PLIR 3400 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Politifact.Com, Google News, Diane Rehm
18 Aug 2016
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High politics (heads of states, governments) vs low politics (societies) Religion is not a huge factor low politics. Our ta is pi cheng (carl) huang. Three big theories explaining foreign policy 20 years ago- will not be covered in this class. Model things, predict that states will behave rationally. Making foreign policy into a deductive science (like microeconomics) The idea that if you study the appropriate books you"ll understand. A peaceful, democratic future is the world"s future. Not much on great power security competition (eg, china vs us in the western. Not much social science (hard to test scientific claims about a single exceptional country) Lots of attention to policy debates about general and specific foreign policy goals. Lots of reading (250 pages per week) Choice of in-class/take-home midterm -open book- (25%) Choice of in-class final/ final paper (35%) Lecture activities every day from week 3 on. He who knows best, knows best how little he knows .
