Introduction to international relations

Aims and scope:

This course provides an introduction to international politics and is aimed at students completely new to the field. The various topics covered provide a comprehensive review of the most important issues in international relations, such as rational choice and game theory, conflict and war, cooperation and trade, development and democratization. Why did the war in Ukraine start in February 2022? Do economic sanctions work? Why is it so hard to stop global warming, even though so many governments agree that it should be stopped? Are universal declarations of human rights empty words? Who gained from the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipeline? Will the rise of China spell the end of globalization? Is French foreign aid helping corrupt Sahel leaders stay in power? Can a peace be negotiated between Israel and Hamas? Why hasn't Afghanistan become a democracy after 20 years of American occupation?

The course is organized into four parts. The first part lays the scientific foundations, providing highly accessible coverage of key concepts, introducing students to different ways of thinking about the national interest, and showing them how to use a strategic perspective to better understand what is happening in all aspects of international politics. This first part also provides a basic, intuitive introduction to game theory and other evidence- and logic-based tools for the analysis of international relations. The second part of the course focuses on war and provides a more detailed assessment of how domestic political incentives and domestic government institutions shape leaders' decisions about the initiation, escalation, and termination of war. The third part focuses on peace and draws on the logic of collective action to help students understand why it is so difficult to get national governments to act together toward a common goal even when they agree on that goal. This section includes chapters covering the effectiveness of international organizations and international law, as well as a thorough assessment of environmental issues, human rights, and the domestic political economy of international trade. Finally, the fourth part discusses world order and outlines efforts to promote democracy, alleviate poverty, and combat terrorism, examining which strategies work, which do not, and why.

By the end of the course, students should be able to analyze the actions of world leaders and understand what drives them, what effects they produce, and why not everybody agrees with them. They should also be able to use this understanding to predict events related to the initiation, escalation or termination of war, the outcome of agreements on climate change or human rights, the evolution of tariffs, trade and globalization, or the effects of international aid on democracy, development or terrorism.

Methodology:

Every topic is introduced by a lecture, which is followed by a seminar in which students are introduced to scientific research by means of a question on a current issue. After a classroom discussion, they research this question independently, read and critically review peers' answers, publish their own, and receive peer review. A point system assesses learning progress and encourages students to participate.

Topics:

FUNDAMENTALS: 1. Evaluating arguments about international politics. Positive statementes, normative statements and Hume's Guillotine. Science and pseudoscience: Popper's falsifiability criterion. Empirical testing as quality control of scientific theories. Course plan: war, peace, and world order. Why are there so many disagreements in the field of international politics? 2. Two-level games: when foreign policy collides with domestic policy. Foreign policy as domestic policy with a twist. Zelensky's dilemma. Who and what does international politics study? Selectorate theory: public and private goods, loyalty rule, survival of leaders. Why do we believe that international leaders are mad? TOOLS: 3. National interest? Tools for the analysis of international politics. Spatial models of voting. Hotelling's game and minimal differentiation. The median voter theorem. Expected utility: probability, costs and benefits. Multidimensionality: the impossibility theorem and the chaos theorem. Will American foreign policy change after the election? 4. An introduction to game theory. Non-cooperative games. Nash Equilibrium: The Prisoner's Dilemma. Games with multiple equilibria: chicken, the battle of the sexes. Why did the Greek government organize a referendum against the EU-s bailout? Does joining NATO reduce the risk of being attacked? WAR: 5. Why war: the big picture. Risk factors: indivisible goods, uncertainty, lack of credibility. Neorealism, bipolarity, and stability. Power transition: International rules and norms, discontent, status quo, and war. Will the rise of China bring stability or war? 6. Domestic theories of war. Selecting crises in autocracies and democracies. Diversionary War: the resurrection hypothesis, the peaceful dove hypothesis. Selectorate theory, reasons for war and war effort. COOPERATION: 7. How international organizations work (or not). Rivalry and excludability. The logic of collective action. Solutions to collective action problems. Inclusiveness of organizations: the UN. Don't NATO leaders want Ukraine to win the war? Global Warming. Seeking agreement: allocating the costs of reducing emissions. Shallow vs deep global agreements: compliance or failure. Monitoring and sanctioning non-compliance: flexibility. The Kyoto Protocol. Focal points. Human rights, international laws and norms. Does international law improve human rights? 8. Free or fair trade: The domestic politics of tariffs. Comparative advantage. Winners and losers from trade. Cui bono: Who gained from the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline? Globalization: International winners and losers. The Heckscher-Ohlin model. The Stolper-Samuelson theorem. Will globalization come to an end with the rise of China? WORLD ORDER: 9. Foreign aid, poverty and revolution. The Marshall Plan. The experience of international aid outside Europe. The Sachs-Easterly debate. The strategic perspective. Who receives foreign aid? Aid, revolution and democratization. Has French foreign aid contributed to poverty eradication and democratization in Niger? 10. Terrorism, peace and democracy. Are terrorists rational? Modeling negotiations between terrorists and governments: internal differences, overlaps and veto players. Credible commitments and strategic dilemmas. Can the Israeli government negotiate peace with Hamas? Peace without democratization. Democratic peace. Is democracy an obstacle to democratization. Foreign powers and nation-building. Germany, Japan, Iran, Congo and other cases. Why hasn't Afghanistan become a democracy after 20 years of American occupation? Would the Sahel be democratized with Chinese-Russian help? And Ukraine under the auspices of NATO?

Indicative reading:

Bueno de Mesquita, B. (2013). Principles of international politics, 5th ed. CQ Press.

Teaching modules:

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Introduction to international relations

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