International Politics - Course Outline

National University of Rwanda

Department of Political Science and Public Administration

Political Science

International Politics

Course Outline

www.oneworldcanada.org/ucourses

Lecturer: Bruce L. Taylor

2006

Time: Email brucetaylor100@yahoo.ca brucetaylor@oneworldcanada.org
Location: Tel.
Office: Fax.
Office Hours: Student Assistants:
or by appointment

“The world is an opportunity. It is yours to discover and to empower.”
- Bruce L. Taylor

Introduction

Welcome to International Politics. This course is an opportunity for students to explore global crises and global solutions. It will introduce various perspectives of international political economy (IPE), for example, the shift from a focus on interdependence to globalisation, the debate between orthodox and heterodox or radical scholars, and how ecological, feminist and neo-Gramscian perspectives now compete with traditional perspectives.

The course includes three foci:

Focus 1: History and Dynamics

Focus 1 will provide an introduction to the history and dynamics of the international political economy, from the fifteenth century through the Industrial Revolution and the consolidation of the post-1945 world order to the present. A broad range of theoretical approaches will be examined, beyond the traditional three-paradigm perspectives of “economic nationalist,” liberal,” and “critical,” in an attempt to learn how these theories can explain and respond to problems and issues.

Focus 2: Top Ten International Challenges

Focus 2 will explore ten, or as many as possible, of the most serious challenges facing the world today, and opportunities for global solutions. First, each challenge will be analysed by an internationally renowned expert, who will define the scale of the problem and describe the costs and benefits of a range of policy options to improve the situation.

Secondly, students will consider and evaluate two alternative perspectives for each challenge, similarly proposed by internationally recognised experts. Lastly, the policy proposals of the internationally renowned experts will be evaluated by eight of the world’s top economists, including three Nobel Laureates from North America, Europe and China. The expert panel consists of: Jagdish N. Bhagwati, Robert W. Fogel, Bruno S. Frey, Justin Yifu Lin, Douglass C. North, Thomas C. Schelling, Vernon L. Smith and Nancy L. Stokey. Other experts, who will contribute to the debate include: Jeffrey Sachs, Janice Stein, Bjorn Lomborg, Stephen Lewis, Stephen Saideman, Gerald Caplan, Gerry Helleiner, Robert O’Brien, Marc Williams and others.

The Top Ten International Challenges and world-renowned experts to be examined are:

  • Climate Change – William R. Cline
  • Communicable Diseases – Anne Mills and Sam Shillcutt
  • Civil Conflicts – Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler
  • Access to Education – Lant Pritchett; (focus on transformative education – Bruce L. Taylor)
  • Financial Stability – Barry Eichengreen
  • Governance and Corruption – Susan Rose-Ackerman
  • Malnutrition and Hunger – Jere R. Behrman, Harold Alderman and John Hoddinott
  • Migration – Philip Martin
  • Sanitation and Access to Clean Water – Frank Rijsberman
  • Subsidies and Trade Barriers – Kym Anderson.

Focus 3: International Politics and Ethnic Conflict:

Case-Studies of Rwanda and Darfur (Yugoslavia, if time permits) We will examine ethnic and civil conflict as an increasingly international problem. Our case-studies will be two of the most widely debated conflicts: Rwanda, and the current genocide in Darfur, and Yugoslavia if time permits. We will discuss why, how and when states and international organizations intervened, and whether they could have done better or worse, and how ethnic conflict is highly contagious and has impacts on both neighbours and distant countries. The focus will be on analytical questions of why events happen and do not happen, and not on normative questions about what should have happened or not. Our objective will be to assess the various conventional wisdoms of ethnic conflict and international politics including contagion/diffusion, irredentism, types and impacts of intervention, and the impact of ethnic conflict on wider issues in international relations.

For Focus 3, the Rwanda Case-Study, please read the journal articles included in the Course Reader and also chapters in such books as:

  • by the French social scientist, Prunier, Gerald. 1995. The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide. New York: Columbia University Press, for the best brief history of Rwanda and the genocide.
  • Melvern, Linda. 2000. A People Betrayed: The Role of the West in Rwanda’s Genocide. London: Zed Books, for an excellent overall account of the background to the genocide and the failure to prevent it
  • Power, Samantha. 2002. “A Problem from Hell”: America and the Age of Genocide. New York: Harper Perennial, and Barnett, Michael. 2002. Eyewitness to a Genocide: The United Nations and Rwanda. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, for an insider’s look at decision-making in the U.S. government and in the UN and why no one came to the rescue in 1994.
  • by the American human rights activist Des Forges, Alison. 1999. Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda. New York: Human Rights Watch, for one of the best accounts of the actual genocide.
  • Gourevitch, Philip. 1998. We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
  • Khan, Shaharyar. 2000. The Shallow Graves of Rwanda. London: I. B. Tauris Publishers, for a picture of post-genocide Rwanda and how the international community failed to help the survivors of the genocide.

Texts and Readings (random order)

  • Bruce L. Taylor, International Politics Course Reader. A Course Reader will be available for purchase by students. It is a compendium, collected by the Lecturer, of over thirty journal articles written by expert scholars, on the weeks’ topics.

    Mr. Taylor also will lecture from the below texts. Students are not required to purchase any texts, only the International Politics Course Reader.

  • O’Brien, Robert and Williams, Marc. 2004. Global Political Economy: Evolution and Dynamics. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.          OW
  • Lomborg, Bjorn. 2004. Global Crises, Global Solutions. New York: Cambridge University Press.          L
  • Robbins, Richard H. 2005. Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism (3rd ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.          R
  • Desai, Vandana & Potter, Robert B. (Eds.). 2002. The Companion to Development Studies. New York: Oxford University Press.          DP
  • Diamond, Jared. 2005. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. New York: Penguin Books.          D1
  • Diamond, Jared. 1998. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. New York: W. W. Norton.          D2
  • Sachs, Jeffrey D. 2005. The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time. New York: Penguin Press.           S
  • Lake, David A. & Rothchild, Donald (Ed.). 1998. The International Spread of Ethnic Conflict: Fear, Diffusion and Escalation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.          LR
  • Meredith, Martin. 2005. The Fate of Africa: From the Hopes of Freedom to the Heart of Despair: A History of 50 Years of Independence. New York: Perseus Books.          M
  • Schraeder, Peter J. 2004. African Politics and Society: A Mosaic in Transformation. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth.          S
  • Hunter, Susan. 2003. Black Death: Aids in Africa. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.          H
  • Sen, Amartya. 1999. Development as Freedom. New York: Anchor Books.          SEN
  • Walter, Barbara F. & Snyder, Jack (Eds.). Civil Wars, Insecurity, and Intervention. New York: Columbia University Press.          WS
  • Barnett, Michael. 2002. Eyewitness to a Genocide: The United Nations and Rwanda. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.          B
  • Videos, if available: “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield,” “Geometry of Shadows,” and “Hotel Rwanda.”

Course Requirements

The course consists of seven graded components. Percent
1. Oral current international issues report, for example, on the genocide in Darfur 5
2. Group seminar presentation: topic to be selected from the “Top Ten International Challenges” (see “Ideas for Seminar Presentations,” at end of Course Outline) 30
3. Group response to another group’s seminar presentation 10
4. Research paper: 10-12 pages of body, notes and bibliography not included. The Lecturer will provide students with a “Guide to Writing a Political Science Essay.” 30
5. Midterm, take-home exam, due in Week 8’s class 10
6. Final, take-home exam, on the second half of the course only 10
7. Participation: based on quantity, not quality, so as to encourage students to ask questions, make comments, and challenge other students and the lecturer 5
Total 100

Course Readings

Focus 1: History and Dynamics; and
Focus 2: Top Ten International Challenges

Week 1: Lecture

Introduction to International Politics and Global Political Economy’s Economic Nationalist, Liberal, and Critical Perspectives

O’Brien and Williams, chap 1, 1-39.
Course Reader OW

Week 2: Lecture

Historical Evolution: 1. Creation of a World Economy 1400-1800; 2. The Industrial Revolution, Pax Britannica and Imperialism; and 3. The Twentieth Century: World Wars and the Post-1945 Order

O’Brien and Williams, chaps 2, 3, and 4, 43-132.
Course Reader OW

Week 3: Lectures andseminars start.

International Trade

O’Brien and Williams, chap 5, 135-166.
Course Reader OW

Challenge 1: Climate Change William

R. Cline, chap 1, 13-61.
Course Reader L

Week 4

Transnational Production

O’Brien and Williams, chap 6, 167-197.
Course Reader OW

Challenge 2: Communicable Diseases

Anne Mills and Sam Shillcutt, chap 2, 62-123.
Course Reader L

Week 5

Global Division of Labour

O’Brien and Williams, chap 7, 198-223
Course Reader OW

Challenge 3: Conflicts

Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler, chap 3, 129-174.
Course Reader L

Week 6

The Global Financial System

O’Brien and Williams, chap 8, 224-252.
Course Reader OW

Challenge 4: Access to Education

Lant Pritchett, chap 4, 175-250
Course Reader L

Week 7

Economic Development

O’Brien and Williams, chap 9, 253-286.
Course Reader OW

Challenge 5: Governance and Course Reader L Corruption,

Susan Rose-Ackerman, chap 6, 301-362.
Course Reader L

Week 8 Take-home, mid-term exam due in class

Global Environmental Change

O’Brien and Williams, chap 10, 287-314.
Course Reader OW

Challenge 6: Malnutrition and Hunger,

Jere R. Behrman, Harold Alderman and John Hoddinott, chap 7, 363-442.
Course Reader L

Week 9

Governing the Global Political Economy

O’Brien and Williams, chap 11, 315-337.
Course Reader OW

Challenge 7: Migration, Philip Martin,

chap 8, 443-497.
Course Reader L

Focus 3: International Politics and Ethnic Conflict:

Case-Studies of Rwanda and Darfur (Yugoslavia, if time permits)

Week 10

Identity, Ethnic Politics and Conflict

Brass, Paul R. 1991. Ethnicity and Nationalism: Theory and Comparison. New Delhi and Newbury Park, CA: Sage, chap 1.
Course Reader, Journal
Horowitz, Donald L. 1985. Ethnic Groups in Conflict. Berkeley: University of California Press, chap 4.
Course Reader, Journal
Ross, Michael L. 2004. “How Do Natural Resources Influence Civil War? Evidence from Thirteen Cases.” International Organization, 58, Winter, 35-67.
Course Reader, Journal
Fearon, James D. & Laitin, David D. 2000. “Violence and the Social Construction of Ethnic Identity.” International Organization, 54, 4, Autumn, 845-877.
Course Reader, Journal

Video, if available: “Geometry of Shadows.”

Week 11

Is Ethnic Conflict Contagious?

Hill, Stuart & Rothchild, Donald & Cameron, Colin. 1998. Tactical Information and the Diffusion of Peaceful Protests. In David A. Lake & Donald Rothchild (Eds),The International Spread of Ethnic Conflict: Fear, Diffusion, and Escalation, chap 3, 61-88.
Course Reader LR
James D. 1998. Commitment Problems and the Spread of Ethnic Conflict. In David A. Lake & Donald Rothchild (Eds.), The International, Spread of Ethnic Conflict: Fear, Diffusion, and Escalation, chap 5, 107-126.
Course Reader LR
Kuran, Timur. 1998. Ethnic Dissimilation and Its International Diffusion. In David A. Lake & Donald Rothchild (Eds.), The International Spread of Ethnic Conflict: Fear, Diffusion, and Escalation, chap 2, 35-60.
Course Reader LR
Saideman, Stephen M. 1998. Is Pandora’s Box Half Empty or Half Full? The Limited Virulence of Secess-ionism and the Domestic Sources of Disintegration. In David A. Lake and Donald Rothchild (Eds.), The International Spread of Ethnic Conflict: Fear, Diffusion, and Escalation, chap 6, 127-150.
Course Reader LR

Week 12

Conflict Prevention: Conditionality and Socialization

Kelley, Judith. 2004. International Actors on the Domestic Scene: Membership Conditionality and Socialization by International Institutions, International Organization, 58, Summer 2004, 425-457.
Course Reader, Journal
Cronin, Bruce. 2002. Creating Stability in the New Europe: The OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities and the Socialization of Risky States. Security Studies, 12, 1, Autumn 2002, 132-163.
Course Reader, Journal
Linden, Ronald H. 2000. Putting on Their Sunday Best: Romania, Hungary, and the Puzzle of Peace. International Studies Quarterly, 44, 121-145.
Course Reader, Journal

Week 13 Final, take-home exam due in class.

Conflict Intervention and Rwanda and the Great Lakes Conflict

Gibbs, David N. 1991. Mines, Money, and U.S. Policy in the Congo Crisis. In The Political Economy of Third World Intervention. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Course Reader, Journal
Regan, Patrick M. 1998. Choosing to Intervene: Outside Intervention in Internal Conflicts. Journal of Politics, 60, 3, 754-79.
Course Reader, Journal
Saideman, Stephen M. 1997. Explaining the International Relations of Secessionist Conflicts: Vulnerability Versus Ethnic Ties. International Organization, 51, 4, Autumn, 721-753.
Course Reader, Journal
Barnett, Michael. 2002. Eyewitness to a Genocide: The United Nations and Rwanda. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Course Reader, B
Quinn, John James. 2004. Diffusion and Escalation in the Great Lakes Region: The Rwandan Genocide, the Rebellion in Zaire, and Mobutu’s Overthrow. In Steven E. Lobell & Mauceri, Philip (Eds.), Ethnic Conflict and International Politics: Explaining Diffusion and Escalation, 111-132. New York: N.Y: Palgrave Macmillan.
Course Reader, Journal

See books on the Case-Study of Rwanda, listed on page 2, under Focus 3.

Movie: “Hotel Rwanda.”

Ideas for Seminar Presentations Be creative!

  • 1 on 1, BBC interview, for example, similar to “Hardtalk”
  • Powerpoint presentation, with or without video and photos
  • Panel question and answer session
  • Debate among different perspectives
  • Activity that is participatory for the class
  • Drama
  • Music