3.0

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The first few weeks will be spent reviewing basic concepts in the study of IR and foreign policy. We will then go over the terms of the mainstream debate in the U.S. between neorealists and liberal institutionalists as we read classic texts by Kenneth Waltz and Robert Keohane. We will also cover some well-known radical and conventional critiques of the neorealist model of IR. Following this we will read about the process of economic globalization and some of the theoretical and policy challenges it poses to our traditional understanding of IR. In particular, we will be looking at the loss of national economic sovereignty as well as at the political framework for the globalizing economy. We will spend a short amount of time on international security and international development before turning to view new directions in IR theory, I.e., constructivism, feminism, and green theory.