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    Mar 28, 2024  
American University Catalog 2018-2019 
    
American University Catalog 2018-2019 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

SISG-760 International Studies: History, Theory, Practice (3)


As befits the complexity of the realm it investigates, international studies is a multifaceted, interdisciplinary field, characterized more by recurrent debates and disagreements than by broadly consensual knowledge. This course begins by introducing three key controversies in the field: whether international politics is inevitably the domain of coercive force; whether actors on the international stage act based on interests or on ideas; and whether the international environment is relatively immutable or is amenable to more or less deliberate efforts to change it. It then explores how those controversies inform a variety of historical cases and contemporary issues. The focus throughout the course is on making explicit the principles and perspectives underlying different and divergent views of international relations, including the principles and perspectives brought to the course by the students themselves.