Pol
454 (Honors Seminar) Theories of International Relations
Fall 2011 Professor Volgy
Tuesdays,
3:30-5:50 Social Sciences 311
Syllabus
Office: Social Sciences 330
Office
Hours: Tuesday, Wednesday 1-2:30 and by appointment
Email:
volgy@email.arizona.edu
Web
page: http://www.u.arizona.edu/~volgy/
Readings: http://www.u.arizona.edu/~volgy/Pol454HonorsReadings.zip
COURSE GOALS:
There are three major goals for this course. The first is a
substantive one: to gain a clear understanding of alternative explanations of
how international politics works and to integrate (to the extent possible) the
best elements of those contending theoretical perspectives. This is not an easy
task: there are several major contending frameworks that compete for providing
the best explanations, and integrating them is not easy, especially since they
provide directions based on contrasting assumptions about how international
politics work.
The second goal of the course is
methodological. Nearly all of social science (as is political science) is based
on one of two research strategies: either a synthesis of the thoughts,
explanations, theories, etc., of previous scholars; or, the creation of new
ways of looking at the world. Either path is perfectly acceptable, as long as
it gains us knowledge about the world around us. Both paths are driven by our
observations of the world, and here, the issue of methodology raises its “ugly”
head. How accurate are our observations about the world? How can we be more
systematic in figuring out what is around us, and how well do our explanations
fit the “reality” around us? This is the province of methodology.
There are a large variety of ways in which we can be
systematic in our observations. We can carefully read and observe what others
say and do. We can be systematic as well in rigorously defining and measuring
our observations. It is this latter approach on which I want us to focus. It is
the basis of much of political science and the study of foreign policy and
international politics.
In this context, I have created an international politics data
lab for you. It is located on my web page at: http://www.u.arizona.edu/~volgy/datalab.html. The data
lab will allow you to access a variety of data on international politics, and
to test hypotheses about how international politics works, and/or to
systematically describe phenomena in international politics. We will discuss
this further as we proceed into the course.
The third goal is to give you some hands-on experience with the
type of university learning that is consistent with the direction in which most
honors students are moving: furthering their education beyond a bachelor’s
degree through a variety of graduate programs. Nearly all those programs are
based on seminar work, and involve substantial research projects. My hope is
that by doing well on the first two goals, and doing them through this honors
seminar format, you will receive a strong taste of what graduate work looks
like, and will be better prepared for it.
HOW TO GET TO THE GOALS:
We will do so several ways. Part of
the work involves reading, and the assignments are noted below. There is a
“text” of sorts, Principles of International
Politics. I know the author quite well, and you were the exact audience he
had in mind. It is not an easy read, but should provide some good insights into
explaining the ebbs and flows of international politics. In addition, I’ve
added additional articles that are also required reading—noted by this (*)
symbol—and I will distribute those in class.
Much of our efforts will involve seminar work: Since this is
an honors seminar, a substantial part of our responsibilities will revolve
around our classroom discussions. I expect all of us to come to class, well
prepared to discuss the week’s subject matter. The responsibility in all
seminars belongs jointly to the faculty member and the student. I expect that I
will learn from you and you will learn from each other as much if not more than
what you will learn from me. To do so requires not only doing the
readings in advance of the seminar, but thinking critically about their
contents, and coming to the seminar ready and prepared to discuss them.
Finally, a substantial portion of this seminar will be
devoted to not only analyzing the knowledge of others, but in creating our own
knowledge base. Each of you will be asked to write an original paper, focusing
on an aspect of the core theme of the seminar. To do a good job, we will talk
extensively about social science methods and you will be expected to dirty your
hands with actual data and its analysis.
EXPECTATIONS:
Class participation:
This is an upper division seminar
based on the discussion method. Therefore, I expect that you will come to class
well prepared. By this, I mean that you will have read the materials that are
due for that day; that you will have thought about them; and you are ready to
discuss them. I have limited the readings so that you will not be reading a
large volume for any given session; in turn, I expect that you will read what
is assigned closely, and critically.
***** Specifically, you are asked
to do the following with respect to the readings:*****
1)
You need to
read each assigned reading closely, and critically. By critically, I’m asking
you to ask yourself at each major argument: Why is this? What evidence is there
for this assertion? Can I think of an example that weakens this argument? To
what extent is the argument refuted or contradicted by what we’ve
discussed/read earlier? How good is the quality of evidence being used?
2) You
need to take notes on both the key concepts/issues/ideas in the readings and
on your criticism of them;
3) Your
notes should be sufficiently thorough and clear to allow you to use them to: a)
respond to questions/challenges/issues raised in class about the readings; and
b) as the source with which to review the readings later without going
back to the actual readings;
4) If
you have to start looking back at the actual readings when class is taking
place, you have not done a good enough job of taking notes!
5) Consult
your notes BEFORE coming to class; this allows you to prepare for our
class discussions. Think about the day’s subject before class starts!
6) CRITICAL: Note that I have some questions for you to
think about and to answer in class under most headings. Please keep those in
mind as you do the readings and thinking about the subjects, and be prepared to
discuss them in the seminar!
These basic points will allow you to do a good job in discussing the
materials in class; they will allow you as well a strategy of getting the most
out of the readings we have. It is a strategy all graduate students use in the
social sciences.
Examination policy: There is a mid-term exam, scheduled for Week 8
(October 11), and an in-class review the session before. There is a time and
place for a final exam, but the final
is optional: I have the option of requiring
you to take it if our class discussions do not turn out as well as I expect and
I’m having trouble evaluating you on your in-class performance. Otherwise, if I make it optional, you may choose to take it if you
feel that taking it would compensate for deficiencies either on the mid-term,
class participation, or on the paper that is due.
I
assumed that you will plan your schedule according to the schedule for the
exams, and will take these exams on the assigned dates. If you cannot, for any
reason, attend the midterm or the final (assuming that you wish to take it or
if I choose to make it non-optional), you must notify me at least one week prior to the exam. I will not give
make-up exams unless your failure to take the exam involved an extremely
unusual hardship or unavoidable circumstance.
Attendance policy: I consider what goes on during class to be
a crucial component of this course. Just as importantly, this is a seminar
rather than a standard course, and as in graduate seminars, missing a class is
a serious “no-no”. Missing class will mean that it will be virtually impossible
for you to do well in the course. Therefore it is assumed that you will come to
every class. While attendance is generally on the honor system, I reserve the
right to take attendance on occasion. So, for honors seminars, the policy is
simple: COME PREPARED and THINKING ABOUT THE WEEKLY ASSIGNMENT;
COME ON TIME; COME EVERY WEEK, and while in class, ENGAGE the topic every week.
Withdrawal
policy: Technically, the
university allows students a number of weeks before they can no longer withdraw
from a course. Unfortunately, due to the fact that I have a waiting list for
the seminar, and the seminar itself is limited to a small number, it is a
luxury that we do not have. Therefore, I will not allow withdrawals from the
course after August 31st, unless there is a very unusual
circumstance, and I will assume that after August 31st, you will
have agreed to stay on with this course and have agreed to do the work in the
manner outlined above.
GRADES: Grades are unavoidable, even in
honors seminars. In this one, the final grade will be based on the following:
Exams: the midterm (and the
possible final exam) will count for 40% of the course grade.
Final paper: this paper is designed to synthesize what you’ve
learned, and apply it to an important, substantive case in international
politics; it will be worth 40% of the course grade.
Class participation: I am serious about the discussion format for this
course. Therefore, the quality of your class
participation will be worth 20% of the course grade. Come prepared to discuss
the materials, or to raise critical objections to the materials.
CHOICES
for grading: In most graduate seminars there are no exams, only
work in the seminar and on the paper. If you wish, I can give you that option,
but it will have to be up to the class to so choose. If you choose that option,
then your grade will be as follows: 45%
participation in the seminar; 55% on the paper. We will talk about this the
first day of class.
SEMINAR PAPER:
You are being asked to write a paper
at the end of the semester, on a key phenomenon in international politics. Your
choice of topics is up to you, but with two suggestions: First, before
proceeding, you clear the topic with me, and in the paper you will need to justify
the topic/puzzle as a salient issue for international politics. Second, there
is always a default option: What will be, and what should be the role of the
United States in international politics? You may choose this option if you
can’t find another, more salient puzzle to pursue. But you will need to justify
this one as well, and the justification needs to be based on a theoretical
framework that provides a broad explanation about how international politics
works.
The purpose of this paper is to give you an
opportunity to synthesize and apply the materials—both theoretical and
empirical—we developed in the course. You will need to have a good command of
how the international system works (and this of course depends on the
theoretical approach you choose to understand international politics), and data
to back up your assertions and/or hypotheses.
This
assignment becomes manageable as long as you do three things: First, make a
determination about what will be your topic of choice, very early in the
semester. You can then use it as a skeletal device on which to hang alternative
theoretical perspectives; thus, second, at the end of each week’s seminar, you
think about how the topic, our discussions, and how our common readings can
apply to your paper.
Third, I’m going ask each of you to
execute a piece of empirical research. There are a variety of ways of doing
this, and these options will be discussed in class. One way is to generate
behavioral data systematically. This is why I’ve created a data lab for you,
allowing you manipulate existing data already available about international
politics.
I
will evaluate your paper on the following criteria:
·
How
well did you synthesize and apply our readings and discussion to the topic?
·
How
well did you integrate the data/observations with your theoretical perspective
in your essay?
·
How
creative and insightful were you in developing your answer, while keeping
within the bounds of what can be realistically expected in the emerging new
world order?
Required
Text:
Bruce Bueno
de Mesquita (BDM), Principles of International
Politics (4th Edition), Congressional Quarterly Press (2010)
Additional
Required Readings: These are listed with the name of the
author first, and ending in (*), and you can find them
on my web page at: http://www.u.arizona.edu/~volgy/Pol454HonorsReadings.zip
Week
1 A short
introduction to the course
(August 23)
=================================================================
(August 26)
Q:
What
is Theory? How do you know when you have a good one?
What is a theoretical approach? A paradigm?
What is a level of analysis, and can you
distinguish between different levels? How
READINGS: Bueno de Mesquita, Introduction, Principles
of International Politics
Bueno de Mesquita, Appendix B
Singer, “The Level of Analysis Problem,” in The International System: Theoretical Essays
(*)
Drezner, “The Night of the Living Wonks:
Toward an International Relations Theory of Zombies.” Foreign Policy, July 2010 (*)
================================================================
Week
3 Realism and
Neorealism
(September 6)
Q: What
are the key similarities and differences between realism (discussed in the
introduction) versus neorealism?
What
do you see are each approach’s strength and weaknesses? Does one appear to be
more useful than the other? What’s BDM’s critique?
What’s
structural theory? In what ways are neorealists and
power transition theorists different? Similar?
READINGS: Bueno
de Mesquita, Chapter 4
Wohlforth, 1995. “Realism
and the End of the Cold War,” International
Security (*)
Waltz,
2000. “Structural Realism After the Cold War,” International Security(*)
===================================================================
Week
4 Liberal Institutionalism
(September 13)
Q: What
do you see as the key assumptions that differentiate between Liberal
Institutionalism (LI) versus Realism and Neorealism? What assumptions about
international politics do they have in common?
What
are the major strengths and weaknesses of LI? To what extent is it a better
approach (or worse approach) than realism or neorealism?
READINGS: Keohane, “Cooperation and International Regimes,” in After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in
the World Economy. (*)
Bueno
de Mesquita, Chapter 11
====================================================================
Week
5 Liberalism
(September 20)
Q: What
are the essential differences between liberal institutionalism and liberalism?
Are these differences in terms of assumptions and/or levels of analysis?
Can
you evaluate the relative strengths and weaknesses of these two variants of
liberalism? Which appears to be more useful for what types of issues/puzzles?
(CAUTION:
What BDM calls liberalism and what I am implicitly suggesting here as
liberalism are distinctly different. Can you see how?)
READINGS: Bueno de Mesquita,
Chapter 1; (optional, Chapter 2)
Moravchik, 1997, “Taking Preferences Seriously…” International Organization(*)
====================================================================
Week
6
(September 27) No Class:
I’m at the Asia Pacific Conference in Brisbane, Australia
====================================================================
Week
7 The
Constructivist and “Postie” Challenge
(October 4)
Q: What
are the central assumptions surrounding the Constructivist approach that
differentiate it from the previous ones?
How different are the key assumptions? How different are the key
explanatory variables?
READINGS: Bueno de Mesquita, Appendix A
Wendt,
1992 “Anarchy is What States Make of It…” International
Organization (*)
Laffey and Weldes. 2008 “Decolonizing the
Cuban Missile Crisis.” International Studies Quarterly (*)
=====================================================================
Week
8 Midterm Exam
(October
11)
====================================================================
QUESTIONS FOR DIFFERENT LEVELS OF ANALYSIS:
As
you do the readings for the weeks below, please think about and be prepared to
discuss the following:
1) What
is the primary theoretical orientation of each piece? Is there a diversity of
orientations at this level? If so, can they be meaningfully integrated?
2) Can
you make sense of the theory being presented in terms of independent,
intervening, and dependent variables?
3) Is
there a serious attempt to operationalize key concepts? How successfully? Are
there problems of validity and/or reliability?
4) Is
the evidence being presented robust?
5) Is
the puzzle being created salient? Does it get solved?
=================================================
Week
9 Theorizing
at the Individual Level
(October 18)
READINGS: Jervis,
1988. “War and Misperception,” Journal of
Interdisciplinary History(*)
Hermann
and Kegley, 1995. “Rethinking Democracy and
International Peace,” International
Studies Quarterly (*)
Bueno
de Mesquita, Chapter 7
====================================================================
Week
10 Decision
Making Theory
(October 25)
READINGS: Allison, 1969. “Conceptual Models
and the Cuban Missile Crisis, American
Political Science Review (*)
Haas, 2001. “Prospect Theory and the Cuban
Missile Crisis.” International Studies
Quarterly(*)
McKeown, 2001. “Plans
and Routines, Bureaucratic Bargaining, and the Cuban Missile Crisis.” The Journal of Politics (*)
====================================================================
Week
11 Theories of
Domestic Structure
(November 1)
READINGS: Bueno de Mesquita,
Chapter 6
Gartzke, 2007. “The
Capitalist Peace.” American Journal of
Political Science (*)
Gartzke, 1998. “Kant We All
Just Get Along?” American Journal of Political
Science (*)
=====================================================================
Week
12 Systemic,
Structural Theories
(November 8)
READINGS: Waltz, 1993. “The
Emerging Structure of International Politics.” International Security(*)
Rapkin and Thompson, 2003. “Power Transition, Challenge and
the (Re)emergence of China,” International Interaction (*)
Volgy
et al, 2011. “Status
and Membership in the Clubs.” (*)
Bearce and Bondanella. 2007. “Integovernmental
Organizations, Socialization, and Member State Interest Convergence,” International Organization(*)
====================================================================
Week
13 Research/Paper
Chase begins
(November 15)
====================================================================
Week
14 Research
Continues
(November 22)
=====================================================================
Week
15 Research
Continues
(November 29)
=====================================================================
Week
16 Course Wrap-Up
and Discussion of Final Exam
(December 6) Research Papers Due
====================================================================
FINAL
EXAM DATE: Monday,
December 12, 3:30 to 5:30