Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Introduction To International Studies Course Syllabus, Stephen Ferst

Open Educational Resources

This course examines the impact and implications of today’s dynamic international context for nations and their citizens. To operate in this global context, citizens, corporations, and governments must know other cultures and political-economic systems and how global forces influence domestic activities, both public and private. Analyzing the social, cultural, economic, and current political characteristics of the international environment, students will learn how these characteristics may affect their lives and choices.

This course serves as an introduction to the interdisciplinary studies of global issues and to CSI’s International Studies program. Its curriculum draws on literary, cultural, and social scientific and historical …

Levels-Of-Analysis In International Relations, Anat Niv-Solomon

Open Educational Resources

The objective of this assignment is for students to be able to apply the concept of Levels-of-Analysis to real-world events. The students are required to explain an international event with accounts and narratives that fit in the three different levels of analysis - individual, state, and system.

This assignment can be used in introductory classes to international relations and international politics, as well as in classes about foreign policy analysis or national and international security.

Who Governs The Sea? An Analysis Of The Regime Complex In International Shipping, Brent Landon

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In many respects, international shipping represents the physical embodiment of globalization. It ties states together via the exchange of raw materials and finished goods in ways that inspire important questions about power distributions, trade, growth, global governance, jurisdiction, policy coordination, sovereignty, and regimes. Although shipping is a space that can be used to illustrate many International Relations ideas, it has been understudied in International Relations. This thesis argues that the international shipping regime complex produces suboptimal outcomes because it has inefficient and peculiar design features. Specifically, it locates the responsibility to enforce rules in states that lack the ability to …

Social Contract Theory And Transitional Justice: A Philosophical Approach To A Problem Of Global Importance, Brendan Moriarty

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this thesis, I seek to bring together two areas of scholarly work to see how each can inform the other: social contract theory and transitional justice. The social contract, as it exists and as it was theorized about by Rousseau, was born from the world-historic forces that spread capitalism across the globe, stirring up nationalism everywhere it went. In its wake, there was vast inequality and new legal regimes which protected the hoarded wealth of the capitalist class by enshrining the right of private property along with life and liberty. To examine the intricacies of transitional justice and its …

Games, Movies, And Zombies: Making Ir Fun For Everyone, Shawna M. Brandle

Publications and Research

Throwing as much fun and pop culture into an international relations class as possible, with the goal of improving student learning (and the likelihood of the course running again). Games proved most effective, while movies were less useful in increasing student learning on international relations.

Oil Pollution On The High Seas: The Establishment Of An International Regime To Deal With Public International Law And Private Law Issues And The Role Of Non-State Actors In Their Resolution Prior To And At The 1969 International Legal Conference On Marine Pollution Damage (“Brussels Conference”), Milton Ottensoser

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

On March 18, 1967, the Torrey Canyon, an oil tanker flying the flag of Liberia and carrying thirty million gallons of crude oil, smashed onto rocks off the coast of the United Kingdom. The oil spill metastasized into an environmental catastrophe, and this event became the first major environmental disaster of the electronic media age. As a direct result of the Torrey Canyon catastrophe, two treaties were signed in November 1969, at a conference in Brussels sponsored by the Intergovernmental Maritime Consultative Organization (IMCO), a United Nations Specialized Agency. The first treaty (the public law treaty) dealt with the right …

Successful Regional Integration In The European Union Through Vision And Planning, Joshua Berliner

Dissertations and Theses

The community of Europe today is at a crossroads. Recent pressures, many of them external, are severely testing the integrity of the European Union, as well as the long-standing regional cooperation. Widespread inconsistencies in national policies across member states, especially with regards to economic culture and fiscal policy, have presented the EU with an existential crisis. My hypothesis is that successful regional integration in Europe, however gradual, was not a spontaneous reaction to acute external pressures. Instead, I argue that successful regional integration was the result of a shared vision and careful planning by policy makers and negotiators, who never …