Prof Peter Trubowitz CLM 4.05

This course is available on the BSc in International Relations, BSc in International Relations and History and BSc in Politics and International Relations. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit and to General Course students.

None

This course explores American foreign policy at the broadest level of analysis – the level known as grand strategy. The course showcases the main theoretical perspectives that inform the study of grand strategy and applies them to historical and contemporary cases of American statecraft. In this connection, we will assess the relevance of the U.S. experience for theorizing about power politics and the implications of alternative theories for thinking critically about American international behavior. Emphasis is placed on the debates and controversies that animate the study of grand strategy, as well as of the unique challenges posed by making foreign policy in the American political, economic, and cultural context.

10 hours of lectures and 15 hours of classes in the LT.

Students on this course will have a reading week in Week 6, in line with departmental policy.

One short essay. Short weekly posts on the Moodle course page.

• G. John Ikenberry and Peter L. Trubowitz, American Foreign Policy: Theoretical Essays (Oxford University Press, 2014)
• John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment, revised edition (Oxford University Press, 2005)
• Colin Dueck, The Obama Doctrine (Oxford University Press, 2015). 
• Adam Garfinkle, Broken: American Political Dysfunction and What to Do About It (American Interest, 2013)

Exam (100%, duration: 2 hours) in the main exam period.