International and EU politics: a strategic approach

This course presents the strategic approach to the study of international politics. The course provides a comprehensive review of important topics in international relations, such as rational choice and game theory, conflict and war, co-operation and trade, development and democratisation. The course also pays special attention to the EU as an international organisation and as a foreign policy actor. Many of the examples presented throughout the course relate to EU politics and foreign policies.

The course is divided into four parts. The first part of the course lays the foundations, offering highly accessible coverage of key concepts, introducing students to different ways to think about the national interest and showing them how to use the strategic perspective to better understand what happens in all aspects of international and European politics. Also covered is a basic, intuitive introduction to game theory and other evidence- and logic-based tools for analyzing international relations. The second part focuses on war, and provides a more thorough evaluation of how domestic political incentives and the domestic institutions of governance shape choices about conflict initiation, escalation, and termination. The third part focuses on peace, and builds on the logic of collective action to help students see why it is so difficult to get national governments to do what is right even when they can agree on what is right, with chapters covering the effectiveness of international organizations and international law, as well as a thorough evaluation of environmental issues, human rights enforcement, and the domestic and the international political economy of trade. The fourth part discusses world order, and emphasizes efforts to promote the spread of democracy, alleviate poverty, and fight terrorism, examining which strategies work, which do not, and why.