We examine international cooperation and competition in different contexts to connect abstract political theories with concrete real-world examples. By emphasizing fundamental concepts and theories, the course investigates the effects of international relations on our daily lives. The course is divided into four sections—intro/classic IR theories, conflict, trade/finance, and contemporary topics. Each section is divided into three- or four-week blocks with the first week laying the theoretical foundation for the successive class meetings. Each course section introduces core concepts, analyzes interactions, and examines theoretical implications to facilitate analysis of international relations. Engagement with recurring foundational themes, puzzles, theories, and implications enrich students’ analytical abilities. Decision-making processes are critical to our understanding of international relations; consequently, students apply course content through a multi-week simulation, group projects, and scenario analysis.  

Why do states go to war? How are wars fought? When and how do wars end? In this course we examine fundamental theoretical approaches to analyzing international conflict. The first portion of the course introduces theoretical approaches to analyzing international conflict and facilitating discussion on professor selected conflicts. The second portion of the course eneages specific aspects of international conflict—cyber, nuclear weapons, rivalries, water, and student selected topics. Students are empowered to select cases of international conflict from any period in history and spend the semester analyzing their selected conflict with the analytical tools encountered in class. Integrating the news of today, historic conflict analysis, and formal, empirical, and qualitative research, this course challenges students to engage with realities of war and peace through self-selected research topics, assessments of contemporary conflicts, and analysis of war’s depiction in film. 

Terrorism is a tactic used the world over. Diverse groups of humans have used the tactics of terror to pursue political objectives. In this course, we will examine the politics of terrorism. In the first portion of the course, we engage with strategic, organizational, psychological, and ideological approaches to the study of terrorism. The broad theoretical approaches facilitate multi-dimensional analysis of historic and contemporary terrorists’ organizations and specific attacks. The second portion of the course examines specific topics such as suicide terrorism, recruitment, women and terrorism, target and lethality, counterterrorism (specifically the use of unmanned aerial vehicles) and state sponsored terrorism. The course concludes with criticism of the strategic model. 

This course is designed to familiarize us with American Foreign Policy with an emphasis on contemporary issues. The course examines the role of power and specific foreign policy issues in the international system. To better understand the foreign policy structure of the U.S., we begin with an overview of power within the international system. Second, we examine the dynamics between domestic actors and the international system. Finally, each student selects a contemporary issue in American Foreign Policy, examines existing policies and generates recommendations by applying theories, findings, and knowledge gained in the first section.