The focus here is the normative background which helped promote the tenets of the “Realist” school of International Relations. Though professing to be rooted in the human nature, the realist school in fact represents more of the sense of uncertainty surrounding the rise of the Soviet power since the 1930s.

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 2012

Conflicting Norms and Policy Agenda

The purpose of this course is to help students advance along the lines of their specific interests in the policy issues of International Relations. These issues include, among others, conflict-resolution, regional cooperation, poverty-reduction, and environmental protection. Equally important for students, however, is the establishment of firm theoretical footings. As in many other policy-related fields of inquiry, theories in International Relations are not context-free. The constraints of time often dictate theory formulation as they profoundly influence the theorists’ normative commitments. Given these, the course consists of three major components. 1) A firm historical background, a common prerequisite for all issue-specific perspectives. 2) Critical examinations of selected empirical and normative theories. 3) Examinations of specific policy issues in light of normative perspectives. The course fuses these three major components into a narrative flow moving from “High Politics” to “Low Politics.” Along the way, the course discusses a new framework for defining policy issues in need of solution, Human Security.

About

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 2012