Document Type

Undergraduate Syllabus

Date

Spring 2015

School

Diplomacy

Course Number

DIPL 2120 AA

Course Description

This course offers a broad overview of the study of international conflict and security. The purpose of this course is to introduce students to different ways in which states have historically attempted to secure their territories/polities and to compare them with ways in which states currently define the nature of (inter)national threats and the notion of security itself. The end of the Cold War and the increasing global economic, political and cultural interdependence have allegedly put to rest old fears of great wars and nuclear annihilation. Simultaneously, they have raised new specters of terrorism and of biological, cultural and information violence. The change may be attributed to re­ conceptualization of sovereignty and borders: once considered sacred and inviolable, borders are now increasingly viewed as porous, malleable and indefensible. And this transformation, of course, poses some very important questions: can states really protect what they used to proclaim that they could protect? Can states really ignore violence that takes place within the borders of other states? And where do states and boundaries of their intervention really begin and end?

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