Course Description
Introduction to International Relations (IR) is an online survey course designed to acquaint students with the key concepts and principles in the study of international relations, which will prepare them for higher-level courses in IR and political science generally. Students will learn about the origins and structure of the modern international system, and will begin to delve into some of the major issues that persist in this system. This course adopts a flexible framework based on interests, interaction and institutions, that departs from the way the field of world politics is often organized. We will start with a brief introduction to the main theories of IR, which each hold a few preconceptions of how the world works, and the nature of international politics. Then we will move to how scholars study political science today, which borrows insight from more than one of these approaches as we study the importance of interests, interactions, and institutions in the international sphere. We will also consider the theoretical and methodological tools social scientists employ to study these phenomena and answer the important puzzles of international politics.
Course Materials
Jeffry A. Frieden, David A. Lake, Kenneth A. Schultz, World Politics: Interests, Interactions, and Institutions, Third Edition (New York: W.W. Norton, 2016).
Daniel Drezner, Theories of International Politics and Zombies, Revived Edition (Princeton:Princeton University Press, 2014).
