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International Relations

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  • CAS IR 533: Contentious Politics and the Arab Uprisings in the Middle East
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., WR 100 or WR 120) - Analyzes divergent outcomes of the Arab uprisings by framing them along historic continuum of domestic, regional, and international political developments. Examines how linkages between regional and international states and actors have affected historical and contemporary statebuilding and transitional outcomes. Effective Spring 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Oral and/or Signed Communication, Writing-Intensive Course, Research and Information Literacy.
    • Oral and/or Signed Communication
    • Research and Information Literacy
    • Writing-Intensive Course
  • CAS IR 534: Contemporary African Politics
    Undergraduate prerequisites: First-year writing seminar or graduate student standing. - Exploration of challenges facing African states, their sources, and possible solutions. Focus on colonial legacies, political change, democracy and authoritarianism, political violence, the politics of ethnicity, religion, gender, and sexuality, and political economy, drawing on specific country cases. Effective Spring 2025, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Research and Information Literacy, Writing-Intensive Course.
    • Research and Information Literacy
    • Writing-Intensive Course
  • CAS IR 535: Diplomacy and Statecraft
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior standing or consent of instructor. - Examines the mechanisms and process of diplomacy in historical context, to assess approaches to the implementation of foreign policy, analyze the success and failure of these approaches in different circumstances, and consider wider issues in the application of statecraft.
  • CAS IR 537: Environment and Empire
    Undergraduate and graduate prerequisites: previous coursework in social sciences and natural sciences. - This seminar examines the relationship between imperialism and environment since early modernity. Taking a global approach, reconsiders core themes in imperial history¿from maritime conquest, settler colonialism, and resource extraction¿as part of the longue durée of human-caused environmental change.
  • CAS IR 538: Arctic Studies
    Prerequisites: First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., CASWR 100 or WR 120). - The Arctic is home to 4 million people and has played important roles in global exchanges for millennia. This class explores the Arctic as a source of resource extraction booms, aesthetic currents, scientific advances, Indigenous knowledge, and unique governance systems.
  • CAS IR 542: The Reemergence of Russia
    Russia has reclaimed its status of a superpower. Analyzes the careers of Putin, Yeltsin, Gorbachev and various oligarchs, and challenges such as public health, degraded environment, and organized crime. Examines US-Russian intelligence competition, including claims regarding Moscow's interference in U.S. domestic affairs.
  • CAS IR 543: The Changing Face of Eastern Europe
    Analyzes domestic and foreign policies of Poland, (East) Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Baltic republics, Ukraine, and the Balkans from 1950s to the present. Examines positive and negative outcomes of reforms undertaken in Eastern Europe after fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
  • CAS IR 544: Solving Humanitarian Crises
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior standing or consent of instructor. First Year Writing Seminar ( e.g., CAS WR 100 or WR 120). - Humanitarian crises inflict vast suffering on people, upend economies, and threaten regional stability. This course investigates how diplomacy involving diverse stakeholders and tools can support solutions, even when conflicts evade comprehensive resolution, focusing on the Syrian and Rohingya refugee crises. Effective Fall 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Oral and/or Signed Communication, Writing-Intensive Course, Ethical Reasoning.
    • Ethical Reasoning
    • Oral and/or Signed Communication
    • Writing-Intensive Course
  • CAS IR 545: History of Inequality
    Investigates the origins of present-day global inequality and asks how inequality has been understood differently over time through hierarchies of difference and categories of gender, race, class, time, land, population, capacity, geography, and biology. Effective Spring 2025, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Critical Thinking, Historical Consciousness.
    • Critical Thinking
    • Historical Consciousness
  • CAS IR 550: European Integration
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior standing or consent of instructor. - Explores present, past, and potential future of the European Union. Investigates who is in charge and who matters in policymaking and politics. Examines a wide range of EU policies, including economics, security, and trade, and their impact on EU member-states.
  • CAS IR 551: Social Europe: Identity, Citizenship, and the Welfare State
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior standing or consent of instructor. - Meets with CAS PO 536. The past, present and future of "social Europe." Impact of European economic and political integration on national identities, cultures, politics, and citizenship; EU policies such as gender, human rights, migration and discrimination, plus the welfare state.
  • CAS IR 552: Technology and War
    How do countries make choices between military technologies' How do they use them' What about emerging technologies' In this course, we examine the drivers behind countries¿ development of military technologies, how they operationalize them, and why they sometimes restrict them. Effective Fall 2025, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Social Inquiry II, Writing-Intensive Course.
    • Social Inquiry II
    • Writing-Intensive Course
  • CAS IR 553: Digital Diplomacy
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: at least junior standing. - Investigates the growth of digital diplomacy. Examines the ways in which diplomacy and statecraft are being transformed by the use of digital technologies, focusing on how foreign ministries and diplomatic missions engage with foreign countries and populations.
  • CAS IR 556: Current Intelligence Issues
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior standing or consent of instructor. - Examines U.S. intelligence needs, with an emphasis on preparing for international developments in advance. Addresses issues of transnational terrorism and proliferation in additional to traditional concerns such as rogue states, counterintelligence, organized crime, regional rivals, and rising powers.
  • CAS IR 557: Guerrilla Warfare and Terrorism
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., WR 100 or WR 120) - Why do terrorists do what they do' How can their threat by reduced' The course examines the history and evolution of political terrorism, assesses terrorists' motivations and "marketing," and explores risk factors ranging from the global to the personal level. Effective Spring 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Oral and/or Signed Communication, Writing-Intensive Course, Ethical Reasoning.
    • Ethical Reasoning
    • Oral and/or Signed Communication
    • Writing-Intensive Course
  • CAS IR 558: Mapping Dangerous Online Speech
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior standing. First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., WR 100 or WR 120) - Experiential course in which students of international relations and computer science collaborate to map online hate speech. Assesses causes of hate speech, dynamics of viral content, and approaches to prevent harm. Evaluates attempts to automate identification of hate speech and measure its prevalence. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, The Individual in Community, Teamwork/Collaboration.
    • The Individual in Community
    • Teamwork/Collaboration
    • Writing-Intensive Course
  • CAS IR 559: Leadership and Cultural Change in Large Organizations
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior standing or consent of instructor. - Analyzes the determinants of successful leadership and the importance of diversity in large organizations, with focus on how to transform dysfunctional cultures. Using military and corporate case studies, addresses how to identify root causes of problems and impediments to change. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Oral and/or Signed Communication, Ethical Reasoning, Teamwork/Collaboration.
    • Ethical Reasoning
    • Oral and/or Signed Communication
    • Teamwork/Collaboration
  • CAS IR 560: Ethnic Conflict in Global Perspective
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior standing or consent of instructor. - Surveys 20th and 21st century ethno-nationalist movements around the world. Explores how ethnic conflict, including inter-state and civil wars, challenges international peace and security. Addresses both Western and non-Western theories of nations, nationalism, identity and ethnicity to explain group mobilization.
  • CAS IR 561: Religion and International Relations
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior standing or consent of instructor. First Year Writing Seminar ( e.g., WR 100 or WR 120) - Explores the role of religion in contemporary international relations in the context of questions about the common core of modernity. Reviews scholarly and policy literature, and case studies, in order to elucidate religion's intellectual and operational diversity in international relations. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Oral and/or Signed Communication, Critical Thinking.
    • Critical Thinking
    • Oral and/or Signed Communication
    • Writing-Intensive Course
  • CAS IR 563: Religion and Politics across Cultures
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior standing or consent of instructor. - This course examines the changing role of religion and secularism in modern politics, citizenship, and public life. It explores the causes of the global resurgence in religiosity and its implications for democracy, tolerance, and gender equality. It compares the public role of religion in Western liberal democracies with that of other world regions, including the Muslim world, Christianity in the global south, "Confucian" East Asia, India, and Buddhist Southeast Asia. The course asks whether an equitable and inclusive citizenship is possible in an age of deep ethico-religious plurality. Effective Spring 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Social Inquiry II.
    • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
    • Social Inquiry II

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