Department of International Studies
Course Descriptions
Fall 2015
INS 101 S
Global Perspectives (Honors)
Dr. Kubalkova
The course examines the fundamentals of state interactions in the international system,
including the roles played by states, international organizations and other types of nonstate actors. The class will analyze the variety of ways in which political actors attempt to
advance their interests, at what cost, and with what degree of effectiveness. We analyze
diplomacy, security, what it means, to whom, and how different types of political actors try
to get it. The course discusses governance, including both attempts at global governance
and also the ways in which states' domestic politics affect their foreign policy choices.
Topics include a variety of state tools of power, from the uses of force to negotiations and
sanctions, and the role of the United Nations in peace and war, as well as such subjects as
nuclear terrorism, civil war, development, intervention, and cyber-conflict.
INS 101 B
Global Perspective
Hanna Kassab
This course introduces students to core concepts that are useful in understanding how the world
system is structured and how it functions: How it attempts to regulate international conflict,
strives to govern global affairs and goes about deciding whose preferences will win out and
whose welfare will be fostered. It seeks to equip students with conceptual tools that they need to
understand their own place and prospects within the world society and its governance.
INS 102 O
Global Economics
P. Thompson
This course is designed to introduce students to the interaction of economics and politics in global
affairs, with an emphasis on the struggle for power and wealth within the international system.
Through the use of practical examples and concrete cases, it will be illustrated that neither
international politics nor international economics can be understood in isolation from one another.
The course will begin by exploring the fundamentals of economic theory. Next, the political and
economic dimensions of the post-war international monetary, financial, and trading systems will be
explored. It then develops other topics, including current debates on globalization, foreign debt,
multinational corporations, international development and regional economic organizations.
INS 201 R
Globalization and Change in World Politics
Dr. Rodriguez
The course provides a foundation for the understanding of key trends and debates
pertaining to globalization and related transformations in the realm of politics and politicoeconomic processes, cultural aspects associated with them and some of the mechanisms
through which these links materialize, such as the changing role of the state and the growing
role of non-governmental organizations, among others.
INS 322 S
Economic Development and Environment
INS 367 Q1
The Historical Roots of American Imperialism
Dr. Weisskoff
Dr. Kanet
This course examines how the United States has a history that
parallels that of other great imperial powers which have pursued their interests at the
expense of others.
INS 410 -6j
Global Cities
Dr. Rodriguez
Discusses global cities as both a result and a major driving force of the globalizing trends of
capitalism; engages in current debates on global cities in relation to major political/economic
processes and everyday life in the city; provides substantive knowledge on the links between the
global expansion of capitalism and the formation of complex urban centers, from the core
merchant and financial urban areas of earlier periods to the global cities of our time: New York,
London, Tokyo, Honk Kong, and Sao Paolo, among others.
Prerequisite: INS 201/ POL 212 OR Permission of Instructor
INS 460 P
UN Seminar
Ambassador Moss
The organization and functions of the UN, including its structure, network of agencies, and
issues in which it is involved. Emphasis is given to reforms, the Millennium Development
Goals, and problematic relationships among the UN member states.
INS 564/605
International Relations
Dr. Kahn
This class explores the development of contemporary international human rights, and how and to
what extent they are enforced. On paper, these rights constrain the way governments treat human
beings and empower individuals to demand that governments conform to international standards.
So, some claim for example: no government may torture anyone under any circumstances; and
every government must provide basic education to all residents. While others disagree with the
prior sentence, no governments now claim that international norms stop at the border—that
sovereign states are entitled to treat people under their control as they see fit. But, though they
seldom publically denounce them, governments often ignore their international human rights
obligations. This course looks at what rights have emerged as international human rights, and
assesses the effectiveness (or impotence) of the actors and regimes that try to transform abstract
legal notions into everyday practice within states.
INS 510/605
Security Threats
Dr. Kassab
Security is a contested concept in the field of International Relations. The first part of the course
discusses the evolution of security, from its state centered approach to today’s non-state focus.
The second part of the course will examine specific threats to security. This means applying one
or more of the theories listed above. We shall study state centric threats such as: conventional,
nuclear, biological, chemical and cyber weapons. We shall study non-state, transnational threats
such as terrorism, drug trafficking, nationalist groups and other ideological groups. We hope to
discuss other non-violent threats that undermine the security of individuals: environmental
devastation and economic instability, more specifically, structural violence. By the end of the
course, students should have a comprehensive understanding of security and the theories which
intend to examine and understand global phenomena.
INS 518/656
Migration & Development
Dr. Rodriguez
Course designed to engage students in sophisticated scholarly, policy, and community-based
debates on the migration-development nexus. Provides a solid foundation for the understanding
of how the nexus is presented, researched, or acted upon through international organizations,
government agencies, enterprises, and communities around the world.
INS 521/607
Int.t Econ Topics II
Dr. Weisskoff
Also known as “Action Economics.” Readings by the classical economists from Adam Smith
(18th Century) to Marx (19th Century) to Keynes (20th Century) on the theoretical basis
for economic action by citizens, enterprises, and government.
INS 537/637
International Political Economy
Dr Kassab
This course introduces students to the study of International Political Economy (IPE). It explores
the dynamic ways in which markets, states and societies interact with one another, within a
context of increasing international economic interdependence. The course combines a focus on
the main theoretical and methodological approaches used in the study of IPE with the analysis of
historical and contemporary issues. The curriculum is divided into four main parts. The first part
provides students with an introduction to the main methodological and theoretical debates in IPE,
including recent scholarly debates on the nature and consequences of economic globalization.
The three remaining parts each covers a different broad theme or topic: trade and production,
money and finance, and development and North-South relations. Several different international
and domestic level issues are studied within each theme. For graduate students, the ultimate aim
of this class is to prepare you for the department’s qualifying exam. It also hopes to introduce
PhD students to certain holes in the field from which to consider dissertation topics.
INS 542/642
Drug Trafficking in the Americas
Dr. Bagley
This course will examine the political economy of the U.S.-Latin American drug trade and
the dynamics of the U.S.-led “War on Drugs” in the Western Hemisphere and beyond during
the Twentieth Century and the first decade of the Twenty First Century. Special emphasis
will be given to the contemporary phases of the drug war (since 1969) and to the postSeptember 11, 2001, transformations in U.S. anti-drug and anti-terrorist policies. The
course will conclude with a brief examination of the implications of the transition from
Bush to Obama for U.S. drug policies at home and abroad.
INS 560/657
American Foreign Policy
Dr. Bagley
This course will examine the leading conceptual approaches to the analysis of American
foreign policy and some of the key foreign policy issues that confront the United States at
the outset of the Barack Obama. The relationship between International Relations Theory
and the study of foreign policy will be a central concern of the class. A brief review of the
principal approaches to the study of foreign policy and a brief historical overview of U.S.
foreign policy during the 19th and early 20th centuries will be presented in the first five
weeks of the course. During the rest of the semester major emphasis will be placed on the
evolution of U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War (1945-1991), on the post-Cold War
period (1991-2001), on the post-September 11, 2001, period of the George W. Bush
presidency, and on the foreign policy implications of the transition from Bush to Obama
(2009) and the Obama administration’s foreign policy initiatives - 2009-14).
INS 565 R
The World Before European Domination
Dr. Kanet
For over two centuries Europe and its cultural extensions have dominated the world
economically, culturally and politically. The great colonial empires that emerged in the in
the 16th and 17th centuries and were consolidated in the 19th century, along with the “deindustrialization” of portions of what became the “Third World,” that accompanied it, were
the most visible elements of that process of domination,. The extension of the global
economic system, dominated by the United States and the other developed economies of
the world, is yet another, more recent, element of that process. But, what is it that placed
Europe [and later the United States] in the position to dominate the other cultures and
civilizations of the world? Is the standard Eurocentric story that still permeates world
history as taught throughout the industrialized West really an accurate depiction of the
global system from about 1500 to 1800 and of how Europe in the 19th century came to
conquer and control virtually all the peoples and resources of the world? Did European
civilization pull itself up by its intellectual and economic bootstraps, so to speak, to outpace
economic, political and cultural development throughout the rest of the globe? Was there
something “special” about Europeans, their civilization, the socio-political and/or
geographical environment that led to the “take-off” about 500 years ago that led
“irreversibly” to European domination?
The objective of the course is to pose these and other questions that challenge the standard
Eurocentric interpretation of the “modern” development of Western and global civilization.
INS 566/638
Major Issues in US-Latin American Relations
Ambassador Moss
American Relations; Political, economic and strategic aspects of U.S.-Latin American
relations; the historical experience and contemporary issues, including the influence of
extra-regional parties such as Europe and China.
INS 572
Frontiers in Global Health
Louis Herns Pastore
Frontiers in Global Health: Global Health Response to Disaster from Management to Recovery and
Reconstruction or Global Health. The course analyzes the global health impacts of disaster on populations
in different communities/societies around the world. It examines the impact of international aid to
recovery and reconstruction on populations in different communities throughout middle and low income
countries.
INS591/653 The European Union: History, Institutions, Policies
Joaquin Roy
This course offers an understanding of the European Union’s history, its treaties, and its
institutions. Readings and discussions will cover the most important EU common policies to
serve the changing European context.
Economic issues will be the subject of an emphasis on the development of the euro as common
currency. The course will also examine social European problems that have significant political
and policy implications. The increasing volume of transnational interactions have brought about
a slew of alarming tendencies, such as violence, discrimination. These have fueled public debates
on issues ranging from identity and belonging to immigration and asylum policies.
The role of the most important European member states as well as the diverse political parties
and ideological currents will also deserve due consideration.
The course will end with an analysis of the development of a common foreign and security
policy as a sign of autonomous collective identity. A final session will be dedicated to the
pressing world-wide current issues.
INS 518/656
Global Migration & Development
Dr. Rodriguez
The migration-development nexus is at the top of research and policymaking agendas in many
global and regional organizations and within specific countries. This course is designed to
engage students in an in-depth review of trends and debates on issues pertaining to the
migration-development nexus. The students receive a solid foundation that enables them to
critically examine current discourses, research designs and methodologies employed for the
understanding of the role and place of migration and the migrants in development-related issues.
INS 612 1J
Qualitative Research Methods
Dr. Rodriguez
Qualitative methods are widely used in research sponsored by the private sector,
government agencies and community-based organizations. This seminar enables students to
become proficient in qualitative research methods. It is a hands-on seminar in which the students
are encouraged to think creatively on which method(s) among the ones studied in the class could
make their research of complex phenomena more rigorous and sophisticated.
INS 630 5Q
Comparative Politics I
Dr. Yaffe
This seminar is the first in a two-semester sequence designed to introduce graduate students to
the broad and diverse field of Comparative Politics. This first seminar in the sequence proceeds
from the assumption that the best way to learn about Comparative Politics is to look at some of
the leading scholars and the “Big Books” that have shaped the field. The course first examines
the historical development and trends of comparative politics, including the epistemological
issues in comparative political inquiry. It then focuses on the logic and process of comparison
and methodologies in comparative political studies. Finally we will turn to comparative analysis
done within and across nations and a discussion of debates on comparative historical analysis,
state formation, democracy and development, democratization, and the role of ideas, interests,
and institutions.
INS 572/672
Frontiers in Global Health
Louis Herns Pastore
Frontiers in Global Health: Global Health Response to Disaster from Management to Recovery and
Reconstruction or Global Health. The course analyzes the global health impacts of disaster on populations
in different communities/societies around the world. It examines the impact of international aid to
recovery and reconstruction on populations in different communities throughout middle and low income
countries.
INS 594/694 European
Issues: Comparative integration and Latin American Relations
Professor Joaquin Roy
This course will review first the fundamental dimensions of the European Union, its essence and
its theoretical framework, and its potential as a model and point of reference for regional
integration around the world in a comparative approach. Then the course will deal with EU’s
linkages with the Americas, with a consideration of the North American Free Trade Area
(NAFTA), as an example of the influence of the US-led model of regional integration and
cooperation, and the planned Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the EU and the
US, and its implications in Latin America. Discussions then will deal with the EU’s practice of
North-South development aid and cooperation in the Caribbean and Central America. The course
then will review the links between the EU in the wide South American region, studying the
development of the Andean Community and MERCOSUR, and newcomers such as UNASUR
and the Community of Latin America and Caribbean States (CELAC) . The last part of the
course will be dedicated to the special case of Spain´s relations with Latin America.
INS 310-J: GANDHI AND THE MAKING OF MODERN INDIA
Professor Sumita Dutt; Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays 8:00AM-8:50AM
This course will study the rise and significance of Mohandas Karamchand
Gandhi, leader of the non-violent nationalist movement against the British
Empire in India at the turn of the twentieth century. Through a detailed study
of his numerous writings we will explore Gandhi’s theories and praxis of civil
disobedience, satyagraha, non-violent protest, moral discipline, and critique of
modernity as well as his alternative vision of civil society and polity. We will
explore issues of political mobilization, strategies of “passive” resistance,
relations between Hindus and Muslims, Hindu caste society’s ills and the
question of untouchables, modern science, technology and economic growth, the place of women in
society, self reliance, individual and collective responsibilities.
INS 310-6K: AFRICAN-AMERICAN EXPERIENCE, II
Professor Donald Spivey; Tuesdays 6:25pm-9:05pm
America.
INS 310 is an exploration of those factors that have shaped and been
shaped by people of African descent in the United States from the end of
Reconstruction to the present. Some of the issues we will examine
are: the impact of industrial and technological development on black
Americans, the African-American educational experience, leadership in the
black community, the evolution and impact of ideologies from integration
to Black Nationalism, the African-American urban experience, the cultural
life of the community in the era of the Harlem Renaissance, the modern
civil rights movement and its aftermath, and the current state of black
INS 310-H WWI AND THE MIDDLE EAST
Professor Aimee Genell; Tuesdays and Thursdays 2:00-3:15PM Dominique Reill? Teaching??
This class will cover the period between the Young Turk
Revolution in 1908 and the demise of the Ottoman Empire in
the early 1920s. It will examine a series of historical debates,
including the Ottoman decision to enter the war on the side of
the Central Powers, Ottoman mobilization practices, the
Armenian Genocide, the Arab Revolt as well as the Middle East
at the Paris Peace Conference. The course will analyze the
violence associated with the breakdown of imperial rule during
World War I and will conclude with a discussion of the legacies of Ottoman rule in Anatolia, the
Balkans, and the Arab provinces.
INS 311-O GLOBAL CONSUMER SOCIETY
Professor Eduardo Elena; Tuesdays and Thursdays 9:30AM-10:45AM
In the United States we are surrounded today with a seemingly
limitless variety of consumer goods, and we are offered constant
reminders of the increasingly globalized nature of modern
life. Too often, however, such commentary reflects a shocking
ignorance about the origins and evolution of contemporary
consumer society. This course seeks a deeper understanding of
these transformations by exploring the historical relationship
between consumption and globalization. Spanning a broad arc
of time (but with a focus on the twentieth century), the course
explores the impact of innovations in agriculture, trade, industrialization, advertising, and culture on
everyday life in multiple societies. The lectures and readings consider cases studies in the Americas,
Asia, Europe, and Africa that reveal underlying convergences and divergences worldwide as well as
the unresolved social, ethical, and environmental problems associated with consumption.
INS 310-Q: WOMEN'S AMERICA II
Professor Sybil Lipschultz; Tuesdays and Thursdays 12:30PM-1:45PM
This course covers the main themes in American Women’s History during the Twentieth Century.
The topics we consider will serve students with a general interest in this subject, as well as prepare
students who seek a foundation for future classes in the field. Major questions raised by the course
will revolve around the historical context of the following issues: domesticity versus public life; wage
earning women; women in reform movements; women at war; childbirth and motherhood; the race
and class of gender; gender stereotypes in the mass media; women and public policy. Readings will
focus on both background materials by professional historians, and primary sources depicting the
words, perspectives and ideas of the women who lived in various historical times. There will be two
take-home exams.
INS 311-R: IMPERIAL RUSSIA
Professor Krista Goff; Tuesdays and Thursdays 2:00PM-3:15PM
This course is a survey of the Russian Empire from the sixteenth century
to the dawn of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. We will integrate local
histories of imperial peripheries (including Siberia, Central Asia, Crimea,
and the Caucasus) into the major themes that have defined Russian
history. Topics covered will include: the politics, technologies, and
practices of imperial expansion and rule; debates about “westernization”
and Russian identity; serfdom and peasant life; industrialization and
modernization; revolutionary and reactionary currents in the nineteenth
century; state reforms; and the causes of the 1905 and 1917 revolutions.
INS 311-R: MIDDLE EASTERN HISTORY 600-1800
Professor Aimee Genell; Tuesdays and Thursdays 2-3:15
This course aims to introduce students to Islamic empires in the premodern world from the arrival of Islam in 7th century through the end of
18th century. This course will trace the emergence and expansion of
successive Islamic empires in the Middle East, the Mediterranean world, as
well as Central and South Asia. Along with political institutions and imperial
practices, this course will analyze Islamic doctrine and intellectual thought.
The first half of the class charts the rise and spread of Islam, the institution of the Caliphate, the
Sunni-Shia divide, the Islamic Medieval Near East and the importance of Sufism to Islamic and
scientific thought. The second half of the class examines the importance of the Asian mobility for
the creation of new Islamic polities that challenged the Arab Caliphates, including the Mongol,
Mamluk, Safavid, Ottoman and Mughal empires. The course will end by considering new internal
and external challenges faced by the Islamic empires in the eighteenth century. Other subjects
covered include: Slavery, non-Muslims, the Hajj and Islamic science and geography.
INS 311-S: CUBA AND AFRICA
Professor Edmund Abaka; Tuesdays and Thursdays 3:30PM-4:45PM
This course examines the relationship between Cuba and Africa from the
period of the slave trade to late 1990s. The course is divided into three
sections. Section one deals with Cuba and Africa during the period of the
slave trade. The next section will deal with the Cuban revolution and the
contribution of Cuba’s Black population to the revolution. In the final
section, we shall emphasize Cuba’s Africa policy from the Cuban
revolution to the independence of Angola, Mozambique, Guinea Bissau, Cape Verde and Principé.
This section is designed to answer certain fundamental questions: Why did a small country like Cuba
play such a preponderant role in Africa during the decolonization period, a time of heightened
antagonism due to the Cold War between the superpowers?
INS 503-48: GLOBAL GENOCIDES
Professor Krista Goff; Mondays 4:00PM-6:30PM
From German colonial atrocities against the Herero and Nama at the turn of the
20th century to Rwanda and Bosnia in the 1990s, mass killings marked every
decade and every corner of the globe during this “century of genocide.” Yet, as
recent events in Sudan and elsewhere have shown, genocidal violence can hardly
be isolated to one period in time. This course will help you better understand this
dark phenomenon and define its blurry contours. Is genocide a symptom of the
modern world? What are the networks, patterns, and characteristics that bind mass
killings across the globe into shared systems of violence? What motivates
perpetrators to kill, and how do you achieve reconciliation or justice in places scarred by mass death?
INS 503: GLOBAL HISTORY OF MILITARY OCCUPATION: FROM NAPOLEON IN
EGYPT TO THE U.S. IN IRAQ
Professor Aimee Genell; Thursdays 4:00-6:30pm
This course analyzes the theory and practice of military
occupation from the early nineteenth century until the US
invasion and occupation of Iraq. This course will consider political, legal, and military aspects of
occupation through comparative examination of a series of case studies. “Occupation” will be used a
conceptual category to examine diverse phenomena in nineteenth and twenty-century international
history including the expansion and collapse of modern empires and the rise of national states. It
will consider the role of international law in imperial expansion, changes in the definition of
sovereignty, as well as the transformative uses of military occupation in engineering the modern
state. In addition to seminar participation, students are required to write a term paper based upon
original research of primary materials.
INS 504-48: SLAVERY AND CAPITALISM
Professor Scott Heerman; Wednesdays 4:00PM-6:30PM AA621
How did slavery support the creation and expansion of capitalism in
the United States? Over two and a half centuries, slavery, free labor,
and capitalism related to each other in complicated ways. They also
underwent dynamic changes. In 1650, most people living in colonial
North America worked in some form of unfree labor (slavery,
indentured servitude, apprenticeship, convict labor, etc.). Yet by
1876, free wage labor achieved dominance in the United States. We
will explore that transition to understand what institutions, practices,
ideologies, and major events supported the expansion of capitalism
and, in time, the rise of free wage labor in the United States. The
seminar will also grapple with larger conceptual and theoretical
questions about definition of slavery, capitalism, and free labor.