210211 LK BAK8 International Politics (2014S)

The course will focus on central topics from the subfield International Politics, especially on the history and the different theories (idealism, realism, etc.) of international relations. It is designed as a complementary seminar to the introductory lecture held by professor Ulrich Brand.

In the first half of the semester we will focus on the history of international relations and the different theories that try to describe and explain it. We will discuss these topics in the light of the focus of this class and relate them to different aspects of American foreign policy. The aim of this first part of the class is to give students an overview of both the general history and the theories of international relations while at the same time introducing them to key themes of American foreign policy.

In the second half of the semester we will expand our focus on American politics and concentrate on domestic politics in the U.S. and how it relates to the aspects of foreign policy that we discussed in the first part. Among other topics we will focus on the increasing social inequality in the U.S., the problem of political polarization/gridlock and the role of social movements.

Attention: Although the class will be held in English some of the texts we will read for the lecture are written in German. Students should therefore be able to read and understand academic texts in German since they are required to hand in short text summaries every week.