International Perspectives on World Politics: Moving Beyond Western Paradigms

Catalog description

This course examines International Relations (IR) theory from a global perspective. A great deal of the IR theory taught in the United States and Europe mirrors Western, and in particular American, views on international affairs. Because enduring cultural and material differences across countries and regions can lead to different perspectives on global affairs, this limited perspective is problematic both intellectually and instrumentally. This course engage constructively with contributions to IR theory from other perspectives, in particular the Global South, and compares and contrasts them with prevailing Western oriented paradigms, in an effort to better understand our world.