law casebooks designed for undergraduate instruction. Articles from that project have appeared in American Political Science Reviewthe Harvard Journal of Law and Public PolicyNotre Dame Law ReviewAmerican Political Thought and the University of Pennsylvania’s Journal of Constitutional Law.

An award-winning teacher and a popular lecturer, Dr. Muñoz has spoken at over seventy colleges and universities in the past several years. He received his Bachelor of Arts at Claremont McKenna College, his Master of Arts at Boston College and his doctorate at Claremont Graduate School.


PROGRAM STRUCTURE
TFAS Asia students in lecture.

The three sections of the seminar – socialism, the welfare state, and classical liberalism – will all include a political philosophy and political economy component. Each week of the program, a new lecture will be released with related discussion questions posed in the online forum. Participants will have the opportunity to respond to the lecture questions on the discussion board, as well as post questions and respond to other participants’ comments.

In addition, each TFAS faculty member will moderate a live discussion session with a small group of students following the release of his or her lecture. We will upload transcriptions of professors’ responses to student questions after each session.

The program will culminate in a fireside chat featuring Dr. David Azerrad and Dr. Anne Bradley who will respond to final questions from the previously enrolled international class of 2020.

Socialism

Week 1 – David Azerrad: “Marx and the Communist Promise of Liberation”

            Live Discussion Session: July 6, 2020

Week 2 – Anne Bradley: “The Rise of Democratic Socialism”

            Live Discussion Session: July 13, 2020

The Welfare State

Week 3 – Phil Muñoz: “FDR and the Political Philosophy of the Welfare State”

            Live Discussion Session: July 20, 2020

Week 4 – Sam Gregg: Keynes: “Keynes, Keynesianism, and the Welfare State”

            Live Discussion Session: July 27, 2020

Classical Liberalism

Week 5 – Josh Mitchell: “Adam Smith’s Grand Vision of the Human Enterprise”

            Live Discussion Session: August 3, 2020

Week 6 – Adam Martin: “The Presumption of Liberty”

            Live Discussion Session: August 10, 2020

Conclusion

Week 8 – David Azerrad & Anne Bradley: Q&A

            Final Fireside Chat: August 24, 2020

This program is available to those who were previously enrolled in TFAS Asia 2020 or TFAS Prague 2020, or those waitlisted applicants who have received an invitation. To enroll in the seminar, please access this form through the Self Service Center. All participants must view and electronically sign The Fund for American Studies Summer Virtual Program policies when they register to enroll.


FAQs

This seminar is designed specifically for those students who were previously enrolled in the 2020 TFAS Prague and TFAS Asia programs and are now unable to attend due to COVID as well as those waitlisted applicants who have received an invitation; however, we will make the recorded lectures available to the public at a later date.

No, this seminar is an additional opportunity for students. If you were previously enrolled in a summer 2020 TFAS International program, your spot is reserved for the 2021 in-person program, regardless of participation in the seminar. More information about confirming participation in a summer 2021 program will be made available in the fall.

No, the program cost has been generously covered by donors to The Fund for American Studies who are committed to teaching the principles of limited government, free-market economics and honorable leadership to students and young professionals in America and around the world.

While this program does not meet the credit hours required for academic credit, it will provide participants with a foundational understanding of political and economic systems that will better equip them for a wide range of academic and professional paths.

As this seminar is not a full-time TFAS program, participants will not be graded, and completion does not connote alumni status. We hope that participants who successfully complete the program [shown through active participation in a live discussion session and in the online discussion forum] will develop a greater interest in the subjects taught in TFAS programs and join us for an in-person program next summer.

Due to a desire to keep each discussion session small, students will only be guaranteed participation in one discussion session; however, transcribed versions of the discussion sessions will be made accessible to all students, with participant names redacted.

TFAS will make the times of the discussion sessions available after the enrollment deadline. They will be held at different times, to accommodate our students in Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and America. The number of participants in each session will be limited, and enrollment will be allowed on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Questions?

We are happy to answer any questions that you may have! Following public health guidance, our staff continue to work remotely for the time being. Please contact us via email at international@TFAS.org.