790:569 Topics in American Foreign Policy

Rutgers University Fall 2006
Hickman Hall 313
M 5:40-8:20

Instructor: Professor Michael Shafer
Department of Political Science

Contact: mshafer@rutgers.edu
Office Hours: Mon. 4:15-5:15
Office: Hickman Hall 311

Course Overview

This course has three specific aims, but one main purpose. As for the former, it will, first, give you a passing familiarity with a few of the key topics in American foreign policy today, though it is not an introduction to the history and institutions of American foreign policy making, nor to policy issues related to its future. Specifically, it will examine (as ever) changing dynamic of American relations with the world out there in the face of the supposedly new phenomenon of “globalization”, recent and dramatic changes in the formal structure of world power, the rise of new economic powers, and the interesting, if overblown, issue of terrorism, as well as the increasingly interesting issue of what is and is not “American” and what is and is not “foreign” policy. Second, it will introduce you to the major, competing theoretical perspectives on the sources and intentions of American foreign policy. Third, it will provide the opportunity to read carefully and critically a small number of recent works in the field. In short, my aim is to turn you into informed consumers of the current American foreign policy literature.

The course's essential purpose, however, is to begin the alchemy of making you into political scientists, into makers, not mere consumers, of political science. We are not, therefore, going to spend hours deconstructing authors’ arguments, interesting though they may be. Instead, we are going to spend our time deconstructing the process of research and reflection by which they came to write the books we read. Having done so, we are going to engage in the immeasurably more difficult task of generating original and defensible research designs. And as an essential part of this effort, in class we are going to mimic the professional process to the greatest extent possible. We will not only talk a lot about issues of professionally appropriate behavior, but we will actually constitute ourselves as an editorial board charged with reviewing and responding to submitted manuscripts (yours and your classmates’ research designs), manuscripts for which you will be responsible for drafting “revise and resubmit” letters.

Course Requirements

Organization and Requirements:

(1) Each of you will write—and then rewrite to meet “editorial board” specs—two 5 page research designs. (2) Each of you will also introduce the readings on two occasions during the semester. Presenters will distribute a one-page summary brief on the readings for the week emphasizing the relationship (substantive and theoretical) of the readings to the rest of the literature. Due dates for papers and class-leading assignments will be assigned on the first day. (3) On an alternating basis, all students not assigned to write a paper or to lead the class are required to submit either a one page summary of each week's assigned reading (the so-called “Four Questions”) or a one page "reverse engineered" research design for the week's assigned reading. (4) Students who have prepared research designs in a given week will distribute copies to everybody. Each class will then begin with a half hour editorial board discussion of the research design submitted the previous week. Everybody else is required to bring two copies of a “Reader’s Report” of the research design to class for this discussion, one for the author and one for me. The class “editorial board” “revise and resubmit” in hand, authors will then rewrite and resubmit the research design.

Course Packet:

For any questions regarding the schedule of assignments, the Four Questions, the Reverse Engineered Research Design, Reader’s Reports, guidelines for presentations and research designs, see the “Course Packet,” available at http://cgsd.rutgers.edu/shafer.shtml.

Case:

Searching for the sources of foreign policy can be —and often is—an arid, academic (some might say scholastic) endeavor. But however abstract, the reality of the American foreign policy that we study is made by witting individuals just like yourselves who do their best with the working knowledge and hypotheses they have to fashion solutions to concrete problems. In order to help you “concretize” the theory we are reading and, more important, to give you the opportunity to reality check it, we will start the semester with a Harvard Business School style case. You will be assigned a role in a scenario that will require you to apply theoretical knowledge and the social scientific process to a real world problem in American foreign policy directly related to the course. The case and case assignments are available at http://cgsd.rutgers.edu/shafer.shtml. I will give you your personal assignment in class on September 11.

Research:

Both papers and case may/will require considerable additional research. One particularly valuable source of data and more is the Center for Global Security and Democracy website, http://cgsd.rutgers.edu. Click on Resources for Students and Faculty.

Grading:

60% papers (30% each divided 10/20); 20% class leading (10% per class); and 20% comments on others' research designs. Failure to complete the weekly assignments will reduce your final mark by one half grade. In the event that you are not satisfied with your grade on a paper, I offer the opportunity to rewrite, and will average the original and revised paper grades.

Books:

All books marked (*) are available for purchase at the Rutgers University Bookstore. All readings except the case are available on reserve at the Graduate Reading Room, Alexander Library. These are available at http://cgsd.rutgers.edu/shafer.shtml.

WARNING:

This course is about how one constructs research designs appropriate for exploring issues in social science in general and international relations/American foreign policy in particular. It therefore assumes that you are familiar with American diplomatic history, and the workings and institutions of American foreign policy making. Further, though we will talk about it in our first meeting, I also assume that you have at least a passing familiarity with international relations theory.

Class Schedule

Topics in American Foreign Policy

Week 1. (September 11) Introduction: House keeping details, main themes of the course, and an introduction to contending explanations of the sources of American foreign policy and international relations.

Prep China case: familiarize yourself with the WTO, MFN, China’s pre-WTO international trade relations and Chinese-American trade relations in particular.

Week 2. (September 18) Hands-on: Foreign Policy Makes Strange Bedfellows and Requires Hard Choices

Case: “The Eagle and the Dragon: The November 1999 US-China Bilateral Agreement and Battle over PNTR.”

Keohane and Nye, Power and Interdependence, chapters 1-2. Library reserve.

Robert Gilpin, “Economic Interdependence and National Security in Historical Perspective,” Knorr and Trager, eds., Economic Issues and National Security. Library reserve.

Week 3. (September 25)