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Global Politics
conquering, resisting & collaborating 

​Part A — Concepts: The first block builds the conceptual toolkit — territoriality, power, sovereignty, and anarchy — by putting classic and revisionist claims to the test. Is sovereignty really "organized hypocrisy," honored mostly in the breach? Do state borders ever truly settle anything, or do states still "die" the way empires once did? Is anarchy a fixed condition of world politics, or something states construct and could construct otherwise? And when a leader chooses war despite its costs, is that a bargaining failure, a commitment problem, or private information about resolve? By the end of this part, students can wield hegemony, balance-of-power, and rational-design arguments against any headline claiming a "rules-based order."

 

Part B — International Public Policy: The second block turns from theory to trend, testing that toolkit against pressing policy domains. Who provides a global public good like climate stability when no state owns the atmosphere — and which industries fight the very agreements meant to supply it? Is a government's welcome to refugees genuinely humanitarian, or a strategic move with a political payoff? Has two centuries of globalization narrowed inequality worldwide, or just redrawn who wins and loses (Milanovic 2024)? And is the multilateral system built to manage civil wars adapting to a fragmenting international order, or breaking down with it?

 

Part C — Conquering, Resisting, Collaborating: The monographic third block combines global politics and global historyl, tracing conquest and its aftermath from 1492 to Iraq 2003. Why do some military occupations pacify a population while others provoke insurgency? What actually pushes someone toward collaboration rather than resistance under occupation — ideology, opportunism, or local rivalries? Did the "discovery" of America invent the racial categories later used to justify conquest, rather than simply describe peoples who already existed? Was Hitler's empire held together mainly by coercion, or by the self-interest of local collaborators across occupied Europe? And what do the Victorian, Soviet, and American occupations of Afghanistan have in common that explains why each one eventually failed?

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full syllabus 

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summary topics/readings

Topic                                                              Required Readings             Slides

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Turbulence or Tempest?

Introducing Global Politics                                                     No readings                                   M1 slides                                  

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Global Politics or Geopolitics?                                               Agnew 1994                                    M2 slides                      

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States & Sovereignty                                                               Krasner 1999                                  M3 slides                                 

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Borders & State Deaths                                                           Fazal 2004                                       

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Anarchies                                                                                    Wendt 1992

 

Hierarchies                                                                                 Lake 1996

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Power & its measurements                                                     Barnett & Duvall 2005                 

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Hegemonizing                                                                            Gilping 1981                                   

 

Balancing                                                                                    Schweller 2016                            

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International Alliances                                                             Walt 1985                                      

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War & Rationality                                                                          Fearon 1995                             

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War & Uncertainty                                                                     Jervis 1988

 

International Institutions                                                         Koremenos et al 2001                 

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Trade & Globalization                                                                Walter 2021          

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INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC POLICY

 

International Public Policy                                                       No readings

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Global Public Goods                                                                  Sandler 2004

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Climate Change                                                                          Genovese 2019

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Demography & Migrations                                                      Salehyan & Savun 2024

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Inequalities and Transnational Capitals                              Milanovic 2024

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Conflict Resolution & Peace                                                    Gowan 2024

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MONOGRAPHIC SECTION

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Why and how conquering?                                                      Edelstein 2004

 

Who, why, and how resisting/collaborating?                       Kalyvas2008

 

Discovery of America                                                                Salgado 2025

 

Enslaving of Africa                                                                     Ewald 1992

 

Creation of Indochina                                                               Goscha 2009

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Nazi Empire I                                                                                Mazower 2009

 

Nazi Empire II                                                                               Kocher et al 2018

 

Afghanistan: Victorian/Soviet/American Wars                    Hallyday 1999

 

USA & Iraq 2013                                                                           Flibbert 2013

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