PSC 413 - American Foreign Policy

Disclaimer: This is another in a series of posts discussing my classes this semester. They will all be under the label "Fall Courses" if you want to look at them.

Well, now that I'm working on the theory, it's time to put it into practice!

This class focuses on the US foreign policy from World War II to the present. Our book is written from a realist perspective, which focuses on power and security as the main objectives of foreign policy. We went through the textbook writer's perspective on why the Cold War occurred, and two weeks later, went through a study that disproved the main hypothesis of the textbook. Quite fun!

The point that I've gathered from this class so far is that no one theory of international relations truly explains everything. A combination of theories are needed to accurately explain what happens, and prediction is almost impossible.

This class is much smaller than Dr. Gibler's other class, so we're able to interact much more. He asks questions in class and allows us to debate some, within reason. We have a good spread of ideologies in the class, which adds fuel to the fire at times. In fact, we have one student who is a Republican lobbyist and works on the McCain campaign. Sometimes, I wish I could bring popcorn.