Professor
Elisabeth Prügl
elisabeth.pruegl(at)graduateinstitute.ch
Teaching Assistant
Nell Marie Williams
nell.williams(at)graduateinstitute.ch
Description
This course provides an overview of major approaches in the field of International Relations with a particular focus on individual theorists and their interventions. The purpose is to familiarise students with central concepts and field-defining debates. The course is organised as a reading seminar, i.e. the emphasis is on giving students broad exposure to a wide range of readings and on facilitating an active engagement with these readings in the form of class debates, presentations and essays.
Syllabus
Course Requirements
The course requires students to participate in class discussion in an informed manner. This means that I expect you to have read assigned materials BEFORE class. In addition, students are expected to lead class discussion at least once. This involves providing brief analytical summaries of assigned readings and offering discussion questions. Finally, students will be required to complete two take-home exams. I will provide questions a week before the exams are due. Your grade will consist of the following:
Class presentation: 20 percent
Take-home Exam I: 30 percent
Take-home Exam II: 30 percent
Participation: 20 percent
Required Readings are available in a course pack.
Course Outline
September 27 – Introduction and Organization
October 4 – Classical Realism
E.H. Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis, 1919-1939. Chapters 1, 2, 5-7, 9-10
Recommended:
Machiavelli, The Prince.
Thucydides, The Melian Dialogue. From Thucydides, History of Peloponnesian War.
October 11 – Structural Realism
Waltz, Theory of International Politics, chapters 1, 4-6, 1979.
Recommended:
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan. (Especially section On the Natural Condition of Mankind.)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, A Lasting Peace through the Federation of Europe and The State of War.
Richard Ashley, The Poverty of Neorealism. In Neorealism and Its Critics, pp. 255-300. New York: Columbia University Press, 1986.
October 18 – Democratic Peace
Immanuel Kant, Perpetual Peace. Including first supplement and appendices.
Michael Doyle, Liberalism and World Politics. American Political Science Review 80, 4 (December 1986): 1151-69.
Zeev Maoz and Bruce Russett, Normative and Structural Causes of Democratic Peace, 1946-1986. American Political Science Review 87, 3 (September 1993): 624-638.
Recommended:
Tarak Barkawi and Mark Laffey, eds. Democracy, Liberalism and War: Rethinking the Democratic Peace Debate, Boulder: Lynne Rienner Press, 2001.
Erol Henderson, Disturbing the Peace: African Warfare, Political Inversion and the Universality of the Democratic Peace Thesis. British Journal of Political Science 39, 1 (2009): 25-58.
Erik Gartzke, The Capitalist Peace. American Journal of Political Science 51, 1 (January 2007): 166-191.
October 25 – Interdependence, Globalization, and State Authority
Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, Power and Interdependence. Part I, 1977.
Kenneth N. Waltz, Globalization and Governance. PS: Political Science and Politics 32, 4 (December 1999): 693-700.
John Agnew, Sovereignty Regimes: Territoriality and State Authority in Contemporary World Politics. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 95, 2 (June 2005): 437-461. 2005
Recommended:
Michael Hart and Antonio Negri, Empire. Harvard University Press, 2000.
Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. University of Minnesota Press, 1996.
Jan Aart Scholte, Globalization: A Critical Introduction. Palgrave-Macmillan, 2005.
November 1 -- International Societies and Communities
Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society, Chapters 1-3 (1977).
Daniel Deudney, The Philadelphia System: Sovereignty, Arms Control, and Balance of Power in the American States-Union, Circa 1787-1861. International Organization 49, 2 (Spring 1995): 191-228.
Emanuel Adler and Michael Barnett, A Framework for the Study of Security Communities. In Security Communities, eds. E. Adler and M. Barnett, pp. 29-66. Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Recommended:
Vincent Pouliot, The Logic of Practicality: A Theory of Practice of Security Communities. International Organization 62 (Spring 2008): 257-288.
Caporaso, James A. (1996) The European Union and Forms of State: Westphalian, Regulatory or Post-Modern? Journal of Common Market Studies 34, 1 (March): 29-52.
Neil Brenner, Metropolitan Institutional Reform and the Rescaling of State Space in Contemporary Western Europe. European Urban and Regional Studies 10, 4 (2003): 297-324.
Philippe Schmitter, Imagining the Future of the Euro-Polity with the Help of New Concepts. In Gary Marks et al., Governance in the European Union, pp. 121-150. London: Sage Publications. 1996.
November 8 – International Cooperation – Rationalist Approaches
Keohane, After Hegemony, Part II, 1984.
Kenneth A. Oye, Cooperation under Anarchy: Hypotheses and Strategies. World Politics 38, 1 (October 1985): 1-24.
Barbara Koremenos, Charles Lipson, and Duncan Snidal, The Rational Design of International Institutions, International Organization 55 (2001): 761-799.
Recommended:
Andreas Hasenclever, Peter Mayer, and Volker Rittberger, Interests, Power, Knowledge: The Study of International Regimes. Mershon International Studies Review, Vol. 40 (October 1996).
Lisa L. Martin, Interests, Power, and Multilateralism. International Organization 46, 4 (Autumn 1992).
James Fearon, “Bargaining, Enforcement, and International Cooperation,” International Organization, Vol. 52 (1998): 269-306.
November 15 – International Cooperation – Constructivist Approaches
Peter Haas, Introduction: Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination. International Organization 46, 1 (Winter 1992): 1-35.
John G. Ruggie, International Regimes, Transactions, and Change: Embedded Liberalism in the Postwar Economic Order,” International Organization 36 (Spring 1982).
Michael N. Barnett and Martha Finnemore, The Politics, Power, and Pathologies of International Organizations. International Organization 53, 4 (Autumn 1999): 699-732.
Recommended:
Friedrich Kratochwil and John Ruggie, International Organization: A State of the Art on an Art of the State.” International Organization 40 (Autumn 1986).
March, James G. and Johan P. Olsen, The Institutional Dynamics of International Political Orders. International Organization 52, 4 (Autumn 1989): 943-969.
John G. Ruggie, Multilateralism: The Anatomy of an Institution. International Organization 46,3 (1992): 561-598.
November 22 – The Marxist Tradition
Immanuel Wallerstein, The Inter-State Structure of the Modern World-System. In International Theory: Positivism and Beyond, eds. Steve Smith, Ken Booth, and Marysia Zalewski, pp 87-107. Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Robert Cox, Gramsci, Hegemony, and International Relations: An Essay in Method. Millennium: Journal of International Studies 12, 2 (Summer 1983): 162-155. Reprinted in Robert Cox, with Timothy Sinclair, Approaches to World Order, Cambridge, 1996.
Stephen Gill and David Law, Global Hegemony and the Structural Power of Capital. International Studies Quarterly 33, 4 (1989): 475-499.
Recommended:
Robert Cox, Social Forces, States, and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory. Millennium: Journal of International Studies 10, 2 (Summer 1981): 126-155.
Robert W. Cox, The Point Is not Just to Explain the World but to Change It. Pp. 84-93 in The Oxford Handbook of International Relations, eds. Christian Reus-Smit and Duncan Snidal. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Craig N. Murphy, International Organization and Industrial Change: Global Governance since 1850. Oxford University Press, 1994.
Sandra Whitworth, Feminism and International Relations: Towards a Political Economy of Gender in Interstate and Non-Governmental Institutions. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994.
Stephen Gill, Globalization, Market Civilization and Disciplinary Neo-Liberalism. Millennium: Journal of International Studies 24, 3 (1995): 339-423.
Randall D. Germain and Michael Kenny, Engaging Gramsci: International Theory and the New Gramscians. Review of International Studies 24, 1 (1998): 3-21.
Craig N. Murphy, Understanding IR: Understanding Gramsci. Review of International Studies 24 (1998): 417-425.
Justin Rosenberg, The International Imagination. Millennium 23 (1994): 85-108.
FIRST EXAM DUE
November 29 – Constructivism
John G. Ruggie, What Makes the World Hang Together? Neo-Utilitarianism and the Social Constructivist Challenge. International Organization 52, 4 (Autumn 1998): 855-885.
Alexander Wendt, Three Cultures of Anarchy. In A. Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics. Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Nicholas Onuf, Constructivism: A User’s Manual. In International Relations in a Constructed World, eds. Vendulka Kubálková, Nicholas Onuf, and Paul Kowert, pp. 58-78. Armonk, NY: ME Sharpe. 1998.
Recommended:
Emanuel Adler, Seizing the Middle Ground: Constructivism and World Politics. European Journal of International Relations 3, 3 (1997): 319-363.
Alexander Wendt, Anarchy is What States Make of It. International Organization 46, 2 (Spring 1992): 391-425.
Peter Katzenstein, ed., The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996.
Birgit Locher and Elisabeth Prügl, Feminism and Constructivism: Worlds Apart or Sharing the Middle Ground? International Studies Quarterly 45 (2001) : 111-129.
Nicholas G. Onuf, World of Our Making: Rules and Rule in Social Theory and International Relations. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1989.
Friedrich Kratochwil, Rules, Norms, and Decisions: On the Conditions of Practical and Legal Reasoning in International Relations and Domestic Affairs. Cambridge University Press, 1989.
Maya Zehfuss, Constructivisms in International Relations: Wendt, Onuf, and Kratochwil, in Constructing International Relations: The Next Generation, eds. Karin M. Fierke and Knud Erik Jorgensen, pp. 54-75. Armonk, NY: ME Sharpe, 2001. Also in German in Zeitschrift für Internationale Politik 5, 1 (1998): 109-137.
December 6 – Pragmatism
Jörg Friedrichs and Friedrich Kratochwil. 2009. Of Acting and Knowing: How Pragmatism can advance International Relations Research and Methodology. International Organization 63 (Fall): 701-31.
Molly Cochran. 2002. Deweyan Pragmatism and Post-Positivist Social Science in IR. Millennium: Journal of International Studies 31, 3: 525-548.
Rudra Sil and Peter J. Katzenstein. 2010. Analytic Eclecticism in the Study of World Politics: Reconfiguring Problems and Mechanisms across Research Traditions. Perspectives on Politics 8, 2 (June): 411-431.
Recommended:
Symposium: Kratochwil’s ‘Tartu Lecture’ and Its Critics.” Journal of International Relations and Development 10, 1 (March 2007). Including articles by Kratochwil, Lebow, Suganami, and Wight. With response by Kratochwil.
Peter M. Haas and Ernst B. Haas, Pragmatic Constructivism and the Study of International Institutions. Millennium: Journal of International Studies 31, 3 (2002): 573-601.
December 13 – Feminism
Jacqui True, Feminism. In Theories of International Relations, 4th ed., Scott Burchill et al., Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
Carol Cohn, Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 12, 4 (1987): 687-718.
Cynthia Enloe, Margins Silences, and Bottom Rungs. In C. Enloe, The Curious Feminist: Searching for Women in a New Age of Empire, pp. 19-42. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.
J. Ann Tickner, What is Your Research Program? Some Feminist Answers to International Relations Methodological Questions. International Studies Quarterly 49: 1-21.
Recommended:
J. Ann Tickner, Gendering World Politics: Issues and Approaches in the Post-Cold War Era. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001.
Cynthia Enloe, Bananas, Beaches, and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.
Marysia Zalewski and Jane Parpart, eds., The ‘Man’ Question in International Relations. Boulder, Co.: Westview 1998.
Christine Sylvester, Feminist International Relations: An Unfinished Journey. Cambridge, 2002.
December 20 – Post-structuralism
Richard K. Ashley, The Geopolitics of Geopolitical Space: Towards a Critical Social Theory of International Politics. Alternatives 12, 4 (October 1989): 403-434.
Roxanne Doty, Foreign Policy as Social Construction: A Post-Positivist Analysis of US Counterinsurgency Policy in the Philippines. International Studies Quarterly 37, 3: 297-320. 1993.
Michael Merlingen. 2003. Governmentality: Towards a Foucaultian Framework for the Study of IGOs. Cooperation and Conflict 38: 361-348.
Recommended:
RBJ Walker, Inside/Outside: International Relations as Political Theory. Cambridge University Press 1993.
James Der Derian, ed., International Theory: Critical Investigations. New York University Press, 1995.
Cynthia Weber, Simulating Sovereignty: Intervention, the State, and Symbolic Exchange. Cambridge University Press, 1995.
David Campbell, Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity. University of Minnesota Press, revised ed. 1998.
