245: PS The US in World Politics (Introduction to American Foreign Policy) Tuesday/Thursday 930-1118 AM, Baker Systems 0120
Instructor: Seth Goldstein Office: Derby 2031 Office Hours: Tuesday/Thursday 1130AM-1230PM and by appointment Contact: [e-mail] or Office phone at 614-292-1426
Description: Every day, the American governmentyour governmentmakes decisions on your behalf that have far-reaching consequences in our own lives as well as those of people all around the world. More money has been spent on American Foreign Policy since 1950 than on any other collective enterprise in the world. In my mind, these are ample reasons to for us to study US foreign policy, and to think about how we might craft a wiser, more efficient foreign policy. This course will provide students with the theoretical and analytical tools to be conscientious observers of American foreign policy. During the first part of the quarter, International Relations theory will be introduced as a tool for the analysis of foreign policy. The second half of the course will be dedicated to analyzing post- WWII US foreign policy through the lens the theories we have learned, with an eye towards evaluating the utility of various types of theories for explaining US policy choices and their implications. Apart from the learning of the course material, in light of the generally crude analysis common in mainstream discussion of American Foreign Policy, my other primary goal as a teacher is to get each of you to become critical thinkers, and more intelligent consumers of the information you encounter on an everyday basis. Such is a skill that will serve you well regardless of what path you take in the future. Though the journey will demand much of you as students, I hope to make the journey through the material as interesting, enjoyable, and painless as possible. Thus my door is always open to your suggestions, concerns, and comments. If you cant make my scheduled office hours, feel free to email me and set up an appointment. The course meets two GEC requirements: #5. Diversity: International Issues Goals/ Rationale: Diversity: International Issues courses help students become educated, productive, and principled citizens of their nation and the world. Learning Objectives: 1. Students exhibit an understanding of political, economic, cultural, physical, and social differences among the nations of the world, including a specific examination of nonWestern culture. #7. Social Science Goals/Rationale: Courses in social science help students understand human behavior and cognition, and the structures of human societies, cultures and institutions. 1
Learning Objectives: 1. Students understand the theories and methods of scientific inquiry as they are applied to the studies of individuals, groups, organizations, and societies. 2. Students comprehend human differences and similarities in various psychological, social, cultural, economic, geographic, and political contexts. 3. Students develop abilities to comprehend and assess individual and social values, and recognize their importance in social problem solving and policy making.
Course Requirements/ Grading Scheme: Class Attendance: 10% Participation: 10% Midterm Exam: 30%*/20% Final Exam: 50%* /30% Elective Paper: 30% My grading scale for the exams, paper and final course grades is as follows: A = 100% - 93% C+ = 80% - 77% A = 93% - 90% C+ = 77% - 73% B+ = 90% - 87% C = 73% - 70% B = 87% - 83% D+ = 70% - 67% B = 83% - 80% D = 67% - 60% E (also known as F) = Less than 60%
*The weight of the exams in determining your grade will be nearly halved if you elect to write a research paper (7-12 pages)1 on any aspect of American foreign policy. It can be a reasoned policy recommendation regarding some current issue, a critical examination of some past foreign policy decision, taking issue with the historical validity of some purportedly authoritative source (book, movie, etc), a musing on the direction of current US policy, the similarities of current patterns to past ones, or just about anything else within reason. The only catch is that you must decide whether you are going to write this paper by the end of the 7th week (August 4), and the topic must be cleared with me by this time, so please plan ahead. Papers turned in by students who have not consulted me or about topics not discussed with me will not be accepted. The paper is due, in both paper and electronic formats, by 5pm on Thursday August 17. The paper copy should be given directly to me or can be put in my mailbox in 2140 Derby Hall; the electronic copy should be emailed to me in MS-Word format. As this is an opportunity to express your own thoughts and opinions in a way not probed by the exams, it is my hope is that everyone will elect to write the paper. Attendance Policy/ What to Expect on Exams/ Participation Grade: Attendance is Required: I will circulate an attendance sheet with each students name on it to be signed at the beginning of every class. You have one get out of jail free card during the quarter;
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Double-spaced, Standard character spacing and margins in 12 point Times New Roman font.
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beyond that, absence will only be tolerated if for a legitimate reason (i.e. serious illness, death in family, alien abduction, etc.). Every unexcused class absence beyond the one for free will result in a loss of 2 percentage points off your final grade. Make-up exams will not be given except in extreme circumstances. Also, no early or late exams will be given to accommodate travel plans, so make plans accordingly. I will not post my lecture notes on the internet, so if you miss a class, it is your responsibility to get the notes from someone in the class and/or come to office hours to find out what youve missed. Anything from the readings or lectures is fair game for exams, though I will distribute a review sheet prior to both the midterm and final exams. Participation: Quality is more important than quantity when it comes to participation. To encourage discussion, if no one is volunteering I will randomly call on people to answer questions, so do the reading and BE PREPARED! If you want to gauge how you are doing in this respect, please come to office hours. Two Notes on Respect: To do well in this class, you must learn from each other as much as you learn from the course material. Because this class is about political issues, it will doubtlessly touch on many sensitive issues in which people have passionate and discordant feelings and opinions. During exchanges of ideas, please treat your fellow students with the courtesy and respect that you would expect from them. Failure to do so will adversely affect your participation grade. Also, please turn off your cell phones, pagers, Ipods, or any other noise-making electronics before entering class. Email Requirement: Each of you is required to furnish me with a working email address where you can be reached. In the event that I have to cancel class on a given day, you will receive notice via email.
Academic Honesty: I expect all of the work you do in this course to be your own. I will tolerate absolutely no cheating or plagiarism (using someone elses words or ideas without proper citation). I will report any cases of cheating or plagiarism to the university committee on academic misconduct, and they will be handled according to university policy.
Disability: If you need an accommodation based on the impact of a disability, you should contact me to arrange an appointment as soon as possible. At the appointment we can discuss the course format, anticipate your needs, and explore potential accommodations. I rely on the Office for Disability Services for assistance in verifying the need for accommodations and developing accommodation strategies. If you have not previously contacted the Office for Disability Services, I encourage you to do so.
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Reading: This course will have a lot of reading, and I expect that each student will come to class having read the required materials for that day. Again, if people do not volunteer when I pose questions to the class about the readings or related issues, I reserve the right to volunteer you. The readings during the first half are generally denser than those in the second half, so in some cases, to cut down on required pages, I will assign you to skim certain readings. In these cases, I will let you know what main points to read for ahead of time. Besides the readings on the syllabus, I would like each of you to keep up with American Foreign Policy through the reading of a major newspaper (i.e. the New York Times if you are a communist, the Washington Times if you are a fascist, etc) throughout the quarter. Questions about the significance and interpretation of recent foreign policy events may just show up on the exams; keeping up with the news will also provide you with some potential fodder for paper topics. Not everything in the readings and in lecture will show up on the exams, but everything covered in either venue is fair game. Supplemental Readings: These are to be done at your leisure and convenience; while I may mention the arguments of some of the authors in passing, you will not be responsible for the material that is in those books/articles that I do not cover in lecture. My primary goal in providing supplemental readings is to give those people that wish to write papers good starting points.
Books: The following are books required for Purchase and have been ordered at the Usual Suspects: Required for purchase G. John Ikenberry, American Foreign Policy: Theoretical Essays, 5th edition ($77 new on Amazon) Steven Hook and John Spanier, American Foreign Policy Since World War II, 16th edition ($47 new on Amazon) Required Download, Available for Free: Robert Johnson, Improbable Dangers This book will be available as a downloadable PDF file, links will be on the course Carmen page: complete book--high quality (36MB) http://psweb.sbs.ohiostate.edu/faculty/jmueller/JOHCOPEZ.PDF complete book--somewhat lower quality (7 MB) http://psweb.sbs.ohiostate.edu/faculty/jmueller/johnson.pdf text--somewhat lower quality--without notes or index (5MB) http://psweb.sbs.ohiostate.edu/faculty/jmueller/JOHNSCUT.PDF
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Tentative Course Reading Schedule (watch Carmen for updates)
Most readings will come from either the Ikenberry, Hook and Spanier, or Johnson volumes. Other Readings are available for download on the course Carmen page and they will be uploaded to the Carmen site no later than one week before the class for which they are to be read. The source of each reading assignment is indicated on the reading schedule.
Week 1 Tuesday, June 20: Syllabus Distribution and Course Introduction/ Conceptual Overview Thursday, June 22: What is International Relations Theory and How Does It Help us Analyze American Foreign Policy Required: Ikenberry Introduction and Holsti Models of International Relations and Foreign Policy, pp. 1-39 (Ikenberry) Stephen Walt, International Relations: One world, Many Theories, Foreign Policy, Spring 1998, pp. 29-44. (Carmen)
Week 2 Tuesday, June 27: The Third Image: International Sources of American Behavior Required: Kenneth Waltz Anarchic Orders and Balances of Power, pp. 60-84 (Ikenberry). V.I. Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, from Richard Betts, Conflict After the Cold War, pp. 242-248. (Carmen) Thursday, June 29: The Second Image: Domestic Sources of American Behavior: Public Opinion, Economic Explanations, and the Military-Industrial Complex Required: Michael Roskin, From Pearl Harbor to Vietnam, pp. 312-333 (Ikenberry) Jeff Frieden, Sectoral Conflict and US Foreign Policy, pp. 138-167 (Ikenberry) Jacobs and Page, Business versus Public Influence in US Foreign Policy, pp. 357-383 (Ikenberry) Week 3 Tuesday, July 4: NO CLASS! Thursday, July 6: The Second Image Continued: Bureaucratic and Organizational Theory Required: Graham Allison, Conceptual Models and the Cuban Missile Crisis, pp. 402-447 (Ikenberry) 5
Stephen Krasner, Are Bureaucracies Important? (Or Allison Wonderland, pp. 447-460 (Ikenberry) Week 4 Tuesday, July 11: Thursday, July 13: The Second Image Continued: Institutions, Regime Type, and the Democratic Peace Required: Samuel Huntington, American Ideals Versus American Institutions, pp. 214248 (Ikenberry) Sebastian Rosato, The Flawed Logic of Democratic Peace Theory, American Political Science Review 97(4), Nov. 2003. (Carmen) Thursday, July 13: The First Image: Human Nature and Perception Required: Kenneth Waltz, Chapter 1 from Man the State and War, pp. 16-41 (Carmen) Robert Jervis, Hypotheses on Misperception, pp. 462-484 (Ikenberry)
Week 5 Tuesday, July 18: The First Image Continued: Cognition and the Importance of Leaders Required: Tetlock and McGuire, Cognitive Perspectives on Foreign Policy, pp. 484500 (Ikenberry) David Winter et al., The Personalities of Bush and Gorbachev Measured at a Distance, pp. 511-538 (Ikenberry) Thursday, July 20: MIDTERM Week 6 Tuesday, July 25: The Origins of the Cold War Required: President Trumans Domino Theory Speech: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/harrystrumantrumandoctrine.html George Kennan, The Sources of Soviet Conduct, available at http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/coldwar/x.htm Hook and Spanier, Chapter 2. Supplemental: Johnson, pp. 51-87, 131-178. Melvyn Leffler, The American Conception of National security and the Beginnings of the Cold War, 1945-1948, (Ikenberry)
Thursday, July 27: The Diplomacy of Violence and US Security Policy During the Cold War: Deterrence and Containment Skim: Thomas Schelling, Arms and Influence, Chapters 1-2 (Carmen) Required: Hook and Spanier, Chapters 3 and 5.
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Ted Hopf, Soviet Inferences from their Victories in the Periphery, in Robert Jervis and Jack Snyder, eds. Dominoes and Bandwagons: Strategic Beliefs and Superpower Competition in the Eurasian Rimland, 1991 (Carmen).
Week 7 Tuesday, August 1: In-Class viewing: Dr. Strangelove Thursday, August 3: Dtente, The Reagan Buildup and the End of The Cold War Required: Hook and Spanier, Chs 6, 8 and 9 Robert Johnson, Chapter 6, pp. 111-130. Supplemental: Richard Herrmann, The End of the Cold War: What Have We Learned?, in Richard Ned Lebow and Janice Gross Stein, eds., International Relations Theory and the End of the Cold War, pp. 259-284 (Carmen).
Week 8 Tuesday, August 8: American Primacy in the Post-Cold War Era Required: Hook and Spanier, Ch. 10. John Mearsheimer, "Why We Will Soon Miss the Cold War," The Atlantic, August 1990, pp. 35-50 (Carmen) John Mueller, The Catastrophe Quota: Trouble After the Cold War Journal of Conflict Resolution 38(3), Sep. 1994, pp. 355-375 (Carmen). Supplemental: Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations, Foreign Affairs 72(3), Summer 1993 (Carmen). Francis Fukuyama, The End of History, The National Interest 16 (Summer 1989) (Carmen).
Thursday, August 10: The US Invasion of Iraq: Causes and Consequences Required: Robert Jervis, Understanding the Bush Doctrine, pp. 576-599 (Ikenberry) Chaim Kaufmann, Threat Inflation and the Failure of the Mark...