One of the key issues involved in what appears to be a perpetual experimentation with economic development is the widening gap between the rich and the poor. To what extent, the widening gap discredit the claims of the Bretton Woods System and the current World Trade Organization? How should we evaluate the roles of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund?

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 2012

The Rich and the Poor

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.

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INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 2012