Topics in International Security

A graduate seminar that treats international security as a contested research field rather than a fixed body of knowledge, working through how scholars explain why states and groups resort to organized violence, what tools actually reduce it, and which emerging threats are reshaping the agenda. Most weeks you'll lead or co-lead discussion on a slice of the literature, write short response papers, and build toward a research essay grounded in your own proposal. It assumes you're already comfortable with IR theory and quantitative-qualitative debates, and serves as the conceptual backbone for thesis work in security studies or related policy research.