Review Sheet, Third Exam, GOV 312L: U.S. Foreign Policy
Course Module 18: Democracy Promotion in US Foreign Policy
1. According to lecture and the reading, what is democracy? Describe Robert Dahl’s
three “procedural minimal” conditions of democracy.
2. Discuss how restrictions on voting rights affected American democracy. What are the
major historical expansions of voting rights during American history and how have
expanded voting rights affected descriptive representation of women and ethnic
minorities? How has universal suffrage affected election outcomes?
3. According to the reading, how does democracy affect foreign policy? Explain how
mass participation through elections expands the range of societal interests that can affect
foreign policy. Explain how competitive elections create a punishment mechanism that
influences foreign policy.
4. According to lecture and the reading, what is the democratic peace theory? How do
the factors that contribute to democracy’s influence over foreign policy in general –
electoral constraints, institutional constraints on power such as checks and balances, and
a shared democratic identity – help to explain peaceful relations between democracies?
5. According to the reading, what are some critiques of the democratic peace theory?
6. How and why has Democracy Promotion been a more or less important element
within U.S. foreign policy over the years?
7. Describe some of the efforts by the United States to promote democracy around the
world. What are the political challenges associated with American efforts to promote
democracy? What are the benefits and drawbacks associated with promoting democracy
around the world?
8. Using the module’s reading, describe historical waves of democracy and the possible
causes of these waves such as demonstration effects, neighborhood effects, conditionality
of international organizations, and the influence of hegemons.
9. According to the Krasner reading, what are the two main tendencies within US foreign
policy regarding democracy promotion and dealing with authoritarian regimes? What
third option does Krasner propose in how the U.S. should deal with long-standing
dictatorships?
Course Module 19: Globalization and US Trade Policy
1. According to the textbook reading (Section 26.2), what are the chief indicators of the
increase of globalization since World War II?
2. According to the reading (Section 26.3), what is comparative advantage and how does
it contribute to aggregate economic gains for states from trade? How does trade
contribute to the economic sources of order in the international system?
3. According to lecture and the reading (Section 26.3), what is the Ricardian model of
trade? Describe the processes by which it suggests that trade and specialization can
increase aggregate national income.
4. If trade makes states wealthier, why is there political resistance to globalization?
5. According to lecture and reading (Section 27.3), what are the domestic distributional
consequences of globalization? Which groups win and lose from globalization inside the
United States?
6. According to the reading (Section 27.3), what is the Heckscher-Ohlin model of trade?
What does the H-O model of trade demonstrate about the relationship between access to
the international market and redistribution of income within countries?
7. How do trade and globalization shape political relations and order in the international
system?
8. Why did the United States launch a trade war against China in 2018?
9. What are some of the important stages in this trade war between China and the United
States?
10. How have domestic political considerations (and the distributional consequences of
trade) in the United States contributed to this trade war?
Course Module 20: Finance and US Foreign Policy
1. What does globalization in financial terms look like?
2. According to the reading, what is an exchange rate? How do shifts in exchange rates
alter patterns of imports and exports? How can exchange rate changes influence trade
policy?
3. According the reading, what is the Mundell-Fleming Trilemma? How does this
trilemma highlight the tradeoffs for states as they strive to achieve three goals: monetary
policy autonomy, exchange rate flexibility, and capital mobility?
4. According to lecture and the reading, what is a trade deficit? How are trade deficits
related to foreign capital inflows and investment in the United States? Which economic
actors are
5. What is the political significance of the dollar’s reserve currency status in the global
economy?
6. How can global capital markets discipline or influence the economic policy of
governments?
7. What emergency actions did the Federal Reserve undertake to help prevent a broader
global financial crisis during the COVID-19 pandemic?
8. How does the status of the U.S. dollar as the reserve currency of the global economy
help the Federal Reserve to take such dramatic steps during the pandemic to support the
U.S. economy? How is this related to the Hegemonic Stability Theory?
9. What do the Fed’s actions say about the costs and benefits of American
hegemony/leadership in the global economy?
Course Module 21: The United States and the Bretton Woods Organizations
1. According to lecture and the reading, what is the Bretton Woods economic order?
What were the main forces that served as an impetus for the U.S. to construct the Bretton
Woods order? What are the main organizations that emerged from Bretton Woods?
2. According to lecture and the reading, what are the main elements of international
economic cooperation? Why is political cooperation between states on international
economic affairs difficult to achieve?
3. How might international economic organizations, like the WTO and the IMF,
facilitate economic cooperation among states and higher levels of international trade?
4. According to lecture and the reading, what is the GATT and what is the WTO? How
do these organizations differ? What are some of the norms, principles, and rules
associated with the GATT and WTO? How does the dispute settlement mechanism in the
WTO support international trade?
5. According to lecture and the reading, what is the International Monetary Fund? What
are its main functions? What is the main source of its influence in the international
economy? What is conditionality and how does the IMF use it to promote economic
reforms within countries? Why does the U.S. have so much influence within the IMF?
Course Module 22: The Environment and US Foreign Policy
1. According to the reading, what is the basic scientific claim about the causes and extent
of climate change? What are the main environmental consequences that scientists fear
will result from climate change? What countries and regions will be most affected by
climate change?
2. According to lecture and the reading, what is the tragedy of the commons? Why is it
rational for individuals to overuse public goods? How does this phenomenon help to
explain the difficulty of managing the sustainable use of commonly held public property?
Know some examples.
3. What is an externality?
4. What is the collective action problem? How might it be applied to the challenges of
managing climate change? What are some of the political solutions to the collective
action problem in the case of carbon dioxide emissions?
5. What are the three different distributional struggles related to the problem of climate
change?
6. According to lecture and the reading, what is the Paris climate accord? How might it
operate to reduce carbon emissions and limit the increase of average temperatures? How
did it navigate the tension between developed and developing countries?
7. What are the main components of the Paris Climate Accord? How should it operate to
limit the growth of carbon dioxide emissions?
8. Which group of countries will be the recipients of foreign aid under the Paris Climate
Accord? How did this aid help facilitate the construction of this international agreement?
And how might this aid help countries fulfill their emission targets?
9. What is a Nationally Determined Contribution?
10. What are the pros and cons of the Paris climate accord?
11. Describe how President Obama’s use of executive orders to commit to the Paris
climate accord made the U.S. commitment to the agreement vulnerable. Describe how
President Trump undermined the Paris climate accord when he came into office and then
withdrew the U.S. from the agreement.
12. How did President Biden reverse President Trump’s decisions on the Paris climate
accord? Why would other countries potentially question the stability of the U.S.
commitment to the agreement of a Democratic president reenters the Paris accord?
13. According to the Baker reading, what are the economic and national security benefits
of ambitious U.S. leadership in combatting climate change? What are the four pillars of
the Baker-Schultz plan to reduce carbon emissions?
Course Module 23: International Migration
1. According to the reading, what are the main differences between voluntary and forced
migration?
2. Discuss the global patterns of international migration. What are the countries with the
largest inflows of international migration and which countries have the largest inflows of
refugees?
3. According to the reading, what are the main types of immigration policy? What are
the main differences between merit-based migration policies and family-based migration
policies?
4. According to the reading, why is there a gap between public opinion regarding the
preferred levels of immigration and immigration policies adopted by democracies? How
does the collective action problem help to explain this gap?
5. According to lecture and the reading, how is international migration a part of the
broader phenomenon of globalization? How does the international flow of labor through
international migration create winners and losers within domestic economies?
6. What are remittances? How do remittances help to redistribute wealth from wealthy
countries to poorer ones?
7. According to the reading, how does international migration affect the demographic
composition of countries? How do these demographic changes create conflict within
countries over issues of national identity?
8. According to lecture and the reading, how does international migration intersect with
national security? How does international migration present challenges for national
security but also resources that can enhance a country’s security?
Course Module 24: Global Poverty and Foreign Aid in US Foreign Policy
1. According to lecture and the reading (Section 31.1). how do different measures such as
national GDP, average income (GDP per capita), and average rate of economic growth
influence which countries are perceived as economically powerful and prosperous in the
global economy?
2. Which countries or regions have the most national wealth? Which countries have the
highest average income per capita? Which countries have had the highest rate of
economic growth over the last 30 years? (See Section 31.1)
3. Describe the general level of extreme and moderate poverty in the world. Which
countries and regions have the highest concentrations of poverty? Why has the
percentage of the world’s population living under extreme poverty declined significantly
since 1990? (See Section 31.1)
4. Why is alleviating global poverty so important? How is poverty a main driver of other
social ills such as lower life expectation and poor education?
5. According to the reading (Section 31.2 and 31.3), what are the main determinants of
economic growth? What are the main impediments to growth? (See Section 31.4)
6. What is foreign aid? How does the amount of foreign aid provided by the United States
compare with contributions from other wealthy countries? What percentage of national
government spending in the US goes to foreign aid?
7. How does the US target its foreign aid? What objectives get more or less funding?
Which countries receive the most foreign aid from the US?
8. According to the reading (Section 31.6), why doesn’t foreign aid work better to
alleviate global poverty?
9. Why do countries give foreign aid at all if it does not really seem to help that much?
What political, security, and economic goals are met through aid?