Department of Political Science
Case Western Reserve University
(Revised October 2003) ***The faculty is currently revising this list. The version posted here provides a sense of some of the material that will be included after revision, but some will be dropped and other material added.***
I. TEXTBOOKS
M.A. students who have not taken an undergraduate overview course in international relations should read one or two of the following textbooks in order to familiarize themselves with the debates in this subfield.
Kegley/Wittkopf, World Politics: Trend and Transformation. Thomson/Wadsworth, Ninth Edition.
Karen Mingst, Essentials of International Relations. Norton, Second Edition.
Rourke, International Politics on the World Stage. McGraw Hill/Dushkin, Eighth Edition.
Papp, Contemporary International Relations: Frameworks for Understanding. Allyn and Bacon, Fifth Edition.
Balaam and Veseth, Introduction to International Political Economy. Prentice Hall, 1996.
II. MAJOR WORKS
M.A students are expected to be able to explain, critique, integrate, and apply the arguments in the works listed below. Prior to reviewing these materials, students should seek advice about reading efficiently from faculty members in the International Relations subfield.
TRADITIONAL REALIST THOUGHT
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War. {read the Melian Dialogue}
Edward Hallett Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis, 1919-1939: An Introduction to the Study of International Relations (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1939, rep. 1964).
George F. Kennan [“X”], “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” Foreign Affairs 25 (July 1947), 566-82.
Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations (5th ed. Rev.; New York: Knopf, 1978). {read chapter 1}
Kenneth N. Waltz, Man, the State and War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1954).
Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley, 1979).
Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981).
CHALLENGES TO REALIST THOUGHT
Robert O. Keohane and Joseph Nye, Power and Interdependence (3rd ed.: New York: Longman, 2001). {read the first chapters, eliminate case studies}
Terence K. Hopkins et al., “Patterns of Development in the Modern World-System,” in World-Systems Analysis: Theory and Methodology, ed. Terence K. Hopkins et al. (Beverly Hills, Calif: Sage, 1982).
Alexander Wendt, “Anarchy is What States make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics,” International Organization, 46:2 (Spring 1992).
Robert D. Putnam, “Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of 2-Level Games,” International Organization 42:3 (Summer 1988) 427-69.
INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY
Robert O. Keohane, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984).
Robert Gilpin, The Political Economy of International Relations. Princeton University Press, 1987.
Benjamin Cohen. The Geography of Money. (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1998).
NATIONAL SECURITY STUDIES
Thomas C. Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1966).
S. Walt, “The Renaissance of Security Studies,” International Studies Quarterly 35 (1991), 211-239.
NON-STATE ACTORS
Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Relations (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998).
Paul Wapner, “Politics Beyond the State: Environmental Activism and World Civil Politics,” World Politics (April 1995).
STUDY QUESTIONS IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
These questions are to help you learn the material. Exam questions may differ substantially.
1. What were the major issues surrounding the Cold War, and its end?
2. What was the US policy of containment, and how did it operate?
3. How has the contemporary international system changed, and remained constant, through the last hundred years?
4. What are three current trends in world politics?
5. What is gained from studying international relations at the macro-level, as opposed to the micro-level?
6. How do meanings people attach to facts about the world shape events?
7. What is political realism?
8. What is the idealist tradition in international relations?
9. How is world systems theory/dependency theory different from the realist and idealist approaches?
10. What are the three main levels of analysis used in the study of international politics?
11. What is a hegemonic war, and why is World War II considered hegemonic?
12. Why are some countries classified as the Global South? What characteristics do they share?
13. How have the main approaches to the study of world politics included considerations of international organizations?
14. What are non-state actors, and how do they influence world politics?
15. What are the main institutions of the global political economy?