GLOBAL & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES (NYC Campus)

91495

BGIA 301 Core Seminar on International Affairs

Carter Page

TBA

TBA

NYC

SSCI

The Core Seminar provides a framework for students to explore issues of globalization and international affairs and enable their internship experience. The goal is to familiarize students with key issues in world affairs, directly introduce them to some of the primary actors, and help them bridge the divide between their academic work and their professional experiences.  It is structured in two parts: major topics in global affairs and research projects related to students’ specific internships. This format serves as a bridge between the core elements of the BGIA program.  It challenges students to develop skills in critical thinking, analytical reasoning, and written and oral expression.  Through a series of exercises, the course provides a practical framework for having impact in international affairs on an individual level.

91498

BGIA 310 Realism Reconsidered: Ethics in International Relations

Joel Rosenthal

TBA

TBA

NYC

HUM

Cross-listed: Human Rights, Political Studies Thucydides punctuates his history of the Peloponnesian war with the quote of the Athenian generals, ‘The strong do what they will, the weak do what they must.’ In the twentieth century, this sentiment is echoed by the great realists, Hans Morganthau and Henry Kissinger, who argued that power and interest were the guideposts for foreign policy. What values guide us as we make choices about the use of force, resolving conflict, promoting human rights, encouraging democracy and participating in international organizations. This course will examine competing claims of morality, reason and power in contemporary international relations. 

91604

BGIA 327 The History of International Institutions

Jonathan Cristol

TBA

TBA

NYC

HIST

This class will trace the history of international institutions from the Concert of Europe to the European River Commissions to the United Nations and the World Trade Organization. It will examine the internal political debates and the geopolitical context that led to the demise of the League of Nations and the rise of the United Nations. Special attention will be paid to: the roles of Wilson, FDR,  and Truman; the Dumbarton Oaks, Yalta, and San Francisco Conferences; the historical role of regional organizations such as CARICOM and ASEAN; and the rise and consequence of the international financial institutions created at Bretton Woods. We will also look at the major successes and failures of these institutions over the last 200 years.  The class will end with a discussion of the future of these organizations and a look at alternative models of organization.

91499

BGIA 330 Reporting on International Affairs

Michael Moran

TBA .

TBA

NYC

PART

This course will put a heavy emphasis on reporting, writing and developing the sensibilities needed for success as an international news correspondent. We will focus heavily on the techniques of the craft, always in the context of contemporary world events and the realities of modern English-language media. A series of lecturers, and a visit to one of New York City's great newsrooms, will be included during the semester. This is not a course for purists, but rather a broad look at a varied, complex discipline. We will examine briefly many of the topics an international journalist will confront today. We also will touch upon the broadcast and Internet skills that no journalist who strives to be in interesting places at interesting times can afford to ignore in this modern world.

91497

BGIA 342 Power, War and Terror in International Affairs

Scott Silverstone

TBA

TBA

NYC

SSCI

From the Peloponnesian War among the Greek city-states in the 5th century B.C., to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and America's invasion of Iraq in 2003, power has remained a central feature of world politics, motivating the behavior of states and nonstate actors alike. Yet the character and distribution of power has changed dramatically since the rise of the modern state system in the 17th century. For nearly two decades now, American primacy has defined the global power structure. This fact is an historic anomaly; at no time in history has any one state amassed the degree of military, economic, and political power the United States now enjoys. In fact, contemporary American foreign policy is premised on the assertion that the United States must sustain its primacy against any potential challengers for the indefinite future. This course explores the character of power and war in this era of American hegemony. We will examine the vigorous debates over the objectives of American power, unilateralism versus multilateralism as rival approaches to exercising power, debates over what military power can actually achieve, and the potential for a global backlash against the United States. Among other specific issues this course will address is the rise of China and India and the implications for global security and economic issues; rogue states and nuclear proliferation; the preventive war option to address shifting threats; the political and strategic future of the Middle East; terrorism as an alternative form of the power struggle and as a type of asymmetric warfare waged by nonstate actors; the continuing problem of humanitarian crises, failed states and intervention in the post-9/11 world; and the changing nature of global energy politics as an acute security issue.

91496

BGIA 343 Taking Stock on the Forever War: Global Jihad, War on Terrorand American Power

Mark Danner

TBA

TBA

NYC

SSCI

On September 11, the War on Terror will enter its tenth year, taking its place as America's longest war as well as its strangest. The War on Terror - whether we decide to honor that term by capitalizing it or cast doubt on it by encasing it in quotation marks - is an odd composite: one part conventional war (for three weeks during the 2003 "combat phase" in Iraq); one part traditional counterinsurgency (during the bulk of the Iraq war and the current effort in Afghanistan); and one part worldwide counterinsurgency of a sort undreamt of by traditional militaries. Ten years on, the war remains elusive: unbounded in space and in time, increasingly rooted in virtual battles on the internet, fought suicide bombs, IED's, unmanned drones and videos issuing from mysterious caves deep in the tribal areas of Pakistan. Beyond these widely dispersed battlefields, the War on Terror remains a shapeshifting "war of the mind" that provokes bitter political dispute among the thousands who are prosecuting it, in the United States, Europe, Asia and the Islamic World. In this seminar we will take stock of this "forever war" by examining the jihad waged against the United States - its underlying ideologies, strategies, and tactics - and analyzing the changing character of the strange and apparently endless war that the United States and its allies have crafted to combat it.