This seminar provides an overview of the field of international relations. Each week, a different approach to explaining international relations will be examined. By surveying major concepts and theories in the field, the seminar will also assist graduate students in preparing for the comprehensive examination and further study in the department's more specialized offerings in international relations.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Can your country’s tax laws help you find true love? A research team based in Europe has found that a government’s tax scheme surrounding marriage could affect a couple’s decision to tie the knot. The majority of countries across the globe have a tax code that changes according to marital status -- usually in the form of either a tax penalty or tax bonus. With a penalty, a couple will end up paying more in taxes than two similarly compensated single individuals, and with a bonus, they will pay less. To get to the heart of whether the financial implications connected to such tax laws influence a couple’s desire to get married, the researchers applied a rigorous theoretical model they called the marriage proposal game. In the game, two potential spouses – Sam and Robin – can either get married, live together without formal marriage, or break up..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

Define common forms of government, such as monarchy, oligarchy, dictatorship, and democracyCompare common forms of government and identify real-life examples of each The image is a map of the world showing the Economist Intelligence Unit's 2020 Democracy Index scores for each state.  Image from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

How and why do we participate in public life? How do we get drawn into community and political affairs? In this course we examine the associations and networks that connect us to one another and structure our social and political interactions. Readings are drawn from a growing body of research suggesting that the social networks, community norms, and associational activities represented by the concepts of civil society and social capital can have important effects on the functioning of democracy, stability and change in political regimes, the capacity of states to carry out their objectives, and international politics.

This course explores the foundations of policy making in developing countries. The goal is to spell out various policy options and to quantify the trade-offs between them. We will study the different facets of human development: education, health, gender, the family, land relations, risk, informal and formal norms and institutions. This is an empirical class. For each topic, we will study several concrete examples chosen from around the world. While studying each of these topics, we will ask: What determines the decisions of poor households in developing countries? What constraints are they subject to? Is there a scope for policy (by government, international organizations, or non-governmental organizations (NGOs))? What policies have been tried out? Have they been successful?
MITx Online Version
This course is part of the Micromaster’s Program in Data, Economics, and Design of Policy through MITx Online. The course is entirely free to audit, though learners have the option to pay a fee, which is based on the learner's ability to pay, to take the proctored exam, and earn a course certificate. To access the course, create an MITx Online account and enroll in the course 14.740x Foundations of Development Policy.

For years I’ve wanted to write a book about racism. But after visiting Barnes and Nobles, both online and our actual bookstore here in Boise, Idaho; I realized there were already volumes of books and articles written on the subject of racism. I asked myself, could I write a book on racism that would be different than the books already available? So, I started to think about my twenty years of personal experiences, conducting courses, giving seminars, lectures, and writing articles about racism. In those seminars, lectures and articles, I always wanted to make sure my students, the attendees , and readers learned something specific; something they could take home and use immediately. After realizing what I’d been doing for all those years, I decided that teaching something very specific about racism would make my book different. In all my lectures, seminars, courses and articles, I always had a primary goal; teach people how to move from being a non-racist, to becoming an antiracist. Everything I spoke, taught and wrote was about helping people to see where they really stood regarding racism and how to take the necessary action to becoming a positive change agent.

A message directed towards college-level students, encouraging them to register and vote in the 2020 U.S. election. An accompanying message to faculty encouraging them to post this message to students in their course learning management systems (or via email) can also be found here on OER Commons: https://www.oercommons.org/courses/gotv-faculty-email

This course introduces students to the rudiments of game theory as practiced in political science. It teaches students the basic elements of formal modeling and strategies for solving simple games. Readings draw from introductory texts on game theoretic modeling and applied articles in American politics, international relations, and comparative politics.

Mahatma Gandhi and Buddha share principles that resonate across time and cultures. In this article, the first in the series we explore four principles that are common between the two.

This course will provide students with an analytic framework to understand the roles that gender, race, and class play in defining and determining access to leadership and power in the U.S., especially in the context of the workplace. We will explore women and men in leadership positions within the corporate, political and non-profit sectors, with attention to the roles of women of color and immigrant women within this context. We will also look at specific policies such as affirmative action, parental leave, child-care policy, and working-time policies and the role they play–or could play–in achieving parity. We will further investigate ways in which these policies address gender, racial, and class inequities, and think critically about mechanisms for change. The course will be highly interactive, and will combine texts, theater, videos and visual arts.

Professor James Stacey Taylor of the College of New Jersey discusses the contributions of philosopher and economist Adam Smith to the Scottish Enlightenment. Smith is best remembered as the father of modern economics, but he also made important contributions to philosophy in his book "The Theory of Moral Sentiments".

Professor James Stacey Taylor of the College of New Jersey discusses the contributions of philosopher, historian, and economist David Hume to the Scottish Enlightenment, with a particular focus on sentimentalist philosophy.

Professor James Stacey Taylor of the College of New Jersey discusses the contributions of philosopher Francis Hutcheson to the Scottish Enlightenment, especially his contributions to the sentimentalist approach to morality.

This class is designed to expose you to the cycles of disasters, the roots of emergency planning in the U.S., how to understand and map vulnerabilities, and expose you to the disaster planning in different contexts, including in developing countries.

Detailed exploration of contemporary debates and controversies regarding global justice. Topics include: human rights theory, the moral significance of national and cultural boundaries, the currency of distributive justice, global inequality and poverty, environmental devastation, and violence against women and children.

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and National Geographic commissioned a survey to gauge what young people educated in American colleges and universities know about geography, the environment, demographics, U.S. foreign policy, recent international events, and economics. The survey, conducted in May 2016 among 1,203 respondents aged eighteen to twenty-six, revealed significant gaps between what young people understand about today’s world and what they need to know to successfully navigate and compete in it. Included on site is the full survey report (PDF) and a sample quiz of some of the survey questions.

This seminar explores changes in the international economy and their effects on domestic politics, economy, and society. Is globalization really a new phenomenon? Is it irreversible? What are effects on wages and inequality, on social safety nets, on production, and innovation? How does it affect relations between developed countries and developing countries? How globalization affects democracy? These are some of the key issues that will be examined.

Tracing the evolution of international interactions, this course examines the dimensions of globalization in terms of scale and scope. It is divided into three parts; together they are intended to provide theoretical, empirical, and policy perspectives on source and consequences of globalization, focusing on emergent structures and processes, and on the implications of flows of goods and services across national boundaries -- with special attention to the issue of migration, on the assumption that people matter and matter a lot. An important concern addressed pertains to the dilemmas of international policies that are shaped by the macro-level consequences of micro-level behavior. 17.411 fulfills undergraduate public policy requirement in the major and minor. Graduate students are expected to explore the subject in greater depth through reading and individual research.

This subject examines the paradoxes of contemporary globalization. Through lectures, discussions and student presentations, we will study the cultural, linguistic, social and political impact of globalization across broad international borders.

We will pay attention to the subtle interplay of history, geography, language and cultural norms that gave rise to specific ways of life. The materials for the course include fiction, nonfiction, audio pieces, maps and visual materials.

This subject examines the paradoxes of contemporary globalization. Through lectures, discussions and student presentations, we will study the cultural, linguistic, social and political impact of globalization across broad international borders.
We will pay attention to the subtle interplay of history, geography, language and cultural norms that gave rise to specific ways of life. The materials for the course include fiction, nonfiction, audio pieces, maps and visual materials.