International Relations

GOVT 50.03

The Rise of China

Course Description:

This course explores the growth of Chinese wealth and power, and implications of that growth for international politics. We begin by studying China's economic and military rise, debating whether China can join the ranks of the world's great powers. Then we discuss how China's growing power will affect its relations with world's current superpower, the United States. Is China catching up to the US? Are the United States and China doomed for superpower confrontation, or can China's rise be accommodated within the US-led international order? In addition, we explore the implications of China's rise for its relations with its neighbors, and for regional stability.

***Not open to students who have received credit for GOVT 81.10***

GOVT 50.19

Development Under Fire

Course Description:

This course examines the recent emergence of foreign assistance as a tool of counterinsurgency and post-conflict reconciliation in countries as diverse as Afghanistan, Iraq, Colombia, Liberia, Pakistan, and the Philippines. The course has three broad purposes: (1) to introduce students to leading research on the motives and dynamics of violence in civil war settings, with a focus especially on the post-1945 era; (2) to develop an understanding of the multiple ways in which different actors - including militaries, rebel organizations (i.e. the Taliban), state agencies (i.e. USAID), non-governmental organizations (i.e. Doctors Without Borders), and international organizations such as the World Bank - have used aid in these environments, and how aid and violence intersect; and (3) to provide students with a grasp of the different approaches that have been used to evaluate aid in these settings, including randomized control trials, quasi-experiments, interviews and focus groups, and survey experiments.