Party Eras and Party Control in US history

 A table I cam up with for my American Goverment classes. 

Books for my PSC 401Z Special Topics in American Politics: US Foreign Policy Course

 I am firm believer that most textbooks are overpriced, and especially unfair to the type of students we get at GBC. Having decided to offer US Foreign Policy for the first time at GBC I settled on using the following three books to build the course around. Collectively they will set back my students between 40-30 USD. 

-Perry Anderson, "American Foreign Policy and its Thinkers", Verso Books

Part literature review of the main mainstream authors of US Foreign Policy over the last 50 years, part survey history of US Foreign Policy from essentially 1945, both from the critical perspective of the Wisconsin School of US Diplomatic History.

-Christopher A. Preble "Peace, War and Liberty", Libertarianis Org.

A short survey history of US Foreign Policy, and a a suggested Grand Strategy, both based on a Libertarian perspective. This book is also available for free in pdf form.

- Walter McDougall "Promised Land, Crusader State: The American Encounter with the World Since 1776", Harper Paperbacks; Reprint edition 

A full survey of US Foreign Policy from a traditional FP conservative perspective. 

As it become clear all three books are a bit radical in their perspective of US Foreign Policy. This is on purpose as I prefer if the students face the most radical perspectives and based on them decide on their own stance (a hard test if you will).More mainstream perspectives will be provided via other readings, including National Security Strategies, opinion articles by academics belonging to the mainstream. 

Student Risk of War Analysis:Turkey-Iran

 

As part of my IR 315: Peace and Conflict Course I had students conduct a Risk of War analysis of a dangerous dyad according to the Simple Risk Barometer developed in Steps to War by Paul Senese and John A. Vasquez. In this series I will upload to the blog the ones I felt were the best. The goal is to show that with some training anyone can use Steps to War to get a handle on current events and the likelihood of war. 

Turkey-Iran 

Emre Kocmar 

Contemporary paper with risks of war:

Even though it has soured on certain occasions since the Arab Spring, Iran and Turkey seems to enjoy generally peaceful relationship. Although lacking a common ideology regarding the region both nations reside in an idea of war between Turkey and Iran seems rather unlikely. Therefore i will use Paul Senese and John A. Vasquez’s framework of Steps to War in order to show

why Iranian-Turkish Dyad is a relatively peaceful one.

Student Risk of War Analysis:Colombia-Venezuela

 As part of my IR 315: Peace and Conflict Course I had students conduct a Risk of War analysis of a dangerous dyad according to the Simple Risk Barometer developed in Steps to War by Paul Senese and John A. Vasquez. In this series I will upload to the blog the ones I felt were the best. The goal is to show that with some training anyone can use Steps to War to get a handle on current events and the likelihood of war. 

Colombia-Venezuela
Sena Uzun

Latin America has experienced many problems that have generated from border migration-drug issues and smuggling throughout the history. Among the ongoing rivalries are the source of continuing tension and raises the possibility of militarized border disputes. There have been numerous MIDs those occurred in the region, on average more than once a year throughout the twentieth century. Nonetheless, these MIDs rarely rose to the level of war, occurring only 2.5% of the time. This paper focuses on the risk of a possible war between two Latin American states: Colombia and Venezuela. The two countries share a border of over 2,219 kilometres- contiguity is an important factor in this dyad that should be kept in mind.

I will use Steps to War frame by Senese-Vasquez to analyse the level of bellicosity of Colombia- Venezuela dyad. Senese-Vasquez developed the Risk of War Barometer which offers a prediction of the risk of war regarding four basic steps to war: (1) presence of territorial disputes, (2) the presence of outside allies, (3) the repetition of MIDs and (4) an ongoing arms race. Any combination of these factors is counted as increasing the risk of war.

Student Risk of War Analysis: Turkey-Republic of Cyprus

As part of my IR 315: Peace and Conflict Course I had students conduct a Risk of War analysis of a dangerous dyad according to the Simple Risk Barometer developed in Steps to War by Paul Senese and John A. Vasquez. In this series I will upload to the blog the ones I felt were the best. The goal is to show that with some training anyone can use Steps to War to get a handle on current events and the likelihood of war. 
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Turkey-Republic of Cyprus
by Eylül Ozcan

Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when a coup d’etat inspired by the Greek locals of the island prompted a Turkish military intervention and occupation of the northern part of the island. The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus was declared in 1983, and has only been recognized by Turkey. Turkey has been demanding that TRNC be recognized since then. Since the division by the “green line” the Turks and Greeks have been living separately and have been patrolled by the United Nations. With the accession of Southern side of the island to the European Union on 2004, the parameters of the conflict have been changed. 

Student Risk of War Analysis: China and Taiwan, Ceren Konur

 As part of the evaluation process for my course IR 315: Peace and Conflict Studies, I have students conduct a Risk of War analysis for a dangerous dyad of their choice. This is based on the Risk Barometer developed by Senese and Vasquez for “Steps to War”. The best papers are also published on my blog. In the past I did that in Stohamsoi, but since that blog is defunct, I will do it here.

Στα πλαίσια του μαθήματος μου IR 315: Η Μελέτη της Ειρήνης και Σύγκρουσης, έχω τους φοιτητές μου να ετοιμάσουν μια Ανάλυση Επικινδυνότητας Πολέμου για ένα επικίνδυνο ζευγάρι κρατών της επιλογής τους. Αυτή η ανάλυση βασίζεται στο Βαρόμετρο Επικινδυνότητας που ανέπτυξαν ο Σενεσε και Βασκεζ για «Τα Βήματα προς Πόλεμο». Οι καλύτερες αναλύσεις δημοσιεύονται και στο ιστολογιο μου. Στο παρελθών αυτό γίνονταν στο ιστολογιο Στοχασμοί, που έχει κλείσει τώρα. Όποτε το κάνω εδώ.

Student Risk of War Analysis: DPRKorea and ROKorea, Cagla Akyol

 

As part of the evaluation process for my course IR 315: Peace and Conflict Studies, I have students conduct a Risk of War analysis for a dangerous dyad of their choice. This is based on the Risk Barometer developed by Senese and Vasquez for “Steps to War”. The best papers are also published on my blog. In the past I did that in Stohamsoi, but since that blog is defunct, I will do it here.

Στα πλαίσια του μαθήματος μου IR 315: Η Μελέτη της Ειρήνης και Σύγκρουσης, έχω τους φοιτητές μου να ετοιμάσουν μια Ανάλυση Επικινδυνότητας Πολέμου για ένα επικίνδυνο ζευγάρι κρατών της επιλογής τους. Αυτή η ανάλυση βασίζεται στο Βαρόμετρο Επικινδυνότητας που ανέπτυξαν ο Σενεσε και Βασκεζ για «Τα Βήματα προς Πόλεμο». Οι καλύτερες αναλύσεις δημοσιεύονται και στο ιστολογιο μου. Στο παρελθών αυτό γίνονταν στο ιστολογιο Στοχασμοί, που έχει κλείσει τώρα. Όποτε το κάνω εδώ.

Student Activity: Diplomacy

 As part of my course in Introduction to International Relations and course in Diplomatic History courses, I had my students engage in sessions of the game Diplomacy online (via the Web Diplomacy system). It worked so-so and I think I prefer the in class session. Students are required to write a response paper (1-2) pages based on a targeted question linking the game to concepts in class. 

I think that this is fine with a class of 15-20 people, which is too large for the in class session, but not so large that you will have inactive players (a problem in this game). Though if you assume that inactive players are countries following isolationist policies or with domestic troubles, they might have some interesting things to write in their papers.  I also found interesting the commonalities and difference between the end states of the world among the different sessions.

Active Learning Component using Bloody Big Battles

 This semester I am teaching IR 311: War beyond Europe. The course has two goals

1) to familiarize students with 4 key wars that took place in parts of he world outside Europe. These were the War of the Triple Alliance and the War of the Pacific in Latin America, the 1st Sino-Japanese War, and the Eritrean-Ethiopian War.

2) it is a writing intensive course with the goal of imparting to the students the basics of good academic writing (largely based on what I learned in the Little Red Schoolhouse in the University of Chicago).

As part of the course, and in service of goal (1), I had the students participate in one of two active learning components. These were representations of key battles in the War of the Triple Alliance, and the War of the Pacific, Tuyuti and Tacna respectively. I used the rules system Bloody Big Battles, which has been used in other institutions of learning for pedagogical purposes. The system is for historical battles with miniatures (though one can use counters and 2d maps), in the vein of H.G. Wells "Little Wars", though much more sophisticated.

The Tuyuti Scenario Group