Teaching

Syllabi available upon request

The taming of the atom is one of the defining features of the modern era. The awesome creative and destructive potential of nuclear energy has had an enormous impact on global security, the environment, economic development, and international institutions. Limiting the risk of nuclear Armageddon is one of the dominant challenges in international politics and global governance. In this course, we will study 1) why and how countries pursue nuclear weapons and what happens when they acquire them; 2) the national policies and international regimes that have been devised to curb their spread and use, while allowing for the diffusion of energy technology, 3) the national and transnational civil society movements that have fought to roll back the nuclear age or limit its harmful effects, and 4) the role of private actors such as scientists and corporations.


This course provides a survey of US foreign policy from its emergence as a global power in World War I. We will cover topics such as American entry into the Great War, the League of Nations and America’s role in global self-determination movements, the perennial battles between isolationism and internationalism, the creation of a US-led world order after 1945, nuclear strategy and nuclear nonproliferation, the modern domestic politics of foreign policy, the international dimensions of the Civil Rights movement, US covert action, the challenges of managing unipolarity, and contemporary issues of climate change, humanitarian intervention, terrorism, international economic policy, and US-China competition. This is an interdisciplinary course that marries American, Diplomatic, and Military History with International Relations and Political Science. We will make ample use of primary sources and some data analysis. By the end of the semester, students should have acquired the tools to analyze contemporary foreign policy decision-making and a broad understanding of the most important foreign policy events of the last century and the drivers of continuity and change in US behavior.


A general introduction to the subfield of international security, in which students will learn basic concepts and theories, and survey a selection of key topics and debates in the field. Students should finish the course with the toolkit necessary to deepen their knowledge of specific issues through independent study, and the necessary background to follow current debates in the top scholarly journals and presses. Students should think of this as a first step to participating in scholarly and policy debates on global security. 


This is a general introduction to the study of war, covering basic concepts and theories and surveying a selection of key topics and debates such as the causes war, the determinants of military effectiveness,  the relationship between technology and war, and the dynamics of war termination. Sessions revolve around a few essential readings, which must be completed before class and will serve as a basis for various in-class and in-tutorial activities including short presentations, simulations, and games. Writen assignments consist of individual reflections on the activities conducted in person during tutorial sessions, connecting those activities with the concepts and theories covered in the readings and lectures.


International Relations as a field of study is, ironically enough, not very international. Having originated in the United Kingdom and United States in the early 20th century, it still draws mostly from American and European experiences and philosophies, and focuses disproportionally on those countries and their concerns. This shapes the questions we ask and how we answer them. The result are blind spots and limitations that become ever more apparent as we try to make sense of an increasingly globalized world in which non-Western societies play a more salient role. In this course, students will rethink international politics from the vantage points of Global-South countries, and learn about how their historical experiences and philosophical traditions inform perspectives on contemporary international relations, shaping both national strategies and regional (and global) politics. We will discuss the role of culture, identity, and ideology in foreign policy, and explore dynamics of inequality, status, hierarchy, and authority in international politics. Students will read and discuss materials from scholars and policy-makers hailing from Asia, Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East. 


Sitting at the crossroads of political science, national security, and technology, Nuclear Non- Proliferation often involves using physical science to solve some of the globe’s most crucial and complex issues, including WMD proliferation and the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. In this micro- course and simulation, the students will learn about the cutting-edge fields of nonproliferation and international safeguards from Brookhaven National Laboratory experts, and get to experience the technical and political challenges of enforcing non-proliferation rules. The virtual, five-week, once-a-week course will include modules on the nuclear fuel cycle; causes of nuclear proliferation; the nuclear non-proliferation regime; technical, legal, and political aspects of nuclear safeguards; and a simulation in which students will play the role of IAEA inspectors.


This course will equip students with critical skills to effectively write academic research papers and a senior thesis in political science, as well as professional documents such as policy memos, op-eds, and briefs. We will cover general principles of style, rhetoric and argumentation. We will also cover more practical skills such as citation practices and citation management software, and how to present quantitative evidence and analysis. This is a writing-intensive course in which students practice writing, editing, and critical reading. A final project entails writing a short report.


What is “race”? Does it play a role in contemporary international politics? If so, how? This course is a cross-disciplinary exploration of the topic of race in international politics, drawing on literature in IR, comparative politics, American politics, and sociology. We will review the evolution and uses of the concept--from the early days of “scientific racism” to modern racial politics--and the roles race identities and racialized thinking have played in structuring international politics and informing US foreign policy since the 19th century. 


A survey of recent and emerging research agendas in International Security. It focuses on new (or rediscovered) conceptual, theoretical, methodological, and empirical developments in International Security scholarship. The course will cover topics ranging from the very small, including neuroscience and the emerging focus on micro-foundations of international conflict, to the very large, including new structural approaches and the rise of Big Data. It will look to the distant past, as we talk about the resurgent interest in ancient international systems, and the near future, as we talk about forecasting conflict and crises. A central goal of the course is to help students design their own cutting-edge research projects.


Multi-method (or mixed-method) research is increasingly popular in International Relations scholarship. This course offers students a primer on multi-method research designs and covers contemporary methodological debates about the logics of inquiry in quantitative and qualitative methodologies, and explores how different methods can be used to complement each other. It assumes basic familiarity with statistics and historical research, but will present a broad survey of the predominant methods and some of their combined applications.



Interviews for Teaching World Politics YouTube Channel

The project, started by Dan Nexon, aims to create a database of interviews with IR scholars and practitioners, on a wide variety of topics, that faculty anywhere can use to supplement their teaching, online or offline. We conducted interviews primarily in the summer and fall of 2020. Some have been added to the channel, others are available upon request.