International Relations Electives

Political Islam has become one of the most ubiquitous forces across the Muslim world in the last four decades.  While most of these movements share a common commitment to promoting Islamic morality and resisting external forces, there is enormous diversity and change within what is generalised as "Islamism".  Student will learn to grasp the basic differences as well as overlaps in identity and approach between the major streams of contemporary political Islam with regard to popularity and location, preference for armed vs. political strategies, nationalism vs. Pan-Islamist orientation, sectarian attitudes, levels of pragmatism, etc.  Students are expected to be familiar with basic history, geography and religious terminology of the Muslim world prior to taking this course.

Explores links between global economic and political processes, national affairs and local politics. Designed to foster participation; assessment is via essays and assignments.

This course addresses the political causes and consequences of the use of terrorist violence as well as the variety of methods employed by the state in response to this violence.

The objectives are to highlight the thematic, theoretical, and methodological approaches and contributions in the field of North African studies and to underline the relationship, continuities, and discontinuities between the colonial past and postcolonial realities.

Origins of Zionism, and Palestinian and other Arab nationalisms from the nineteenth century and the post-1948 Arab-Israel state conflict in the Cold War era.

Introduction to African American involvement in shaping U.S. foreign policy from 1850 to the present.  The objective is to show how African Americans organized to change both U.S. foreign policy toward Africa and the Caribbean as well as domestic racial policies by appealing to the international community. The course will highlight how U. S. foreign policy was reformulated by ruling elites to stave off international criticism of unjust domestic racial policies.

The course is an introduction to the culture of the South Asian region (with a focus on India and Pakistan).  It will be a multidisciplinary course that incorporates elements of religion, philosophy, culture, geography, history, sociology and anthropology.  After acquiring sufficient cultural background, students will examine the impact of these cultural variables on the formulation of foreign policy by the governments of the region.

National interests, issues and conflicts, relations, and influence of domestic politics in interstate relations in South Asia.

Studies of the important principles of Grand Strategic thinking (the calculated use of given means to realize large ends) and their application to contemporary issues in the fields of business, non-governmental organizations, global politics, and international security.

Issues in epistemology; survey and integration of feminist and IR theories; application of feminist theories to IR.