Please note: At your instructor's discretion,
there may be minor alterations to the reading
assignments listed below. One of the major advantages to
providing you with an on-line readings archive is that
timely articles can be added or substituted when
appropriate. Opening documents downloaded from this
website will require that your computer have
Acrobat Reader . You will also need the
class-specific password to open individual files.
Unit 1. Understanding and predicting state
behavior in the modern state system
Some handy resources for the unit:
WEEK 1
January 5
(M)—What will you learn in this course?
- During the first week of the course, please
review the resources listed above, so you
know where to find important information during the
term. Then, complete these assignments for Wednesday:
-
(1) Hard copies of the texbook and
InQuizitive test registration cards are available at
the bookstore.
-
(2) If you choose to rent an electronic copy of
the textbook for the semester through the
bookstore, you will access the textbook and
locate your Inquizitive registration code through
the Yuzo application, which is described here:
https://highpoint.bncollege.com/digital-learning-faqs
-
(3) Alternatively, ebooks with a registration
code for the InQuizitive system can also be rented
directly online at the publisher's website,
providing instant access to both resources
for under $50. See: https://digital.wwnorton.com/essir9.
If you rent your textbook this way, you will just
log-in at the publisher's website each time you
access the materials.
-
(4) If you have purchased your textbook
elsewhere, you can purchase a registration code
for just the InQuisitive system at the
publisher's website: See: https://digital.wwnorton.com/essir9.
-
(5) If you still are waiting for your book to
arrive, the publisher's website will let you set
up a trial subscription to access the book and
quizzes at no cost for a couple of weeks.
When purchasing InQuizitive for the first time on
the Norton website, complete the sign-up and payment
information and leave the “Registration Code”
field blank unless your textbook purchase included an
InQuizitive code (e.g., a new hard-copy book
bundle). If you purchased electronic textbook access
through the campus bookstore, your InQuizitive
registration code is available in the Yuzu application.
As you register or sign in to take a quiz, you may be prompted for a
unique or student id; with the way I have adjusted the
settings, you should leave this field blank and just continue to
register.
Once you
have registered and obtained access to
InQuizitive, you MUST enter a "student
set" code for me to see your quiz work;
if you do not enter a code or enter the wrong one, I
will not have access to your quiz results
-
If you are in
the 9:15 section, your student set/code is: 985538.
-
If you are in
the 10:40 section, your student set/code is: 985540.
- If you enter the wrong set number, I will not
receive your quizzes. If you have been taking
quizzes but receive a note from me indicating that I
am no seeing that you have registered for
InQuizitive, see this link to make sure you have
linked your quizzes correctly.
-
Once you are registered to take quizzes, take a quick look at this
website to see how your InQuizitive chapter tests
are graded: https://wwnorton.knowledgeowl.com/help/inquizitive-students-grading.
One of the big pluses to using this online quiz system
is that you can still do well on a quiz where you have
missed some questions as long as you answer additional
items.
Jan 7 (W)—What is the study of
"International Relations" about?
Important: Unless you are
given other instructions, quizzes need to be completed
within three days of the date where they are listed in the
schedule. In this case, you need to have this quiz
completed by no later than Friday.
- Ahead of class, look
at your weekly schedule and determine when you are
typically going to study for this class on an ongoing
basis. You will make things a lot easier on
yourself if you use three strategies:
(1) Keep up with the homework
readings as they are assigned. Each class meeting's
reading load is manageable; trying to complete more than a
week of homework reading at a time is going to be a big
challenge that I would like you to avoid.
(2) Know what you are looking
for in each reading by frequently reviewing the unit study
guide.
(3) Summarize readings as you
complete them and either take reading notes or use a
highlighting system so that you don't need to re-read
entire documents ahead of exams and paper assignments. You
will save yourself much time and energy if you do nothing
more than highlight a small portion of what you are
reading, including each article's main arguments and
examples of supporting evidence.
- Ahead of class, take
a look at the draft study guide for the first course
unit, which is in the PPT/Assignments file. The
first versions of the study guides are draft documents
because the course always changes from one year to the
next, as new political events take place and I replace
some of the readings. I typically will revise the study
guides modestly a couple of time during each unit, but
for the most part, the final versions of these guides
will look much like what you have available from the
start of each unit. You will have the final version of
each unit's study guide at least a week ahead of the
test.
January 9 (F)—Getting started with some basic
concepts
-
Read pages 2-10 (up to "Actors and
Influence") of this scanned chapter (OCR-enabled),
which is from the introduction to a textbook that is
much more detail orientated than the one you will be
reading most of this term). This reading provides
definitions and examples for several of the key
concepts scholars use to think about and predict state
behavior. IR--at its core--is about understanding why
countries do what they do so that behaviors can be
predicted and collective problems addressed. After
reading these pages, you should be able to to explain
three principles that help to explain state behavior.
Remember, the
password to open locked PDF files for this class
is: icecream
-
Next, read only the first section of "Tools of State
Craft" in Chapter 5 (Statecraft) of your Mingst
textbook. The assigned reading ends where the chapter
begins to discuss "Models of Foreign Policy Decision
Making." Think about how the tools that are described
fit into the three strategies that states use to get
what they want as discussed by Pevehouse and Goldstein
in the reading you just completed. The various tools
of statecraft can be grouped into four types of
power--hard, soft, sticky, and sharp--which will be
the focus of the next two reading assignments.
-
Take this
InQuizitive test: https://digital.wwnorton.com/258001.
As a reminder, access the assigned textbook
chapters by following the links in the schedule. This
is a truncated version of the Chapter 5 quiz--follow
the link, and don't take the full one. This quiz only
has 11 questions. Remember
to keep answering questions--even if you have seen
them before--until you have earned an A on the quiz
and feel confident that you understand the material.
For all of the textbook quizzes you CAN use your book
while taking them.
WEEK 2
Jan. 12, 14, 16 (M, W, F)—One
of the important predictors of how states will act what
kind of power resources they have and which power
techniques they emphasize
This week’s readings build directly on last week’s
homework from Greenstein and Pevehouse, as well as the
sections you reviewed in Chapter 5 of the textbook.
Together, these readings outline the major types of
power that states can use to influence other countries’
behavior.
-
Walter Russell Mead, "America's
Sticky Power" (Foreign Policy, 2004, 6pp).
Important to note before you read this article:
Mead uses the terms "sharp" and "hard" power
interchangeably, but his article compares what we will
be calling "hard" (that is blunt force), "sticky,"
(economic) and "soft" (cultural and diplomatic) power.
After Mead wrote this article, IR specialists
re-purposed the term "sharp power" (you will read
about what we now call "sharp power" in the next
article). Sharp power refers a state's efforts to
change another state's behavior by manipulating public
opinion or political, social, and economic
institutions within a target society.
-
Jill Kastner and William C.
Wohlforth. "A Measure Short of War: The Return of
Great-Power Subversion" (Foreign
Policy, 2021, 10pp). The article uses the term
"subversion" to refer to what most political
scientists now call "sharp" power. The reason why I
assigned this particular article is because most
recent writing on soft power focuses on Chinese,
Iranian, and Russian efforts to manipulate foreign
institutions and populations without acknowledging
that a long-standing practice by the US, as well.
WEEK 3
Jan. 19 (M) and 21 (W)
No class on Martin
Luther King Day), but please review the materials
below in addition to your reading for
Wednesday)
-
"Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in
his own words" (Democracy Now, 2011).
Listen to Dr. King's words from about 3min 20 sec.
into the video roughly through 20min 20sec. Listen to
Dr. King’s words from approximately 3 minutes and 20
seconds into the video through about 20 minutes and 20
seconds. The clip of interest begins with, “After
1954, they watched us conspire,” and ends with, “Every
society must now develop an overriding loyalty to
mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in
their individual societies."
-
David E. Sanger, et al. "Trump Lays
Out a Vision of Power Restrained Only by ‘My Own
Morality’" The
New York Times (January 2026, 3pp).
The brief article synthesizes an interview President
Trump gave after removing the leader of Venezuela
without US Congressional or UN Security Council
approval.
The primary reason you are being asked to read these
two selections is that they represent opposite ends of
American thinking about which forms of power should be
used in U.S. foreign policy and for what purposes that
power should be applied. To place Dr. King’s argument
in its historical context, you should also read the
full transcript of his speech “Beyond Vietnam,” which
is available on the program’s website (it is the first
of the two speeches featured). The transcript can be
accessed through a link that appears once the video
begins. As you read and listen, focus especially on
Dr. King’s views regarding the use of U.S. force to
achieve nationalist goals. Because King's remarks were
delivered in 1967 in the context of the Vietnam War,
you should critically assess how applicable King’s
concerns are to U.S. foreign policy today. What
specific criticisms does he raise about the role of
the United States in global politics, its motivations
in foreign policy, and its use of power? Why does he
call for the United States to lead a “revolution in
values,” and which values does he believe should be
prioritized in the international system? Finally, to
what extent do American foreign policy values appear
to be changing under the current administration, and
which of King’s recommendations and moral appeals
might still be relevant to contemporary global events?
On Wednesday,
we will finish up the discussion of the different types of
power used in international relations, and you will
complete a BlackBoard participation exercise on the two
readings I assigned for MLK day. If you were absent or had
issues using HonorLock, please complete the exercise after
class. To keep the daily reading load manageable, start
the reading on the modern state system:
As a reminder before you start the readings in this
class, it is always a good idea to review the set of focus
questions that is in the PPTs/Assignments folder (link on
the course homepage), so you know in advance what you need
to read with care. At the start of the class, I am
assigning readings ahead of when this material will be
covered in class so that you don't have lots of reading
all at one time.
-
You will have a homework quiz in Blackboard for the
scanned textbook reading material that is posted for
Wednesday and Friday. Reading quizzes in
BlackBoard are designed so that you can complete
them as you are reviewing the materials. In other
words, the items in the quiz appear in the same
order in which they are covered in a reading. Please
note that quiz items are not necessarily the most
important material in the homework; instead, items are
spaced so that you will be rewarded for staying
engaged as you are going through of the parts of the
materials I would like you to review. See the study
guide in the PPTs folder for the material that will be
most relevant to class and your Unit 1 test several
weeks from now.
-
Watch Jon Green's "Modern
Revolution" on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4Zdmd4J7T. This
video does a nice job of placing the development of
the modern state into the broader context of the
social, economic, and political revolutions that
accompanied the unification of the world's regions and
economy starting in the 1400s. Watch the whole video
(13 min or so), and pay special attention starting at
9min:50sec and forward, which offers a brief
explanation for why the industrial revolution and a
Western-orientated, state-centered international
system consolidated in the West despite the fact that
China was more advanced than Western Europe and
elsewhere in numerous ways.
-
Start to read "The Emergence of the Modern
State System" (Shimko, 32pp).
The main reason this reading is assigned is so that
you can be familiar with why and how the international
state system initially emerged and when its most
important contemporary characteristics were added. For this class,
read only the first
part of the chapter focusing on the various
historical "revolutions" and global war in Europe
that led to emergence the modern state system.
As you start to read
Shimko's chapter, complete the first 10 items on this
assignment's reading quiz, which is posted in
BlackBoard. Instructors cannot link directly
to a quiz, so you will need to log-in to BlackBoard to
open the quiz. The test is not timed, so when you
have read what you need to answer the first ten
questions, hit the button to "Save and Close" the quiz,
so that you can return to it once you are ready to to
start the second block of reading later in the week.
Jan. 23 (F)—What
is “the modern state system"? When and why did it
develop?
-
Read the remainder of "The Emergence of the Modern
State System".
-
Finish the readings quiz for Shimko's chapter. For
the reading quizzes in BlackBoard, any grade of 85% or
higher will be recorded as an A, and you will need to
answer at least 75% of the items correctly to earn a
B. If you answer at least 50% of the items correctly
you will earn a D. For BlackBoard quizzes only, C
grades are not given. You may retake each BlackBoard
quiz multiple times to improve your score, if you
would like. This should be unnecessary if you complete
the quizzes as you go, since the quiz items appear in
the same order as the answers are covered in the
reading. Quiz grades will post automatically, and only
your highest attempt will be recorded.
Note that the highly
detailed information you are asked about on the
reading quizzes is not material you are expected
to memorize and retain long term. The reading
quizzes are meant to serve mainly as an attention check;
I am using them to help you stay focused as you read and
remember some examples that you can use later on test
essays. For the most part, the BlackBoard homework quiz
items are more specific than anything I would require
you to know on an exam, and any key facts or definitions that appear on
unit tests will have been covered in your study guides
and class PPTs..
Week 4
January 26 (M),
28 (W), 30 (F)—Leaders,
the sociopolitical structures, or the international
system? Which "level" of analysis allows us to best
predicts countries do?
On Monday, we
will finish up on the key features of the international
state system and subsequent developments.
Due to the snow storm, we will not have class
on Monday. I have recorded and posted a two-part
screencast lecture (the University asked us to hold
class remotely today so as to avoid adding a make-up
day):
On Wednesday. we
will focus on how differences in leaders shape
international politics
-
Most of the the reading this block of materials is
from Mingst and Arreguin-Toft textbook, Chp. 4,
"Levels of Analysis." We are going to tackle this
chapter in reverse order (looking at individuals,
state structure, and then international system).
-
Start off by reading the first part of the chapter up
to "The Intl. System" and then skip to "The
Individual," where you should read all of the sections
on what causes leaders to make the decisions they make
).
On Friday and
carrying over into next week, we will focus on
how country-level political and economic systems shape
political behavior
As announced at the start of the semester, we will not
have class on Friday. The materials assigned for
today will be covered on Monday.
- Read the sections in your "Levels of Analysis"
textbook chapter (same one from earlier this week) on
"The International System" and "The State" as sources of
international behavior.
- Take the InQuizitive test for this
textbook chapter by Monday, February 2: https://digital.wwnorton.com/168314.
Week 5
Monday
Feb. 2—How do countries' economic and
political differences predictably shape their
behavior within the international system?
Snow day, so we were asked to teach online. To avoid
technical glitches, and hoping that we will be in class
in person on Wednesday, I recorded a two-part
presentation.
The first part finishes up our look at the
leaders-specific and individual-level factors that how
countries behave in international politics:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7v08SEwfd0
And
second part looks at how national-political differences
allow us to anticipate state behavior, especially
aggression:
https://youtu.be/n0A-7Ndjqd0
If you have not done so already, make sure to finish up
Mingst and Arreguin-Toft textbook, Chp. 4, "Levels of
Analysis" and take the InQuizitive test for this
textbook chapter by Monday, February 2: https://digital.wwnorton.com/168314.
This is the same
quiz that is linked above and in BlackBoard.
Wednesday and Friday Feb. 4 and 6—What
do "realist" theories tell us about the international
system's influence on countries' behavior?
-
For Wednesday, read the first third of Mingst and
Arreguin-Toft textbook, Chp. 3, "International
Relations Theories." Review only up to (i.e., not
including) the section Liberalism, paying very close
attention to the sections on realism and neorealism.
-
Also for Wednesday: What would a realist US foreign
policy look like, and is Pres. Trump a realist?: Andrew Byers and Randall L.
Schweller, "Trump the Realist: The Former President
Understands the Limits of American Power."
Foreign Affairs, Dec. 2024, 8pp.
-
In class on Wednesday, you will be asked to complete
an HonorLocked participation assignment to verify that
HonorLock is working well on your computer ahead of
our test.
-
For Friday, finish Arreguin-Toft textbook, Chp. 3,
and take its InQuizitive: https://digital.wwnorton.com/168313.
We will go over liberalism and constructivism next
week after the exam, but completing this reading and
the chapter quiz now will help you to do well on the
test.
Week 6
Monday, February, 9: In-class exam
1. Earlier in the term, I posted a study guide
to help you prepare for the exam. It is in the
PPT/handouts file. Any final edits to that guide will be
made by the Friday before the exam. As you prepare for the
test, you also should review the
handout explaining how grades on test questions and
in-class essays are assigned.
Well ahead of the exam, verify that Honorlock is
working on your computer; if you have had issues, see IT
for assistance. If HonorLock is not working for you
during the exam, you will need to complete the exam on
paper.
The material for Unit 2 will be accessed on its own
schedule page, which you can access from the course
homepage.
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