Courses
International Law
What is international law? How is international law created, and by whom? Is it possible to enforce international laws? Why do states agree to be bound by international laws to begin with? Do international laws effectively change state behaviors and, if so, why? Does the international legal regime disproportionately benefit countries in the “Global North”?
This course addresses these questions by considering the main actors involved in international law, their incentives, and the international system in which they interact. Note that this is not a “law school-style” course—we will not be reading cases or law textbooks. Instead, we focus on the political interactions that shape international law, and the reverberations of international law in various states’ domestic politics. We will apply an analytical framework for understanding strategic interactions in international law, requiring students to consider outcomes with reference to actors’ incentives, information, beliefs, and domestic and international context. In addition to considering state leaders as actors, we will analyze the role of civil society groups, international organizations’ staffs, corporations, and other entities in international law. To understand how international law works—or doesn’t work—as intended, students will review rationalist explanations of “credible” commitment problems and principal-agent issues, as well as constructivist theories of the “logic of appropriateness.” We will apply these analytical tools to better understand the role of international law in establishing human rights, promoting environmental protections, and more. Students will also consider how power asymmetries create winners and losers through international law. Weekly modules will include coordination and cooperation, commitment/treaties, enforcement, international organizations, and other themes.
This course is intended for advanced undergraduate students or a graduate seminar.
Introduction to International Relations
Why are there wars? Why do countries have a hard time cooperating to prevent genocides or global environmental problems? Why are some countries rich while others are poor? The actions and interactions of governments, groups, citizens, and international organizations are increasingly complex and interdependent. This course grapples with some of the most interesting and important questions in political science that arise from the study of international relations (IR). We will identify what IR is, why we study it, and how theories of IR help us to understand and explain the confounding things we observe—puzzles—in a dynamic world.
Our ambition for the course is to develop a "toolbox" of analytic concepts common to many theories of IR that apply to a wide variety of real-world topics. Specifically, we will introduce 1) interests, 2) interactions, and 3) institutions as core concepts of the IR toolbox (the “3 i’s”). This framework aims to provide a solid foundation for building our own understanding of international politics.
Organized around these key concepts, the course will equip us to answer questions like: Who are the relevant actors and what are their interests? What is the nature of their interactions? What strategies can they be expected to pursue? When are their choices likely to bring about cooperation or conflict? How do institutions constrain and affect interactions? How might they impede or facilitate cooperation? When and how do institutions favor different actors and their interests? We will see that the “3 i’s” apply in different ways to war, trade and international financial relations, and the struggles for improved human rights and a cleaner global environment. The ultimate goal of this course is to bring conceptual building blocks to our understanding of IR and in step with world events.
This course is intended as a university (introductory) course.
Race and International Relations
“The policy of expansion, then, simply means world problems of the Color Line.”
— W.E.B. DuBois, “The Color Line Belts the World” in Collier’s Weekly, October 20, 1906.
What does race have to do with international politics? In this course, we will study the production and perpetuation of racialized differences in the world. This course will delve into historical and contemporary debates and explanations for the ways race shapes international order and interaction between states. We will begin by asking foundational questions for this task: What is race? What is racism? What are these concepts in international relations (IR)? How do race and racism help explain the outcomes we observe in IR? In dialogue with sociological and philosophical approaches to race and racism, we will engage both critical and empirical approaches to the study of race in IR. After taking stock of early scholarly contributions and the epistemological norms that led to their elision, the course will survey a variety of theories about race in contemporary world politics. We will also brainstorm ways to integrate theoretically rigorous approaches race with the practice of empirical research. Weekly modules will include threat perception and war, alliance politics, nuclear politics, immigration, foreign policy preferences, international organization, international law, and other substantive areas.
This course is intended for advanced undergraduate students or a graduate seminar.