Lectures

This page contains link to the lectures I give throughout the semester. Clicking the title of the week’s lecture will go to a PDF, embedded in the user’s browser, by default. The bottom right icons link to the Github directory for the lecture (), the R Markdown document for the lecture (), and a PDF, embedded on Github, for the lecture ().

• What Shaped Our World? A Historical Introduction
  tl;dr: Here's a history of the world, from 1492 to the present, summarizing major themes in international politics (and war) along the way.      
• Understanding Interests, Interactions, and Institutions
  tl;dr: Identifying decision-makers, their strategic behavior, and their institutional frameworks, will help us understand international politics.      
• Why Are There Wars?
  tl;dr: Wars may be mostly fought over territory, but war is conceptually a failed bargain. Here's a simple model to emphasize that.      
• Why Bargaining Breaks Down
  tl;dr: Wars happens (i.e. bargaining breaks down) because of uncertainty, issue indivisibility, and commitment problems.      
• Domestic Politics and War
  tl;dr: Leader incentives and institutions may explain bargaining failure (i.e. war) even as war is something that makes everyone worse off.      
• Alliances and Bargaining
  tl;dr: Alliances are institutions to coordinate security policies and influence bargaining between two sides.      
• Collective Security as Public Good
  tl;dr: Collective security organizations (e.g. UN, African Union) ideally prevent/end war, but with varying degrees of success.      
• Why Civil Wars Happen, and What We Can Do About Them
  tl;dr: The same tools that explain inter-state war can explain civil war. It's just that the nature of one of the adversaries is different.      
• The Strategic Dilemma(s) of Terrorism
  tl;dr: Terrorists are goal-oriented, purposive, and strategic (if weak) actors and the threat of terrorism will always exist.      
• Why Trade? And Why Do We Put Up Barriers to Trade?
  tl;dr: Free trade creates abundance and is good for peace. Let's describe it and explain why we limit this good thing.      
• Trade As Strategic Problem
  tl;dr: Trade resembles a prisoner's dilemma, but small numbers, information, repeated interaction, and linkage politics help it happen.      
• Who Invests Overseas and Why?
  tl;dr: Overseas investment tops $5 trillion USD a year. That's a lot, and that's good. Here's why it happens, and the potential pitfalls.      
• The Fundamentals of Exchange Rates
  tl;dr: An introduction to exchange rates/currency policy, with applications to the U.S. and Argentina's infamous currency collapse.      
• Ebbs and Flows of International Monetary Regimes
  tl;dr: A discussion of the major IMRs the world has known and some major currency crises, like 'Nixon Shock' and 'Black Wednesday.'      
• Why Are Some Countries Richer Than Others?
  tl;dr: There are broad correlates for development patterns and rich countries bear some responsibility for why poor countries are poor.      
• Development Policies and Development Politics
  tl;dr: Less-developed countries have various development policies (e.g. ISI, EOI, commodity cartels), with varying levels of success.      
• The International Politics of Human Rights
  tl;dr: Human rights have generally improved over time even as a function of a post-WWII international interest in this issue.      
• The Environment as Collective Action Problem
  tl;dr: The environment is a public good and a common, which helps explain why cooperating on it is so difficult.      
• The Future of International Politics: WMDs and Their Proliferation
  tl;dr: What does the future of international politics hold? For one, WMDs are becoming easier to proliferate.      
• The Future of International Politics: The Rise of China and Globalization
  tl;dr: We have major concerns about U.S. global leadership and the future of globalization going forward.