Department of Political Studies

POLS 261 Introduction to International Relations

Fall 2024

Instructor: Professor Wayne S. Cox

Office: MC C-304
Email: Coxw@[Link]
Office Hours: Mondays 11am-noon and Wednesdays 10-11am
Lectures: Tuesday 6:30-7:30pm and 8-9pm
Room: Humphrey Auditorium
Tutorials: Will begin AFTER the Add/Drop period ends
Head TA: Chelsea Dunn 16cd13@[Link]

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Academic integrity comprises the five core fundamental values of honesty, trust, fairness, respect and
responsibility ([Link] ) . These values are central to the
building, nurturing and sustaining of an academic community in which all members of the community
will thrive. Adherence to the values expressed through academic integrity forms a foundation for the
“freedom of inquiry and exchange of ideas” essential to the intellectual life of the University (see the
Senate Report on Principles and Priorities). Students are responsible for familiarizing themselves with
the regulations concerning academic integrity and for ensuring that their assignments conform to the
principles of academic integrity. Information on academic integrity is available in the Arts and Science
Calendar: see Academic Regulation 1 ([Link]
calendars/regulations/academic-regulations/regulation-1 ) and from the instructor of this course.
Departures from academic integrity include plagiarism, use of unauthorized materials, facilitation,
forgery and falsification, and are antithetical to the development of an academic community at
Queen’s. Given the seriousness of these matters, actions which contravene the regulation on academic
integrity carry sanctions that can range from a warning or the loss of grades on an assignment to the
failure of a course to a requirement to withdraw from the university.

Students are advised that incomplete standing will be granted only with the permission of the chair of
undergraduate or graduate studies (as appropriate) and only where there is a clear demonstration of need.
Applications for “Incomplete” standing must be made in the first instance to the instructor on the form
available in the General Office. The simple fact of non-submission of work does not constitute an
application and will result in a grade of zero for that assignment.

Students who feel that there are reasons to have their grades reviewed should follow the steps
set out in the Faculty of Arts and Science’s Regulation 11, “Review of Grades and
Examinations”
([Link]
regulations/regulation-11 ).

Copyright of Course Materials

This material is copyrighted and is for the sole use of students registered in POLS 261. This
material shall not be distributed or disseminated to anyone other than students registered in
this course. Failure to abide by these conditions is a breach of copyright, and may also constitute
a breach of academic integrity under the University Senate’s Academic Integrity Policy
Statement.

Students with Disabilities

Queen's University is committed to achieving full accessibility for persons with disabilities.
Part of this commitment includes arranging academic accommodations for students with disabilities
to ensure they have an equitable opportunity to participate in all of their academic activities.
If you are a student with a disability and think you may need accommodations, you are strongly
encouraged to contact the Disability Services Office (DSO) and register as early as possible. For more
information, including important deadlines, please visit the DSO website at:
[Link]

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GRADING SCHEME:

All components of this course will receive letter grades which, for purposes of calculating
your course average, will be translated into numerical equivalents using the Faculty of
Arts and Science approved scale:

Arts & Science Letter Grade Input Scheme

Numerical value for
Assignment mark
calculation of final mark
A+ 93
A 87
A- 82
B+ 78
B 75
B- 72
C+ 68
C 65
C- 62
D+ 58
D 55
D- 52
F48 (F+) 48
F24 (F) 24
F0 (0) 0

Your course average will then be converted to a final letter grade according to Queen’s
Official Grade Conversion Scale:
Queen’s Official Grade Conversion Scale
Numerical
Course
Grade
Average
(Range)
A+ 90-100
A 85-89
A- 80-84
B+ 77-79
B 73-76
B- 70-72
C+ 67-69
C 63-66
C- 60-62
D+ 57-59
D 53-56

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 D- 50-52
F 49 and below

Intended Student Learning Outcomes:

To complete this course students will demonstrate their ability to:

1.) Read and understand the core introductory literature in IR (International Relations)
in a critical and analytical way
2.) Develop a research program in IR built upon the core fundamental theories and
research of the discipline
3.) Develop skills to engage the course lecture material without the use of electronic
devices or electronic presentations
4.) Engage in constructive and interactive discussions of the course material in a
tutorial environment
5.) Learn and demonstrate the skills of professionalism, academic integrity, respect for
peers, meeting deadlines, and producing quality research that will be useful in
either an academic or professional career

Course description:

Political Studies 261 is the introductory course to the study of International Relations (IR)
at Queen’s University. This course is designed to give students the background and
analytical skills required for more advanced studies in IR. As an introduction to the field
of study, POLS 261 examines the various definitions of what the field is, what its central
concerns should be, which analytical tools are best-suited to the job, what theories are
used for, and why the field of study evolved the way it did. An emphasis is made to relate
this to world events up to the present. An analysis of key world events is provided in the
lectures (i.e. a background in history is not required). POLS 261 is designed to familiarize
students with the issues and approaches essential to the study of IR – questions of war
and peace, national security, the role of the ‘state’, foreign and defence policy, the links
between global politics and global economics, gender and race in international relations,
and international institutions. Students are introduced to the major conceptual debates in
the field of IR, and these ‘world descriptions’ are related to real world events. A special
emphasis will be placed upon the role that the United States has played though both
World Wars, the Cold War, into the post-Cold War, its current position as a key global
actor in a world of new emerging great powers, and what this means for Canada. There
will be two lectures each week on Tuesday evenings (with a break in between), and
students will have an additional hour of in class time in their various tutorial groups.
Attendance in the tutorial groups is required and grades for missed attendance cannot be
made up.

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Requirements and grading:

Each student will be required to complete a research essay, you will earn a grade for your
tutorial work, and there will be a final examination. The grade breakdown is as follows:

Tutorial Group: 10%

Research Essay 50%
Final Exam 40%
Total 100%

Discussion/Reading Groups:

Discussion groups will meet weekly starting after the add/drop period ends on
September 16 2024. Since the groups account for 10% of your grade in POLS 261, it is
strongly recommended that you attend all of the group sessions. Questions for you to
consider as you are doing your readings are provided in this course outline. You will
notice that the course readings and the lectures follow separate streams – but are
complimentary. This means, that you cannot make up for missed reading material by
attending the lectures, and you also cannot make up for missed lectures by doing the
readings alone. I will allow each TA to approach their group structure in whatever way
best suits their individual teaching style. However, it will be stressed to them that they
must cover the course readings, relate the readings to the lectures, address key questions
brought up in the lectures, review the lecture material, and engage in student
participation/discussion. Please keep in mind that destructive participation like
dominating discussions, rudeness, or lateness will lower your grades. The same is true for
a lack of attendance. If you miss a group, a grade of zero will be assigned for that week
and make-ups will not be allowed.

Essays and grading:

Students will be required to research and write a term paper that is worth 50% of your
POLS 261 grade. You will be given a choice of topics for your research assignment, but the
overall format of the assignment is very formalized. This has been done as a proactive
measure against plagiarism, re-using parts of (or all of) papers from other courses, using
AI to research and write your papers, or the purchasing of pre-written papers. This means
that students CANNOT ask to write on any other topic (or approach the paper in any
other way). Students must do what is required on the assignment sheet. The assignment
sheet will be available during the third week of classes.

Papers are due by 5:30pm on Tuesday November 5th 2024. They should be
submitted onto the POLS 261 OnQ page.

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Obviously, any student who has an official Letter of Accommodation from QSAS or
SWS can expect that their specific need for additional time will be met.

Assignments will be submitted electronically OnQ and will immediately be deposited into
a DropBox for TAs to grade. This means that we will have an accurate electronic ‘paper
trail’ of exactly when your essay came in. Very serious late penalties (see below) will be
imposed upon all late assignments. Fairness of grades is extremely important in large
classes. Meeting deadlines is also essential to success in the workplace in whatever career
you enter after university. Students who have a history of not meeting deadlines also often
have difficulty securing letters of recommendation in their upper years since most who
ask for letters of reference will bluntly be asking if the student can meet deadlines
effectively. All grading will be done by the teaching assistants, and each and every grade
will be reviewed by the professor. Please make a backup and hard-copy of your essay
before you submit it. Do not rely upon electronic backups only. The professor might
request an unaltered electronic version of your essay in the event that there is some
question as to when it was completed. Altering your electronic backup will change its last
accessed date and time in its electronic footprint, which means that altered electronic
backups will NOT help your case if there is any question as to when the paper was
completed.

Lateness and penalties:

All late assignments will receive a penalty of 10% per day late, until the end of the third
day when the assignment will be given a penalty of 50% (of 100%). If the assignment is
still late, it will be docked a further 5% per day.

Late penalties begin immediately after (i.e. 1 second after), the

assignment is due.

Extensions on Assignments:

To ensure fairness and transparency, TAs CANNOT grant extensions, and your professor
will only grant an extension if there has been a formal request made for
accommodation/consideration through the Faculty of Arts and Science Office. Until your
professor has received formal written notification from the Faculty Office, no extensions
will be granted and the above late penalties will apply. If you become ill or experience a
legitimate extenuating circumstance or personal emergency, it is highly recommended
that you contact the professor to get advice on how to apply for
accommodation/consideration quickly. It is also important to make the professor aware
of your situation. We DO NOT want students stressed or working on assignments if they
are ill or are in a situation whereby working on their assignments could make their
situation worse. However, the need for a fair and fully transparent system means that all

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requests should go through the Faculty of Arts and Science Office and not be done on an
ad-hoc basis by professors or teaching assistants.

Grade appeals:

POLS 261 has a formal grade appeal process. The appeal process will be the following IN
ALL CASES. If a student is unhappy with an essay grade, you must first discuss the essay
and its grade with your teaching assistant. You cannot discuss your paper until at least
three full days after the assignments are returned. It is assumed that during this time, you
will read and digest carefully your essay and the comments on it. You also cannot discuss
your essay with the professor since I must remain unbiased and impartial in any final
decision regarding the essay’s grade. Should you insist upon discussing the essay with
me prior to an appeal, then the request for an appeal will be denied. The discussion with
your TA is to ensure that you are fully aware of the grade assigned, and the comments
made by the grader. However, TA’s cannot change grades since all essay grades have
already been reviewed and approved by the professor. If you are still unhappy with your
grade, then you can contact the professor and ask for a reread. You will then provide the
professor with a clean unaltered electronic version of your paper. This version will be read
by a second TA and reviewed by the professor. Should the evaluation of the clean version
of the paper by a second grader be greater OR less than 5% of the grade assigned, you
must accept the revised grade (even if it is lower). If a student is still unhappy with their
overall grade at the end of the term, then they may use the University’s formal appeal
process as described in the university calendar.

Lectures and required reading:

The lectures in POLS 261 and readings are designed to work together – although they are
very different. The lectures will synthesize a great deal of material that you cannot get by
doing the readings alone. Since the lectures do not cover the readings directly, it will be
impossible to pass this course unless you attend all the lectures. It is best to have the
readings completed BEFORE you attend the lectures. I will deliberately NOT use
PowerPoint or overheads with bullets since this creates a passive audience and decides for
you what is, and what is not important. Making overheads or PowerPoint lecture notes
available online to students also entices some students to miss many lectures. The use of
pre-formulated lecture notes and PowerPoint tends to disengage students from the lecture
material. This became painfully obvious during the Pandemic as the university pivoted its
delivery to remote teaching. It also often results in professors giving a pre-formulated
lectures, and those sorts of lectures tend to lack political analysis or allow the professor to
‘think on their feet” while presenting material. The intent here is to get students to take
their own notes, learn how to make key decisions during the lectures about what is most
important and what is not, and pay careful attention to all of the lecture material. It is also
designed to keep your professor on his toes, think on his feet, and deliver engaged
lectures. This is a far more engaged form of learning. Your discussion groups will review
the reading material and discuss how it relates to the lectures. Should you experience

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difficulties with the readings, you are encouraged to ask your tutor, or contact the
professor to discuss. As the term progresses, more of the lectures will be presented in a
formal, argumentative format. These later lectures are designed to provoke thought on
the part of the student, and become the basis for group discussions. None of this
‘normative’ or argumentative material can be gained through the readings.

The Exam

The final exam will be a remote ‘take home’ exam. It will be distributed OnQ. Students
will have 24 hours to complete the exam. There is no need for you to have a proctor or be
monitored for this exam because it will be so specific to POLS 261 that cutting and pasting,
or plagiarizing will be impossible.

40% of your final grade will be based upon the examination. Your ability to retain and
review the literature and lecture material will be tested, but this alone will not be enough
to pass this exam. The exam is designed to test your ability to think critically and
analytically. Your final examination will require you to answer one question directly
based upon the readings, and the other question will be directly based upon the lectures.
There will be a choice of questions in each section. Each of these questions will require
you to use your knowledge of the reading AND lecture material as the basis for some
creative and thoughtful analysis of international politics. The questions will also be
designed to see how well each student can relate the lecture and reading material to each
other. Rants or polemics are tickets to failure.

Required Text:

We will use a single text for POLS 261. Our text is the Ninth Edition of Baylis, Smith and
Owens, and prior editions might be available used at a lower cost. However, the 9th
edition includes some revised material that is not in the 7th or 8th edition, along with some
additional updates. The book is a bit pricey, but it is an excellent resource and will be of
use to students who go on to take upper level courses in International Relations.

Text:

John Baylis, Steve Smith and Patricia Owens, The Globalization of World Politics, (8th
Edition) Oxford University Press, New York, 2019.

Section One: Defining International Relations

Each week comes with a set of questions to consider while you read and prepare for the
tutorial groups. These questions may also help while preparing for the final examination.

Week 1: September 3 2024

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Introduction to POLS 261

Lectures

1.) Introduction, course overview and expectations

2.) Course expectations, readings, tutorial groups

No Reading for this week – get yourself a textbook

_______________________________________________________________________________

WEEK 2: September 10th 2024: DEFINING INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Lectures

1.) What is International Relations? What are Paradigms/Perspectives?/20th Century

History and the Creation of a Field in 1918-1919

2.) The Interwar Years: Idealism versus Realism and World War Two and the
dominance of Realism

Readings:
• “Introduction”, from Baylis, Smith and Owens.
• “Globalization and global politics”, Anthony McGrew from Baylis, Smith and Owens.

If we define International Relations as the study of how states interact with each other,
what then gets left out? What are the implications of using history as the basis of ‘fact’
when developing theories of world politics? Does history come with preferences of its
own? If so, what are they and how do some ‘facts’ become more important than others?

Week 3: September 17th 2024 : History and IR – The ‘Real World’

Lectures

1.) The end of WWII – Realism as theory and Internationalism as practice: The onset
of the Cold War

2.) Hans Morgenthau and Politics Among Nations: The core assumptions of realism
revisited

Readings:

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• George Lawson, “The rise of modern international order” from Baylis, Smith and
Owens.
• Len Scott, “International History of the twentieth century” from Baylis, Smith and
Owens.

We often hear that the history of world events is one of great clashes and competitions
between societies over the years. Does this imply that power politics (realpolitik) is the
basis of international relations? What is left out when we make such and assumption? Is
it not possible that there has been at least as much cooperation as there has been conflict
over the years? Why do we not focus upon cooperation instead?

Section Two: The Multiple Lenses of IR (Paradigms)

Week 4: September 24th 2024: Realism versus Idealism – a Debate?

Lectures

1.) Realism versus Idealism

2.) The Post WWII International Order – Institution Building and the onset of the
Cold War and Realism

Readings:
• Tim Dunne and Brian Schmidt, “Realism” from Baylis, Smith and Owens.

• Tim Dunne “Liberal Internationalism”, from Baylis, Smith and Owens, pp. 116-128.

Suggested Reading (should be available on line, or ask your TA)

• Hans Morgenthau, “A Realist Theory of International Relations” and “Political

Power”.
• Woodrow Wilson, “The Fourteen Points,” Address to US Congress, 8 January 1918.

Was it correct to assume that states are the most important actors in global politics in 1918,
or was it merely a reflection of the times? Does state power and conflict outcomes
determine all that is important in world politics? If power determines outcomes in world
politics, and Russia has so much more military power than does the Ukraine, why is
Russia having such a difficult time achieving its objectives in the Ukraine? Why did
NATO and US not achieve their objectives in Afghanistan? The US in Iraq or Vietnam?
Does power actually determine outcomes, and do we actually know what state power is?
Were idealists just ‘dreaming’ when they thought that a power higher than the sovereign
state could actually bring peace to the world?

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Week 5: October 1st 2024: Realist Domination and the Cold War –
International Relations or Western Foreign Policy?

Lectures

1.) Realism as THE religion of IR – The Elvis Analogy

2.) American Hegemony – what does that mean? Realist Hegemony in the 1950s to
those groovy 1960s – Elvis rules, to Elvis is no longer ‘The King’

Readings:
• Michael Cox, “From the end of the cold war to a new world dis-order?””, from Baylis,
Smith and Owens.
• John Baylis “International and Global Security”, from Baylis, Smith and Owens.

Suggested Reading:

• Headly Bull, “Does Order Exist in World Politics?”

Given what you now know about the way many saw world politics at the height of the
Cold War in the 1950’s, has this type of ‘world view’ really gone away, or does it still exist.
In theoretical terms (realist or idealist) how would you label the ‘War On Terror’ or the
War in Syria, the War in the Ukraine, or the ways that the US has conducted itself under
Bush, Obama, Trump or Biden?

Week 6: October 8th 2024: Into the 1970s and 1980s -- The development of
multiple lenses for IR (The Inter-Paradigm Debate)

Lectures

1.) Decolonization and how the world was not behaving like realists expected it to –
Vietnam and American Hegemony

2.) The Development of a Global Hegemonic Order under US Leadership - some say
Elvis is dead while others claim he is alive

Readings:

• Reread Tim Dunne, “Liberal Internationalism”, from Baylis, Smith and Owens.
• Stephen Hobden and Richard Wyn Jones, “Marxist Theories of International
Relations”, from Baylis, Smith and Owens.

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Is IR better off as a single paradigm, or does it offer better insights into global politics with
a series of contending perspectives? Do the alternatives to realism effectively address the
limitations that the classical approach had to face given world events by the 1960s and
1970s? In what ways is the English School ‘realist’, and in what ways is it not ‘realist’?
Does the emergence of an English School of realism suggest that the mainstream form of
realism had morphed itself into an American Enterprise? What does this tell us about the
links between how we view world politics, and the interests of powerful actors like the US
or the UK?

WEEK 7: October 15th 2024 Thanksgiving and Fall Term Break – No

classes

____________________________________________________________________

Week 8: October 22nd 2024: Pluralism Expanded – Is IR really only about

War and Peace?

Lectures

1.) Structuralism and Global Order: Dependency, Post-Colonialism, and

Neoimperialism

2.) The New Idealism – Liberal Institutionalism, Interdependence, and Integration:

Non-State Actors in Global Politics

Readings:
• Edward Best and Thomas Christiansen, “Regionalism in International Affairs” from
Baylis, Smith and Owens.
• Susan Park,, “International organizations in world politics” from Baylis, Smith and
Owens.

Suggested Readings:

• Paul Taylor and Devon Curtis, “The United Nations”, from Baylis, Smith and Owens.
• Andre Gunder Frank, “The Development of Underdevelopment”. Available online –
check Google Scholar.

Is it possible that the central question facing world politics is NOT issues of war and
peace, but rather the unequal division of global wealth? Is human cooperation at the
global level a ‘learned behaviour’? If so, can we trust states to teach us how to cooperate
when they spend a good deal of their time and money preparing for war? If we cannot

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expect states to teach us how to cooperate, then who/what can we expect to do this? Is
the claim of states’ to have the legitimate use of force and spend portions of our national
wealth on militaries really needed, or is it just a mechanism that empowers certain elites in
our societies? Have non-state actors like social movements and economic marketplaces
done a better job of promoting global cooperation that states have? If so, why should we
trust states with our security?

Week 9: October 29th 2024: The 1980s, the ‘New Cold War’, the end of the
Cold War, and what it all meant for IR.

Lectures

1.) The New Cold War and Globalization

2.) Reagan, Thatcher, Neoliberalism and the End of the Cold War

• Tarak Barkawi, “War and world politics”, from Baylis, Smith and Owens.
• Micheal Barnett, “Social Constructivism”, from Baylis, Smith and Owens, pp. 144-158.

Was the rebirth of the Cold War in the 1980s really about power-politics, or was it more
about only the interests of a few powerful people and groups (some Republicans in the
US, the Soviet Politbureau, the British Conservative Party, the Lockheed Corp. etc.)? Is the
world a more stable place under the leadership and domination of one (or two) great
powers? If so, what gives them the right to lead? Has the recent Russian role in Syria
followed by the Russian invasion of the Ukraine started a Second Cold War, or is this
something different? Is the recent Russian/Western distrust an example of bipolarity, or
has the character of global politics changed so much since the post WWII era that the
concept of bipolarity does not really work anymore?

Week 10: November 5th 2024: Contemporary Global Politics.

Lectures

1.) The 1990s: Neoliberal Globlization as Practice

2.) 9/11 and (re)Securitization in Globalization – Us versus Them

Readings:

• Lene Hansen “Poststructuralism”, from Baylis, Smith and Owens.

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• Meera Sabarainam, “Postcolonial and decolonial approaches”, from Baylis, Smith and
Owens.
• Tony Evans, “Poverty, hunger and development”, from Baylis, Smith and Owens.

Is there a working definition of globalization, or does it mean different things to different

people? If we are living in a world in which state actors have lost their traditional
significance, what implication does this have for issues of peace and security? If states
attempt to regain the autonomy they seem to have lost to the process of globalization (by
establishing more clearly defined borders, less dependence upon other states and societies,
and aspiring to less transnational economic activity, etc.), would this be a safer world?
Did the ‘War on Terror’ made the world (or parts of it) a safer place? Was 9/11 and the
emergence of global networks of terrorism simply a consequence of globalization? Did the
emergence of Trump in the US , the Brexit movement in the UK, and right winged
extremist nationalism movements elsewhere mean that one of the responses to
globalization has been a rise of often racially charged xenophobic and mean-spirited
political movements? Is this similar to the emergence of fascism in Italy and national
socialism in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s? What impact, if any, has this had upon
domestic politics in a place like Canada?
_________________________________________________________________________

Week 11: November 12th 2024: New axis of global power – Gendered
lenses and world politics

Lectures

1.) Why the need for a gendered understanding of world politics?: IR as a ‘gender
neutral’ field of study

2.) The history of ‘feminism(s)’ and the history of IR: Political Economy as an
alternative lens?

Given that gendered and feminist perspectives have been an important part of other
disciplines such as history, economics, sociology (etc.) for the past 100 years, why has
International Relations been so slow in developing both research on women in world
politics and a set of perspectives that include a gendered analysis? Is IR a militarized and
masculinist field of study? Why has the history of ideas in IR been a narrative told by and
understood by mostly Western, white Christian and privileged men? Why have so few
important scholars in the discipline been women, and does the inclusion of women in the

14
field resolve all of its limitations in understanding the differing consequences of key world
events in like wars, financial crises, natural disasters etc. on men and women?

Readings:

• Paul Kirby, “Gender”, from Balyis, Smith and Owens.

• Helen Kinsella, “Feminism” from Baylis, Smith and Owens.

Week 12: November 19th 2024: Canada as an Actor in World Politics and
Course Overview

Lectures

1.) Canada as a Middle Power: Myth or reality?

2.) Canada and Liberal Internationalism: Myth or reality?

Readings:

• Nicola Phillips, “Global Political Economy”, from Baylis, Smith and Owens.
• Robbie Shilliam, “Race in world politics”, from Baylis, Smith and Owens.

The mythology around Canada as an actor in world politics is often one in which Canada
is viewed as an internationalist state committed to the collective enterprise of international
institutions like the UN, OAS, WTO, etc., a trustworthy alliance player, and a revered
democracy always willing to assist states and people in need and willing to bring
Canadian knowledge, experience and tolerance to those in need. This narrative knows no
political boundary inside Canada -- it is a mythology used by every political party since at
least the end of the Cold War. A few questions: Is this even true? Is this narrative mostly
for us at home as an attempt to unite a diverse society and make us feel better about
ourselves? If some in Canada do not buy into this myth, who would they be and why not
buy into it? Can you think of some people outside of Canada who do not buy into this
image of Canada either? Why? Does this image of Canada as some sort of do-gooder
benevolent international boy scout come embedded with a sense of Canadian superiority?
Are we really that much better than Americans, or anyone else for that matter?

15
_______________________________________________________________________________

Week 13: November 26th 2024: Conclusion and Review for Exam

Lectures

1.) Overview of the history of IR and the World History

2.) Questions for the Final Exam

Are there any common themes or topics throughout this term that tie the study of IR
together? In your opinion, what are the ten most important concepts/definitions to IR?
Some hints: the state, power, realism, idealism, neorealism, internationalism, balance of
power, integration, interdependence, foreign policy, underdevelopment, decolonization,
pluralism, alliances, the Cold War, hegemony, hegemonic stability, regionalism,
globalization, international institutions, anarchy, sovereignty, the nation-state, the
multinational state, the military-industrial complex, neomarxism, Thatcherism,
Reaganism, transnationalism, non-state actors, the UN, NATO, NORAD, OAS, Warsaw
Pact, among others.

Readings:

There are no readings for the final week – you should be studying for the exam!

Final Note:

Back when I was a young cruel professor (or at least more cruel than I am now), this was
the final exam for POLS 260 (a year long course that covered both POLS 261 and POLS
262). The exam was worth 50% of the course grade. It was a three hour exam.

Section A: (50% of the exam).

Write a question that covers ALL of the course material, and requires students to tie the
core concepts from the lecture material into the core concepts covered in the lectures in an
argumentative and analytical way.

Section B: (50% of the exam).

Answer your question.

16
Try it as you study for the final exam. It is a very good exercise. It will force you to
confront what you know about international relations, and quickly reveal how much you
do not know about international relations. Do not worry, I shan’t do that again. About
15-20% of the class aced the exam with some of the highest grades I have ever seen. The
other 80-85% did extremely poorly, or failed the exam – and I mean failed it badly.

17