Prerequisites: the instructor's permission prior to registration.
This is a survey course in international political economy. It will be conducted in a condensed format, meeting twice a week for half a semester. The first objective of the course will be to provide students a brief introduction to the large academic literature on key topics in IPE (incl. the politics of immigration, trade, foreign investment, and development). The course will thus help students prepare for the synthesis and analysis that is required in the comprehensive exam. Furthermore, the course will aim to introduce students to a variety of frontier research problems that currently animate work in the field, so they can see and evaluate examples of how empirical research is actually conducted rather than just commenting on “the classics”. Finally, the course will help students initiate one of their own research projects, thus gaining some practical experience in elaborating a theoretical argument, drawing out testable implications, and analyzing relevant evidence. This course begins September 8, 2015 and ends on October 22, 2015.
Prerequisites: Permission of instructor prior to registration.
This seminar will explore contemporary conflicts from a variety of different disciplinary approaches. We will cover a wide selection of topics related to the causes and dynamics of political violence as well as the organization and behavior of rebel organizations. The readings are drawn from works produced by academics as well as rebel theorists, policy makers and journalists. The course will be graded on a 25-25-50 basis, with a reading response worth 25%, a substantive research paper worth 50%, and class attendance and participation worth 25%. You are expected to attend all lectures and films and participat in the discussion.
Reading, analysis, and research on modern Japan. Field(s): EA
Prerequisites: Instructor's permission prior to registration.
This class brings graduate students to the research frontier in the political economy of environmental and energy policy. The goal of the class is to prepare students to conduct theoretically innovative, empirically rigorous, and substantively relevant research in the elds of political science, public policy, and economics. The class covers a wide range of topics, but the primary emphasis of the class is in understanding policy formulation. Political economy oers a set of tools for understanding how public opinion, interest groups, political institutions, and other factors shape governmental policy. Because virtually every environmental and energy problem requires a policy solution, understanding the policy formulation process is key to the future of energy and the environment. To understand the important of policy formulation, consider the following questions: 1. Why are some countries making ambitious investments in renewable energy, while others are not? 2. What determines the ability of Brazilian states and municipalities to control deforestation? 3. When and how do governments subsidize the consumption of fossil fuels? These are but some examples of policy questions that are critical to the sustainable development of human civilization and the planet. As we shall see in this class, answers to these questions revolve around politics.
The aim of the course is to follow Japan's entry into the world market and the nation-state system constituting it in the 19th century. It will concentrate on examining the subsequent formation of a society dedicated to capitalist enlightenment that led to liberal cosmopolitanism, cultural modernism and a form of fascism based on organic nationalism. It will conclude with the post World War II effort to create a second enlightenment and new democratic society founded on middle-class values. Commonalities with the modern history of other nations will frame the theoretical and historical discussion.
Directed research in the modern period. Techniques and sources for the examination of modern history and the historical roots of contemporary trends.
The aim of this graduate course is to provide a broad introduction to science, medicine and technology in late imperial and modern China, and their relationship to the world. The course examines how the understanding and politics of technology, body, the natural world, and medicine undergo drastic reconfiguration from the late imperial period to the modern period. To understand this shift, we will consider questions of technology and imperialism, global circuits and knowledge transfer, the formulation of the modern episteme of “science,” the popularization and wonder of science, as well as commerce, politics and changing regimes of corporeality, in both the imperial and modern periods while placing close attention to the global context and transnational connections. In addition to getting a sense of the existing historiography on Chinese science, we will also be closely examining primary documents, pertinent theoretical writings, and comparative historiography. A central goal of the course is to explore different methodological approaches including history of science, translation studies, material culture, and global history. Reading ability in Classical Chinese and modern Chinese and facility in critical theory are all required.
International responses to conflict and post-conflict environments are highly complex. Most interventions hold the potential to have a positive impact by managing or resolving crises, and enhancing local mechanisms and institutions that address sources of violence. However, research and practice have shown that peacemaking, peacekeeping, peacebuilding, development, and humanitarian interventions can also unintentionally create negative and/or harmful impacts on conflict dynamics, deepening cleavages that exist in societies and exacerbating inter- or intra-group tensions. Conflict assessment is the application of analytical tools to identify factors that cause conflict, to understand the interaction between different factors and actors in conflict, and to gauge the potential for conflict to become destructive and lead to violence. These tools can be used by security, development, and humanitarian organizations for strategic planning in order to identify opportunities for initiatives that explicitly can address conflict factors. They also can be used to assess the impact of already-designed or implemented initiatives (e.g. peacebuilding programs) on existing conflict factors and dynamics. Conflict assessment also allows one to integrate “conflict sensitivity” into a broad range of development, and humanitarian initiatives, whether they are being implemented in a location where violent conflict is occurring or they have an explicit intention to contribute to conflict prevention. This is a hand-on course, which will be organized around one or two current conflict cases, depending on the number of participants. Students will be asked to actively engage in the application of a conflict assessment methodology, with the first day focusing on the conflict analysis, and the second one on developing policy recommendations for intervention.
This Model International Mobility Treaty Workshop will combine individual research with a collective effort to draft a model international mobility treaty. Each member will be responsible for preparing an individual research paper that explores in depth the law and/or policy aspects of key component of a just and effective mobility regime. Each will also take a role representing a state or constituency in the negotiation exercise to produce the model treaty. Instructor permission required for registration. Please join the waitlist is SSOL and follow instructions on the waitlist to be considered.