Insegnamento a.a. 2019-2020

This course presents a broad and in-depth overview of the recent research on international politics. We begin by briefly reviewing rationalist and behavioral approaches to international relations. In subsequent sections, we focus on particular issue areas of cooperation and conflict.The course is organized in 4 parts and 6 sections:

Part I:

• Rationalist approaches to interstate bargaining.
• Behavioral approaches to interstate bargaining.

Part II:

• Economic competition as a source of interstate conflict.
• Use of economic power as a diplomatic tool.

Part III:

• Use of diplomacy to resolve interstate conflict.

Part IV:

• National leaders and interstate conflict and cooperation.

• ​​​​​​Describe the relationship between economic and political tools of statecraft.
• Recognize the trade-offs that states face when employing different diplomatic tactics.
• Explain current trends in international relations from a historical point of view.

• Identify the sources of economic and diplomatic power of state actors.

• Evaluate the merits and drawbacks of various tactics that are used in interstate bargaining.

• Evaluate the possible implications of domestic political changes on interstate relations.

• Face-to-face lectures
• Group assignments

• Lectures are structured according to the standard format: the instructor presents and elaborate on the material contained in the required readings, which the students have read before class.

• Attendance is not required, but strongly recommended. Some of the assigned readings feature a high degree of sophistication in terms of methods of analysis. Although no formal prerequisites are required, the lectures provide students some necessary (yet informal) background that help them gain a better understanding of those readings that include a technical component.

• Student assessment is based on two partial exams, each making up 50% of the final grade, and both based on a mix of multiple-choice and open questions.
• The first partial exam focuses on the readings covered in Part I and II of the course, which mainly survey theories of interstate bargaining and economic tools of statecraft.
• The second partial exam covers the second half of the course (Part III and IV), which focus on the topics of diplomacy and links between domestic and international politics.

• Written general exam, (100% of the finale grade) based on a mix of multiple-choice and open questions, which aims to assess the student’s ability to describe the main theoretical and empirical findings contained in the readings covered over the course of the semester.

The required readings for this course are scientific articles, book chapters and policy reports that represent the key and/or state of the art contributions to the different topics analyzed. A complete list of the required and suggested reading is provided at the beginning of the course and is available on Bboard.