Over the past century, an intertwined web of legal institutions has emerged at the international level to regulate government conduct across a wide range of issue areas, including global trade, environmental sustainability, warfare, and human rights protection. This proliferation of international legal agreements and organizations has provoked contentious debates among scholars and policymakers alike regarding the function and efficacy of international law in driving national-level decision-making. This course will explore those debates while surveying the contemporary international legal landscape. We will examine questions that are central to assessing the contributions of international law and the future of global governance, for example: “What is the relationship between political power and judicial authority in constructing international legal outcomes?” “Whose voices and interests are reflected in international legal institutions, and whose voices and interests are elided in those institutions?” “Under what conditions can international law substantively constrain state behavior?” Particular attention will be devoted to investigating the diverse reasons why states choose to delegate sovereignty to international legal authorities, as well as the strategies that governments, international judges, transnational activists, and other relevant actors implement to induce state compliance with international law.

The aim of this course is to assess critically and creatively what it means to think about our entrenched/stubborn understandings of the global security architecture and its agents by exploring certain themes in our current world as well as how they unfold in the similar yet different fictional universe of The Expanse—a six-season sci-fi television series based on a cluster of novels by the same name. Throughout the block, we will watch the first two seasons of The Expanse and discuss a range of themes from the efficacy of international organizations such as the United Nations within the context of a fluid intergalactic political system, the amorphous concept of nation-state sovereignty, the role of private security corporations in conflict-making, and the issue of immigration in a planetary system with fluid physical borders.

In essence, this course is about de-learning what you may know about International Relations (IR). This will include uncovering the origin story of IR with its roots in race relations, tracing the Eurocentric influences that have shaped the birth and growth of the discipline (aka ‘navel gazing’), and problematizing contentious concepts that are readily depoliticized in IR such as ‘development’ or ‘failed/fragile states.’

An interactive workshop for anyone who has been or would like to be an activist or leader in a movement for social change. Students work in small groups to develop media strategies for social movements or change organizations. Students investigate the movement’s vision, values, strategy, and organization. Groups then innovate and develop a toolbox of online campaigning techniques that integrate real world activism with digital on-line strategies.

This course explores democratization, the means and methods that the 70+ countries since the mid-1970s have employed in their movement toward a liberal regime. Topics in democratization include: the theories and methods for assessing transitions from authoritarianism; case studies, including the sometimes turbulent and violent transitions and governance; institutional options for improving the viability, quality, and sustainability of democracy in countries problematized by unfavorable domestic conditions; the problems of democracy in multiethnic and post-conflict societies; and the recent political backsliding experienced by several countries.

In this course, students will get a one-of-a-kind opportunity to go behind the scenes at the most senior level of a modern presidential campaign, learning how those decisions are made. During PS203 students will explore questions such as: How are presidential campaigns assembled? How do candidates make the decision to run? How do campaigns make strategic decisions? What goes into media and organizing strategies? What goes on in debate prep? How do campaigns deal with the media? How has the internet and social media fundamentally changed the way politicians communicate with the public? What is it like to work on a presidential campaign? With the 2024 election fast approaching, students will develop new perspectives on how to analyze candidates and their campaign strategies.

An interdisciplinary and immersive study of New York City from 1969 to the present, examining the urban setting as a dynamic landscape where different peoples, interest groups, political movements, and other forces vie for power, wealth, recognition, and representation. Topics include race, class, gender, immigration, gentrification, infrastructure, counter-publics, underground art, comedy, and more. Regular excursions to prominent neighborhoods/boroughs, museums, live theater, and other cultural events.

This course explores the rise of “human rights” as a conceptual model of emancipation in the 20th century, the accompanying proliferation of international human rights agreements and institutions, and modern challenges for pursuing justice in the face of state-sponsored repression. Students will tackle “big questions” regarding the meaning and implementation of “justice” at the international level, including, “Which actors are best-positioned to adjudicate the truth in cases of disputed human rights violations?”, “What are the social implications of pursuing judicial vs. non-judicial mechanisms to address state-sponsored violence?”, and “How do we navigate tensions across different local, national, and international perspectives on what ‘justice’ for human rights violations should look like?”. We will consider how the scope of states’ human rights obligations has been variably defined across time and locales, and, furthermore, the implications of this variation for achieving international cooperation to remedy and prevent the repetition of acts that degrade human dignity.

The central organizing framework for this course is one of paradoxes, or phenomena that seem to be in tension with another: what explains the relative unhappiness in Japan and South Korea despite their economic wealth? What is the relationship between economic growth and corruption? Is China experiencing the irony that the more you want to be cool, the less cool you become? This course will focus predominantly on the three states of China, Japan, and South Korea, to explore interdisciplinary themes that will have us weave in and out of history, politics, culture, and security. The course will also incorporate a workshop to help students work on their block-long project by learning NVIVO, a qualitative data analysis software.

We will examine various philosophical arguments for the claims that human beings, as human beings, possess rights which other human beings and governments are obliged to respect and fulfill. Particular attention will be paid to: analyzing contemporary conceptions of human rights; how various difficulties with contemporary human rights doctrines are illuminated by considering them within the context of the profound historical shift from understanding justice in terms of natural law, to natural rights, and then to human rights; and lastly, assessing contemporary debates, as well as critiques of universal human rights doctrines, including from the perspective of multiculturalism and critical race theory. 1 unit. Grace Counts for the political philosophy subfield, or as a 10th course to satisfy PS major requirements.

This course is centered on race and politics in a particular time period and a particular context: from the Goldwater campaign in the 1960s through the Biden campaign in 2020, and more specifically in the context of African Americans and Black citizens, because this period and this context is especially relevant to the political and social world in which we operate today. This deep dive includes critical evaluation of elections, the policies forwarded by administrations, and rhetoric used by candidates and presidents. The tone of this course will be analytical with a conscientious use of political science concepts to understand the race-related patterns of macro-level change that led to this particular point in American political history.

Under attack from within and without, democracy has had its worst decade since the end of the cold war. In this course, Popović and Đinović, two of the world’s leading pro-democracy activists, help students understand the diverse sources of this contemporary decline and develop social movement strategies to defend democratic institutions and practices and build community resilience. The course will include virtual Zoom visits from pro-democracy activists from around the world.

Course is designed as interactive workshop for students interested in social change movements and their operational environment in contemporary digital era. Connecting elements of change theory with practical skills of understanding communications, digital environment and building online campaign that have real impact on “offline” world. Picking the case study early in the half-block, students work in small groups to develop media strategies for social movements or change organizations. Students investigate the movement’s vision, values, strategy, and organization. Groups then innovate and develop a toolbox of online campaigning techniques that integrate real world activism with digital on-line strategies.

Recent escalations in the global prevalence of warfare, transnational organized crime, climate change-induced natural disasters and environmental degradation, and economic uncertainty have contributed to the highest levels of international migration and forcible displacement since WWII. The United States is home to more international migrants than any other country in the world. As such, migration is a critical issue of our time with wide-ranging impacts on social and political life, from local economic growth to national foreign policymaking. This course will introduce students to the study of migration from an IR perspective. We will critically evaluate the factors that push people to leave their homelands and pull them towards particular sites of resettlement, the international legal infrastructure that is designed to regulate the transnational movement of people, and the economic, social, and human rights implications of diverse approaches to migration policy.

The United States is sometimes described as having the most speech-protective constitutional tradition in the world. But people often mean very different things when they describe the US Constitution in this way. Some see free speech as protecting a fundamental right of individuals to think and say whatever they choose without interference by the government. Others see free speech as sometimes permitting certain people to use vile language and symbols that cause real harm to those targeted by these forms of expression. Despite these differences, at a time when people of diverse ideological perspectives seem to agree on very little about constitutional politics, they overwhelmingly share a belief in the central importance of free speech for democratic government in the United States. In this course, we will carefully study the constitutional development of theories, concepts and doctrines that contribute to our understanding of the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment. Every member of the class will be encouraged to consider what it truly means, and when it is true, to say that speech is “free.”