BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY
FALL 2015
ROBERT J. ART
POLITICS 15A
INTRODUCTION TO INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
Description . This course -- an introduction to International Politics -- is divided into three parts: theory, history, and contemporary problems. Part 1 introduces the main topics, approaches, and theories in the study of world politics. Part 2 provides an overview of great power politics during the last one hundred or so years. Part 3 focuses on contemporary problems and their possible solutions. We will spend about 5 weeks on
Part I; 3-4 weeks on Part II; and 2-3 weeks on Part III.
Requirements. Course requirements are: (1) a midterm exam Tuesday, October
13 on Part 1; (2) a prospectus for an 8-page paper due October 20,with the 8-page paper due Tuesday, November 24; (3) a final exam on December 11 at 9:15AM (tentative) -- please make your winter break travel plans accordingly; and (4) attendance at the fourth hour weekly discussion sections.
Success in this 4 credit hour course is based on the expectation that students will spend a minimum of 9 hours of study time per week in preparation for class (readings, papers, discussion sections, preparation for exams, etc).
Grading. The course grade is weighted as follows: 10% for discussion section performance, 20% for the midterm, 35% for the paper, and 35% for the final exam.
Please note: (1) no late papers will be accepted unless you have a valid medical excuse or personal emergency; (2) a required fourth hour for discussion will take place every week and will be scheduled during the second week of classes. Review sessions will be held before the midterm and final exams.
If you are a student who needs academic accommodations because of a documented disability, please contact me and present your letter of accommodation as soon as possible.
Learning Goals : learn how to think critically about arguments; learn how to present arguments clearly and convincingly both orally and in writing; understand the underlying features of international relations that motivate and constrain state, non-state, and international organizational actors; appreciate the difficulties in altering the status quo and figure out the levers by which to alter the status quo.
Suggested Purchases . Copies of the three required books below are on reserve.
In addition, chapter selections from books and all articles are on electronic reserve at the course LATTE website. The following three books are the core texts; I strongly recommend you purchase them -- at the Brandeis bookstore or elsewhere:
Robert Art and Robert Jervis, eds, International Politics , 12 th
edition, Longman's
J. S. Nye and David Welch, Understanding Global Conflict and Cooperation , 9 th edition, Longman’s
Paul Lauren, et al, Force and Statecraft 5 th
edition, Oxford
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COURSE OUTLINE
PART 1 HOW TO ANALYZE INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS (5-6 weeks)_
TOPIC 1 PARADIGMS: REALISM, LIBERALISM, INSTITUTIONALISM,
AND CONSTRUCTIVISM
TOPIC 2 NATIONAL INTEREST AND THE LEVELS OF ANALYSIS
TOPIC 3 ANARCHY: CONFLICT AND COOPERATION
TOPIC 4 THE USES OF FORCE -- NUCLEAR AND CONVENTIONAL
TOPIC 5 INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY
PART 2 GREAT POWER POLITICS, 1870-2013 (3-4 weeks)
TOPIC 6 THE HEYDAY OF EUROPEAN POWER POLITICS, 1870-1919
TOPIC 7 APPEASEMENT, AGGRESSORS, & WORLD WAR II, 1920-1945
TOPIC 8 THE COLD WAR, UNIPOLARITY, & MULTIPOLARITY, 1945-2013
PART 3 CONTEMPORARY ISSUES (2-3-weeks)
TOPIC 9 "FUTUREOLOGY": PLAYERS, TRENDS, PROGNOSTICATIONS
TOPIC 10 THE EUROPEAN UNION: A (DIS) UNITED STATES OF EUROPE?
TOPIC 11 CIVIL WARS, ETHNIC CONFLICT, AND THE UNITED NATIONS
TOPIC 12 COMMONS PROBLEMS: NBC WEAPONS SPREAD, TERRORISM,
GLOBAL WARMING, AND GLOBAL HEALTH
TOPIC 13 THE WORLD POLITICAL ECONOMY: INTERDEPENDENCE,
GLOBALIZATION, AND INEQUALITY
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COURSE READINGS:
all the readings below are required. I will announce in class what are you required to read for the next class.
I. READINGS FOR TOPICS #1 AND #2 (PARADIGMS, LEVELS, INTERESTS)
Michael Waltzer, “The Problem of Dirty Hands,” Philosophy and Public Affairs , Vol.
2, No. 2 (Winter 1973), pp. 160-180.
Paul Gordon Lauren, Gordon A. Craig, and Alexander L. George, Force and Statecraft:
Diplomatic Challenges of Our Time, chaps 7 & 12.
Art and Jervis, International Politics, selections by Thucydides, Morgenthau (“Six
Principles”), Tickner, Hurd, Wendt, Doyle, and Keohane.
J. S. Nye D.Welch, Understanding Global Conflict and Cooperation, chaps. 1 & 2.
Stephen Walt, "International Relations: One World, Many Theories," Foreign Policy,
Spring 1998, pp. 29-48.
Francis Fukuyama, “What If Women Ran the World?” Foreign Affairs,
September/October 1998, pp. 24-40.
E. H. Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis , chaps. 4-6 (suggested).
II.
READINGS FOR TOPICS #3, #4, AND #5 (ANARCHY, FORCE, IPE)
Art and Jervis, International Politics,
a. For Anarchy , selections by Waltz (anarchic structure), Fearon, Oye, Jervis
(offense/defense), Walt, Morgenthau (diplomacy), Hoffmann, Kang, and Ratner.
b. For Use of Force , selections by Art (functions of force), Schelling, Hoffman,
Chenoweth/Stephan, World Bank, Art (fungibility), Sokolski, and Waltz.
c. For IPE , selections by Gilpin, Hiscox, Rodrick (essay on free trade), Frankel,
Ghemawat, and Naim.
Richard Betts, “The Lost Logic of Deterrence,” Foreign Affairs, March/April 2013, pp.
887-100.
Nye and Welch, Understanding Global Conflict and Cooperation, pp. 77-94.
Paul Lauren, Force and Statecraft, chaps. 8-11.
Inis L. Claude, Jr., Swords into Plowshares, 4th edition, chaps. 12 required and 18 suggested.
Michael Doyle, “Dialectics of a Global Constitution: The Struggle over the UN Charter,”
European Journal of International Relations, (2011), pp. 1-24.

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III. READINGS FOR TOPICS #6, #7, AND #8 (GREAT POWER POLITICS)
Nye, and Welch, Understanding Global Conflict & Cooperation, pp. 94-192.
Paul Lauren et al, Force and Statecraft, chaps.1-6.
John Lewis Gaddis, "The Long Peace," International Security, Spring 1986, pp. 99-142.
William Wohlforth, "Realism and the End of the Cold War," International Security, Vol.
19 (Winter 1994-95), pp. 91-129.
Graham Allison, “The Cuban Missile Crisis at 50,” Foreign Affairs, July-August 2012, pp. 11-17.
Lawrence Freedman, “The War That Didn’t End All Wars,” Foreign Affairs,
November/December 2014, pp. 148-154.
Robert Jervis, “Was the Cold War a Security Dilemma?” Journal of Cold War Studies,
Vol. 3, No. 1 (Winter 2001), pp. 36-60 (suggested).
IV. READINGS FOR TOPICS #9-#13 (CONTEMPORARY ISSUES)
(1) FUTUREOLOGY: PLAYERS, PROGNOSTICATIONS, TRENDS
Art and Jervis, International Politics, selections by Roberts, Waltz (Governance),
Ikenberry, Jervis (Era), Art (China), Keck/Sikkink, Williams, Lin, NIC 2030, Posen
(Multipolarity), Jackson/Howe, Cox, Kirshner, and Subramanian.
National Intelligence Council, Global Trends 2030, online at www.nic.gov.
Nye and Welch, Understanding Global Conflict and Cooperation, chaps. 8-9.
John Mueller, “War Has Almost Ceased to Exist,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 124
(Summer 2009), pp. 297-323.
Randall Schweller, Maxwell’s Demon and the Golden Apple: Global Discord in the
New Millennium, chaps to be assigned.
Walter Russell Mead, “The Return of Geopolitics”; and G. John Ikenberry, “The
Illusion of Geopolitics,” both in Foreign Affairs, May/June 2014, pp. 69-92.
Jacob Heilbrunn, “Kissinger’s Counsel,” The National Interest,” September/October
2014, pp. 67-75.
John J. Mearsheimer, “Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault,” Foreign Affairs,
September/October 2014, pp. 77-89.
(2) A UNITED STATES OF EUROPE?
Mark Kesselman, et. al., European Politics in Transition, pp. 571-594.

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Alec Sweet and Wayne Sandholtz, European Integration and Supranational Governance, chap. 7 (188-217) (suggested).
Henry Farrell and John Quiggin, “How to Save the Euro – and the EU,” Foreign Affairs,
May/June 2011, pp. 96-104.
Giorgio La Malfa, “The Limping Euro,” Survival, February/March, 2013, pp. 135-145.
Thomas Wright, “Europe’s Lost Decade”; and Charles Kupchan, “Europe’s Make or
Break Moment,” both in Survival, December 2013/January 2014, pp. 7-49.
David Art, “The German Rescue of the Eurozone: How Germany is Getting the Europe
It Always Wanted,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol.130, No. 2, pp.181-212.
(3) CIVIL WARS AND ETHNIC CONFLICT
Art and Jervis, International Politics, selections by Howard/Donnelly, Annan,
Western/Goldstein, Valentino, Downes, and Hartzell/Hoddie.
Nye and Welch, Understanding Global Conflict and Cooperation, chap. 6.
Foreign Policy, poll of experts on the UN, August 2012, at: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/08/13/the_fp_survey_on_the_un?print=yes& hidecomments=yes&page=full
Monica Duffy Toft, “Ending Civil Wars: A Case for Rebel Victory?” International
Security, Spring 2010, pp. 7-37.
(4) COMMONS PROBLEMS
---- NBC Spread and Terrorism
Art and Jervis, selections by Cronin and Schelling (Part 4).
James E. Doyle, “Why Eliminate Nuclear Weapons?” Survival, February/March 2013, pp. 7-35.
Graham Allison, Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe, chaps. 5 &
8 (suggested).
John Mueller, Atomic Obsession, chapters 3, 4, 7, 13, and Epilogue.
Gregory Koblentz, “Biosecurity Reconsidered: Calibrating Biological Threats and
Responses,” International Security, Vol. 34, No. 4 (March 2010), pp. 96-132.
---The Environment and Global Warming
Art and Jervis, International Politics, selections by Hardin, Victor, and Dupont.
The International Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Fifth Assessment
Report, Working Groups I (Mitigation of Climate Change and II (Impacts, Adaptation,

6 and Vulnerability), online at http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg3/ and http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg2/ .
---Epidemics, Pandemics, and Collective Action
Andrew Lakoff. Two regimes of global health.
Humanity: An International Journal of
Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Developmen, Vol.1, #1., pp. 59–79.
Stephen Walt, 2009. What Swine Flu Tells us about Global Cooperation. Foreign Policy
Blogs . Available from http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/04/30/what_swine_flu_tells_us_about_global cooperation .
Richard A. Cash and Vasant Narasimhan, “Impediments to Global Surveillance of
Infectious Diseases: Consequences of Open Reporting in a Global Economy,” Bulletin of the World Health Organization, Vol. 78, #11 (2000), pp. 1358-67.
Jeremy Youde, “MERS and Global Health Governance,” International Journal: Canada’s
Journal of Global Policy Analysis, Vol. 70, #1 (December 2014), ppp. 119-36.
(5) THE WORLD POLITICAL ECONOMY
Art and Jervis, International Politics, selections by Rodrik and Wade.
Nye and Welch, Understanding Global Conflict and Cooperation, chap. 7.
Joseph E. Stiglitz, Globalization and Its Discontents, chaps. 3 & 9.
Joseph Grieco and G. John Ikenberry, State Power and World Markets, chaps. 7 and conclusion.