Teaching

Introduction to International Relations—2021 and Fall 2022 (Instructors: Alex Weisiger and Edward Mansfield)

​This course is an introduction to the major theories and issues in international politics. The goals of the course are to give students a broad familiarity with the field of international relations, and to help them develop the analytical skills necessary to think critically about international politics. The course is divided into four parts: 1) Concepts and Theories of International Relations; 2) War and Security; 3) The Global Economy; and 4) Emerging Issues in International Relations.

American Foreign Policy—Spring 2021 (Instructor: Dominic Tierney)

​This course analyzes the formation and conduct of foreign policy in the United States. The course combines three elements: a study of the history of American foreign relations; an analysis of the causes of American foreign policy such as the international system, public opinion, and the media; and a discussion of the major policy issues in contemporary U.S. foreign policy, including terrorism, civil wars, and economic policy.

International Political Economy—Spring 2023 (Instructor: Julia Gray)

This course explores the theories, history, and issues in international political economy. International political economy has been described as the reciprocal and dynamic interaction in international relations of the pursuit of power and the pursuit of wealth. The purpose of this course is to examine those interactions — between power and wealth, the state and the market — from a number of competing perspectives and different levels of analysis. We will focus on the causes and consequences of international trade and monetary relations; the growth of regional integration; the role of hegemony in maintaining the stability of international economic systems; strategies of economic development and transition; the role of multinational corporations in both developing and developed countries; and the drivers and consequences of migration and immigration.

The European Union: Arguments & Evidence—Spring 2021 and Spring 2023 (Instructor: Brendan O’Leary)

The course begins with a capsule history of the idea of Europe, and of the EU, and of the structure and functioning of the EU’s core institutions. We shall examine in order the principal institutions of the EU (Council(s), Commission, Parliament and Court); the expansion of the EU; the failure to make a European Constitution and its replacement by the Lisbon Treaty; whether the EU is or is becoming a novel political formation, a state, a super-state, a federation, an empire, or a confederation; the EU’s alleged crises of democratic legitimacy; the crises that the Euro has survived so far; and Europe’s refugee & migration crises. The UK’s exit from the EU (UKEXIT, not BREXIT, though for ironic reasons it has largely been BREXIT, so far) provides an excellent opportunity to interpret the EU—and to understand why it is said, fairly or otherwise, that the provincial English, i.e., those living outside big cities, are just starting to understand the EU. Lastly, we examine whether the pandemic will lead to the federalization of European fiscal policy and whether there will be a crisis over the democratic standards of certain EU member-states.