American Politics and Foreign Policy

This is an introductory graduate level course on American politics and foreign policy. The course provides a theoretical and ideational background for American foreign policy by contextualizing great power status and the competing conventional and unconventional doctrines and principles. The second section of the course looks the US foreign policy decision-making system, discussing the role of primary actors such as the executive branch, the congress, lobbies, and public opinion. The third section addresses contemporary challenges and issues that US foreign policy is tackling, including rising powers/revisionism, and non-state actors/terrorism. Next, the course explores US foreign policy behavior towards major regions in the world: Asia/Pacific, Eurasia, and the Middle East.