Ir 550: Foreign Policy Analysis

SYLLABUS

IR 550: FOREIGN POLICY ANALYSIS

Prerequisites: 550 students must complete all the core courses and pass all the required tests, such as Jepet (or its course equivalent) and the library test.

1. PURPOSE OF IR 550

The student of International Relations must learn to move quickly and easily from topic to topic and crisis to crisis, using highly developed skills in the quick collection and analysis of data. These skills have to be carefully cultivated. In general terms, the purpose of this course is to assist students in perfecting and demonstrating the analytic and research expertise they have developed in international relations.

Desired Student Learning Outcomes: Skills, Knowledge, and Ethics

A. Skills: Successful Students Should Be Able to:

1. Do professional research utilizing the library, the World Wide Web, Lexis/Nexis/

2. Make oral presentations (briefings) ranging from 10 minutes to 45 minutes without notes, augmented only by computer-generated visual aids.

3. Prepare professionally competent visual aids utilizing Power Point or other (approved) presentation graphics program.

4. Write professionally competent (i.e. error-free composition) research papers ranging from 22 pages to 70 pages in length.

5. Make an oral defense of presentations.

6. Work effectively in small groups on a common project.

7. Enhance abilities to analyze international events, particularly as those events might be viewed from the perspective of a single country: hence the sub-title of the course: Foreign Policy Analysis.

8. Demonstrate skill in utilizing graphs, charts, and maps to enhance briefing and explanation.

B. Knowledge: Successful Students Should Be Able to:

1. Analyze the foreign policy orientation of a selected country including its culture constructs, objective conditions, and the impact of the international political, economic, and environmental systems

2. Demonstrate understanding of major theoretical perspectives relevant to interpreting foreign policy behavior.

3. Demonstrate familiarity with historical state systems: Empires and Nation-states.

4. Demonstrate analytical knowledge of a past foreign policy decision by the selected country.

5. Demonstrate familiarity with prominent international institutions including the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, and at least one regional institution.

6. Demonstrate understanding of basic principles of international economics, including foreign economic perspectives, strategies, and patterns.

7. Demonstrate understanding of various national security perspectives, strategies, and patterns of behavior for the selected nation.

8. Demonstrate familiarity with global environmental problems from one nation’s perspective.

9. Demonstrate an understanding of the workings of the political-economic and political security systems of the selected country.

C. Ethics: Successful Students Should:

1. Demonstrate adherence to ethical standards with special reference to plagiarism and submitting papers that are done by someone else.

2. Demonstrate support for other students in accomplishing the purposes of the class.

3. Demonstrate cooperation with, and respect for, other students and assistants is expected. Students will be rewarded with a more fulfilling educational experience for all.

II. THE NATURE OF THE COURSE

A.An Activity Course.

IR 550 is not a lecture course. The abilities we wish to develop are not readily learned in that context. Rather, we organize student activity around tasks; some performed by each student without reference to others in the class, others requiring group cooperation.

B.Small Group Organization.

Each semester students are organized into small groups of teams reflecting the different areas of the world. The small group format encourages significant amounts of teamwork among students, particularly in the preparation and rehearsal of oral briefs. Students have reported to us that this requirement is, at once, one of the most valuable outcomes of the course and one of the most frustrating aspects of performing successfully.

C.Student Assistants.

The basic role of the assistant is to assist all members of her/his area group to perform up to their highest potential in all written and oral assignments. It is important for students to recognize that the assistants are not there to do the work for them, but to assist them in all ways reasonably possible. While assistants receive credit, they are not paid and have other classes and responsibilities so students must respect their schedules.

D.Demanding and Time-consuming Assignments

Because this is an activity type course, the student has a much greater responsibility than the student does in the more usual lecture-discussion course. The assignments are unquestionably demanding and time-consuming. They require a careful budgeting of time and effort, and they place a premium on thorough, yet prompt, delivery of oral and written presentations.

E.The Briefings

We call the oral presentation format "briefings." We live in a world of briefings. Those who learn its techniques, subtleties and power will undoubtedly find them useful in other classes and the world outside the classroom. After successful completion of the course, any fear of presenting ideas in front of a group of people will be greatly diminished and probably eliminated altogether. We ask students to prepare "briefing packages" which consist of an outline, a paper complete with an annotated bibliography, visual aids, and the oral briefing itself. These together, with class participation, constitute the material for evaluation by the instructor. Failure to do well in one aspect usually signals difficulty in other aspects.

F.Time Schedule

You will receive a daily time schedule which shows in detail just when you are supposed to do what. You are urged to consult it frequently and to follow it most carefully.

G.Class Procedures

1. SUMMARY OF TASKS AND POINTS ASSIGNED

I.Foreign Policy Orientation/Policy Assignment: 500 points

1. Bibliography Cards and Notecards: Credit/No Credit

2. Paper: Drafts: Credit/No Credit; Part I = 100 points, Part II = 200 points

3. Briefing: 200 points

II.Foreign Policy Decision-Making Assignment: 400 points

1. Note Cards: Credit/No Credit

2. Draft: Credit/No Credit; Paper: 250 points

3. Briefing: 150 points

IV.Class Participation: 100 points

2. GRADING

Grading is criterion-referenced, meaning that criteria are established for each grade category and grades are assigned according to the level of mastery exhibited by each student in meeting the criteria. This is often called "mastery learning." The result of criterion-referenced grading can be that all students in the class receive "A's" or all receive "F's," depending on the level of mastery.

3. CLASS PARTICIPATION

Class participation in the form of asking intelligent questions is required each session when the briefings are presented. Participation in rehearsals and group projects is also required. Unexcused absences risk a reduction of the final grade. This applies particularly to students who skip classes while putting finishing touches on papers or briefings. A minimum of 10 points per class period missed will be deducted. Quality of participation will also be considered in allocating points.

4. DUE DATES/LATE WORK

In/Out Checkpoints. There are "in/out" checkpoints at the beginning of the semester. Students who do not meet these checkpoints may be asked to drop the course. No further evaluation of their work will be done. The in/out checkpoints and late work penalties are:

• Task I Bibliography Checkpoints: All students must meet the scheduled date for review of their bibliography.
• Task I Drafts: Drafts with all sections complete, with citations, and spell-checked must be submitted on dates indicated.
• Task I Paper: Each part must be handed in no later than 1400 on the date scheduled or the student must withdraw from class. No exceptions will be made without medical or similarly serious excuse. Computer failures do not constitute a sufficient reason for failing to meet the deadline. Papers must be complete with no missing or partially completed sections.
• Task II Draft: Draft with all sections complete, with full citations, and spell and grammar-checked must be submitted on dates indicated.
• Task II Paper: Papers are due at 9:10 on day assigned. Assignments that are overdue will be subject to a penalty of one-half a letter grade for each calendar day the assignment is late.

5. BRIEFINGS:

• Visual aids are the only "notes" permitted the briefer.

• No student may give a brief without one full rehearsal.
• Students must be present in the briefing theater at the beginning of class the day scheduled to present their brief. (They cannot be in the lab working on the presentation, rehearsing, etc. while class is in session.)

• All briefings must be presented on the day assigned. There will be no makeup briefs without a documented medical excuse. No exceptions! Period.

6. INCOMPLETES

Except in a serious emergency (medical or otherwise life threatening) or instructor error, no incompletes will be given. Students will be assigned a zero if they do not satisfactorily complete the assignments, including credit/no credit assignments during the semester.

7. COLLEGIATE-LEVEL WORK

It is presumed that all students are capable of doing college-level work. Therefore, the instructor will deduct points from papers:

• Which do not follow the prescribed written format for written assignments;

• Which are ungrammatical, illegible, or filled with punctuation, spelling and typographical errors; and

• More specifically, the instructor will deduct .25 point for each composition error;

• Composition points deducted are not recoverable.

• "It's" and Other Contractions

The contraction "it's" for "it is" and other contractions will be not acceptable in the formal papers. Note that third-person possessive is written "its," as in "its economy."

• Some Common Spelling Errors

Use a computer spell-checker if possible, but realize it cannot distinguish--as you must--between "to" and "too," "lead" and "led," "principle" and principal," "there" and "their," etc.

8. FORMAT FOR WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT

• Each paper must follow the prescribed format for written assignments.

• At the very least, papers must:

 have a proper title page and table of contents;

be typewriter- or computer-written and double-spaced using a minimum 12 point font;

• contain an annotated bibliography featuring the sources used in researching the topic;
• have Chicago style footnoting;
• be spiral-bound with a clear plastic cover.

9. PLAGIARISM

Students need to follow standards of academic honesty. If caught plagiarizing student will receive “F” on assignment and may be asked to withdraw from the course and submit to University disciplinary proceedings that could result in suspension from classes or expulsion from the University.

H. Texts:

Laura Neack, The New Foreign Policy, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham Maryland, 2003.

DeVere Pentony, The 550 Book, Foreign Policy Analysis, with revisions by JoAnn Aviel and Andrei Tsygankov, c.d. 2003.

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