International Studies

In the early 21st century, there were three techno-economic and strategic cores—Europe, North America, and East Asia, with East Asia being the fastest growing and most dynamic. Although the three regions are of approximately equal economic size, East Asia has been surging forward. East Asia includes China, the world's fastest growing continental economy and second largest economy; Japan, the third largest economy, the second largest source of global capital, and technological leader; South Korea, a technological leader, and Southeast Asia. East Asia is also becoming increasingly important militarily. East Asian strategic issues affect even geographically distant great power relations, including the trans-Atlantic relationship. 

This course focuses on the international relations of this crucial region. It begins by tracing the legacy of the Sino-Centric tributary system, a relatively hierarchical international relations system quite different from the anarchical Westphalian system. Then, it considers the impact of Western Imperialism; the rise and fall of Japanese Imperialism, and the Cold War. The remainder of the course focuses on the post-Cold War decade of the 1990s; the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997-98; the rise of regional multilateral institutions; the influence of historical memory on regional politics; East Asia under unipolarity; the rise of China and its complex relations with Japan and the US; China -Japan relations, and more generally, Asia’s relationship with Europe. The course concludes by considering several scenarios for Asian regional politics and this region's place in, and impact on, the global system over the next decades.

This course focuses on European and Transatlantic security in the context of the Ukraine war and renewed international competition. It discusses how transatlantic security works from both the institutional framework (NATO, EU) and the national policies from the main actors, and investigates the recent evolution of the relationship between the two sides of the Atlantic. The course focuses primarily on security issues but also includes economic aspects (defense industry production capacities, the European Defense Fund). It also considers China in the Transatlantic context. The course utilizes a methodology learning style to develop executive-style presentation skills and media-style debate skills through the weekly exercises.

This course examines the main sources, concepts, and contexts associated with critical and cultural theory. It discusses some structuring concepts of the modern experience and international system such as capitalism, mass culture, public sphere, social criticism, crisis, neoliberalism, and patriarchy, among others.

This course approaches the economics of refugees as a theme in its own right within the economics of migration. It provides a comprehensive overview of the contemporary issues involved in receiving people who are forced to move to developed countries. It considers subjects that the tools of economics can decipher and interconnect to inform public decision-making, such as international law, public policy, the behavior of populations in host countries, the impact on the labor market, and climate change, as well as NGOs, international institutions, and companies in the social economy. 

The course introduces and critically analyzes the major IR theoretical traditions. Because of the complexity of world politics, assumptions (i.e., criteria for thinking about what and how to study world politics) to guide our study are needed. The different traditions – or "-isms" – provide these assumptions and offer a set of different lenses through which to explore world politics. The course, through practical application of theories, explores the ways in which the main theoretical traditions compare and contrast.

This course provides an overview of the main thematic areas in international political economy. The course combines mainstream and critical approaches, addressing topics from State-level politics to those at the economic and cultural levels. The course provides the opportunity to engage and interpret international events using the field’s theoretical tools. It discusses various approaches to ongoing events and underlying political, economic, and cultural reasons for them and identifies the main issues in international political economy and analyzes them critically.

This course examines the nature, constitution and effects of the contemporary global political economy from a critical perspective, discussing the variety of approaches to and understandings of global political-economic practices, actors, patterns and ideas. Introducing  international political economy as a field of study and a space of human interaction, the course examines the relationship between politics and economics and the reasons why power, resources and privilege are often concentrated in particular hands. Scrutinizing the past, present and future of the global political economy, the course outlines and overviews key histories in, approaches to and developments of the global economic order. By focusing on particular dynamics in areas such as international development, trade, finance, production, the environment and gender, the course shines a light on how inequality is generated and maintained.

Lifting the Iron Curtain studies the political, social, and economic transformation of Eastern Europe from the end of the First World War till today. This multidisciplinary course can be divided into two major parts: a historical one devoted to the short twentieth century until 1989-91 and a more contemporary one exploring the achievements and shortcomings of the three decades since. The first half of the course starts by examining East-West relations in Europe on a material and discursive level. It continues by discussing the emergence and characteristics of the post-imperial order after the First World War. It also focuses on the practically simultaneous imposition of the Bolshevik regime in the (newly created) Soviet Union as well as the brutal development of this regime under Lenin and Stalin. The course subsequently includes four meetings on the post-war (Soviet) era west of the Soviet Union, respectively devoted to the origins of Soviet-type regimes in Eastern Europe; the major challenges these regimes had to face, such as the Hungarian uprising or the Prague Spring, and how they responded to them; the reasons behind their unexpected and sudden collapse in 1989-91; and, last but not least, continental and global perspectives on these developments. As mentioned, the second half of the course assesses the political and economic transformation of Eastern Europe since 1989-91. Questions regarding democratization and the quality of democracy in the region as well as the European opening and the related expectations, hopes, and frustrations are the center of attention. The course closes with a discussion of the major challenges Eastern Europe confronts today.

This course studies the theory and practice of humanitarian intervention. It asks, is it ever justifiable to intervene in the domestic affairs of another sovereign state? If so, when, and for what reasons? 
 
This course considers the possibility that a norm of humanitarian intervention has emerged in international society since the end of the Cold War, examining case studies of the major intervention cases that have arisen in the last twenty years: Iraq 1991, Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq 2003, Darfur, Libya, and Syria. 

This course provides an introduction to political and economic geography. The course advances two key arguments, namely that politics and the economy are (1) tightly intertwined and (2) innately geographical phenomenon. It explores how politics, the economy, and the environment are constituted through different sets of actors and their interrelationships. It mobilizes core geographical concepts, notably place, space, scale and territory, along with notions of power and resistance, to offer a distinctive perspective on processes of uneven development in the contemporary world.