Introduction to International Security (Spring 2024, Fall 2024, Spring 2026)
Student Population: Undergraduate
Course Description: This class is intended as an introduction to the field of security studies within the discipline of political science. Its goal is to provide an overview of major theories, concepts, and debates in the field, with particular emphasis on the causes, conduct, and consequences of conflict and cooperation in the international system during the 20th and 21st centuries. The course covers the foundations of security studies and general frameworks for understanding war and peace. It also addresses specific substantive and historical topics in international security, with the aim of deepening students’ knowledge about canonical subjects and events which shape the past, present, and future security environment that states face.
Syllabus: [link]
Course Evaluations: [Spring 2024]; [Fall 2024]
International Relations and Domestic Politics (Fall 2023, Fall 2024)
Student Population: Undergraduate
Course Description: International relations (IR) scholarship has generally shifted away from purely systemic theories and toward accounts that seek to open up the “black box” of domestic politics. This course explores major perspectives in this move, with a particular focus on how political elites and public opinion affect foreign policy choices and international outcomes. The first portion of the course explores how international events and actors influence domestic politics: What systemic factors make conflict between states more or less likely? The second part examines the role of leaders in shaping how states respond to systemic incentives and constraints: What are the limits of human cognition? When do leaders’ individual characteristics, such as gender, prior experience, and personality, matter for explaining foreign policy? Are groups better at making decisions than individuals? The third part considers the role of the masses in foreign policy: Does the public have coherent views about international affairs? What impact do ideology, partisanship, and values have on public attitudes? To what degree do leaders and the media shape, and find their actions shaped by, the public’s views about foreign policy?
Syllabus: [link]
U.S. Grand Strategy (Spring 2024)
Student Population: Undergraduate
Course Description: This seminar examines prominent decisions in U.S. foreign policy through various analytical and historical lenses. In the first half of the course, we begin by defining the term “grand strategy,” discussing how it has been used (and misused) by both academics and decision makers, and evaluating the degree of rationality in the process of constructing grand strategy. We then establish the frames of analysis through which scholars and policymakers understand key decisions of war and peace. In the second half of the course, we apply these theories to major U.S. military operations since the dawn of the 20th century, exploring the extent to which these frameworks can help us understand successes and failures in American grand strategy. We investigate the extent to which scholarship can help us learn from these experiences as well the practical strengths and limitations of grand strategy as both a means and an end of states’ foreign policies.
Syllabus: [link]
Course Evaluations: [Spring 2024]
U.S. Grand Strategy (Spring 2023)
Student Population: Undergraduate
Responsibilities: Instructor of Record
Course Description: See above
Course Evaluations: [Link]