The U.S. In World Politics

Course Description

Globalization is transforming the relationship between world events and U.S. politics. This course analyzes some of the main challenges, threats, and questions facing the United States in the first decades of the twenty-first century. In addition to introducing students to core theoretical perspectives, concepts, and debates in the study of International Relations and American foreign policy, the course focuses on a number of substantive issues, ranging from the spread of nuclear weapons, transnational terrorism, the role of human rights in American foreign policy, and the appropriate grand strategy for the United States in the twenty-first century.

In case studies, students will investigate key questions: What is the problem? What policy options are available? What tradeoffs do they involve? Student presentations will analyze important challenges facing the White House and evaluate the steps it has taken in world politics.

The course has two specific aims

1. To stimulate students' interest in American foreign and security policy and in world politics

2. To provide a more systematic and rigorous analytical framework to evaluate and explain American foreign and security policy and world politics

Prerequisites: None