AS.192 (International Studies)

This course satisfies the gateway requirement for the major in International Studies and it satisfies the requirement for a 100-level course in comparative politics for the major in Political Science. Substantively, the classes introduces students to the study of politics and political life in the world, with a particular focus on the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa. Throughout the course, we will analyze the sources of order and disorder in modern states, addressing a series of questions, such as: why did nation-states form? What makes a state a nation? Why are some states democracies while others are not? How do people organize to fight oppression? Why does conflict sometimes turn violent? What are the causes of ethnic war? Drawing on a mix of classic works and contemporary scholarship, we will discuss the answers that scholars have formulated to address these and other questions, paying special attention to research design and the quality of argumentation.

Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences

AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Citizens and Society (FA4), Democracy (FA4.1), Ethics and Foundations (FA5)

EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)

Writing Intensive

Are you planning to do a research project for your independent study class, or preparing for a grant application, or working on a big research project for a research intensive class or graduation thesis, or just wishing to improve your research skills? If so, this course is for you! Through weekly two hour sessions over ten weeks, you will receive systematic training on major research tools, resources and techniques useful for any research project in international studies, political science, and other social science subjects. By the end of the course, you will be able to come up with a viable research topic, and complete a research statement that includes an abstract, problem statement and literature review based on in-depth research utilizing tools and techniques covered in the course. The skills you learn through the course will prepare you for any future research projects and advanced studies.

Distribution Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences

AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4), Projects and Methods (FA6)

EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)

Over the past three decades, East Asia has been the most dynamic region in the world. East Asia has a remarkable record of high and sustained economic growth. From 1965 to 1990, the twenty-three economies of East Asia grew faster than all other regions of the world mostly thanks to the ‘miraculous growth’ of Japan, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand; these eight countries, in fact, have grown roughly three times as fast as Latin America and South Asia, five times faster than Sub-Saharan Africa, and significantly outperformed the industrial economies and the oil-rich Middle East and North Africa regions. Poverty levels have plummeted and human-development indicators have improved across the region. The course is divided into three parts to allow students to develop expertise in one or more countries and/or policy arenas, while also cultivating a broad grasp of the region and the distinct challenges of “fast-paced, sustained economic growth.” Part I will introduce the subject, consider the origins of Asian economic development, and analyse the common economic variables behind the region’s success. It will look at the East Asian Crisis and will consider its lessons and assess whether or not East Asian countries have learned them. While the course will show that there are many common ingredients to the success of the region’s economies, it will also show that each country is different, and that differences could be, at times, quite stark. Hence, Part II will focus on the development experiences of individual countries, with a special emphasis on the ASEAN economies, NIEs, Japan and China. Finally, Part III will consider various topics of special interest to Asia, including trends toward greater regional economic cooperation, both in the real and financial/monetary sectors, and issues related to poverty, migration, and inclusiveness in the region. NOTE: Contact Dr. Dore if prerequisites are not met.

Prerequisite(s): AS.180.101 AND AS.180.102

Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences

AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Citizens and Society (FA4), Ethics and Foundations (FA5)

EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)

Writing Intensive

This small, hands-on research seminar introduces students to the use of emerging artificial intelligence tools in archival research. Working with historical records that have not yet been scanned or digitized, students will learn how AI can assist with transcription, annotation, indexing, and interpretation of primary sources. The course focuses particularly on nineteenth-century materials connected to the life, family, and legacy of Johns Hopkins, including manuscripts, correspondence, land records, and other archival documents. Students will also work with records of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in both the United States and Britain, including meeting minutes, membership records, epistles, and other materials that shed light on the transatlantic social and religious networks that shaped Hopkins’s world. Students interested in this course are encouraged to contact the instructor before registering.

Distribution Area: Quantitative and Mathematical Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences

AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4), Ethics and Foundations (FA5), Projects and Methods (FA6)

EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)

This one-week intensive course uses the 2026 FIFA World Cup—jointly hosted by Canada, Mexico, and the United States—as a lens through which to examine fundamental questions in political economy and public policy. Co-taught by Filipe Campante (Johns Hopkins) and Stan Veuger (AEI), the course brings together students from JHU and AEI's Collegiate Network for structured conversations around the economic, political, and sociological dimensions of the world's most popular sporting event. The course will cover five broad topics areas: the determinants of national soccer performance, the political economy of global soccer, the economic geography of the host region, soccer’s role in shaping national identity, and the local economic impact of sport events and facilities. The course is tuition-free, designed for undergraduate students with an interest in public policy, politics, economics, national identity, and popular culture. Readings combine. Beyond the substantive content, students will be exposed to the research cultures of both AEI and JHU, build networks across institutions, and leave with sharper tools for thinking about how sports, politics, and markets intersect. The course will meet MWF at the American Enterprise Institute, and TTh at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Center, Room 170B.

Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences

AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4)

EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)

While it is commonplace to speak of international politics as a domain of states, the work of foreign affairs and global governance is performed by actual people within complex institutions and organizations. This course sets out to understand the diplomats, experts, and activists who occupy and navigate these roles. It considers the evolution and contestation over values and norms within institutions, organizations, and movements, and it examines the standards of expertise that allow these actors to assert authority at the international level. The course also considers activists, skeptics, and other challengers seeking to undermine or radically transform established institutions and practices of global governance. Through diverse and interdisciplinary readings on diplomatic practices, institutional cultures, and social movement dynamics, students will also gain insight into professional avenues available in international and global affairs.

Prerequisite(s): AS.190.108 OR AS.190.111 OR AS.192.150

Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences

AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4), Ethics and Foundations (FA5)

EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)

Changing technologies, economic and market conditions challenge the international system of rules governing trade and make it more susceptible to the possibility of trade wars. This course will take an interdisciplinary approach toward understanding current trade wars and the world trading system. You will learn what international trade policy is about, why it becomes politicized, how trade policies are formulated in the U.S., the European Union and East Asian countries, especially China, and how current trade policies are governed by international agreements and laws (i.e., the WTO). Along the way, the course will explore current trade trends and how they affect consumers, workers, firms, and industries globally, as well as whether trade wars boost the fortunes of countries/regions that remain outside the fray, have shaped and changed relationships among world’s big and small trade partners, aided or damaged bilateral, multilateral trade agreements, or the relevance of the WTO.

Prerequisite(s): AS.180.101 AND AS.180.102

Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences

AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Citizens and Society (FA4), Ethics and Foundations (FA5)

EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)

Writing Intensive

This class is designed to introduce students to qualitative methodology. Practically, students will gain first hand experience with qualitative research methods via research design, ethics review, in-depth interviewing, participant observation, and archival/primary source research. They will learn to deploy analytical techniques such as discourse analysis and process tracing. Students will also be asked to consider the merits of qualitative approaches more generally, and discuss the relative advantages of qualitative, experimental, and quantitative approaches. Questions that we will discuss include: What place should qualitative research have in a research design? Can qualitative research test hypotheses, or only generate them? Can qualitative research explain social phenomena, or only interpret them? What are the disadvantages and advantages of qualitative approaches compared to quantitative approaches? For what kinds of research questions are ethnographic techniques best suited? Is replicability possible for ethnographic field research? What criteria of evidence and analytical rigor apply on this terrain?

AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4), Projects and Methods (FA6)

EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)

East Asia’s “miracle growth” has not gone hand in hand with a decisive move toward democracy. Over the last 30 years, only eight East Asian countries have become democratic out of more than 60 countries worldwide, and they continue to struggle with the challenges of democratic consolidation, weak political governance, and limited citizens’ political engagement. This course explores the reasons why democratization proceeds slowly in East Asia, and seems to be essentially decoupled from the region’s fast-paced economic growth. The choice of Korea, Indonesia, and Myanmar as the case studies for this course results from their authoritarian past as well as their more recent institutional and political trajectories towards democracy.Contact instructor if prerequisites are not met.

Prerequisite(s): AS.180.101 AND AS.180.102

Distribution Area: Humanities

AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Citizens and Society (FA4), Democracy (FA4.1), Ethics and Foundations (FA5)

EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)

Writing Intensive

This course explores the role of emotions in international politics. Claims about shared emotion—including but not limited to fear, anger, guilt, humiliation, and compassion—are frequently woven into the public images and foreign policy narratives of states. This course reflects on who is making such claims, why, how, and to what effect. We begin with consideration of enduring puzzles in international relations, including the idea of the state as rational actor and the central role of fear under international anarchy, as well as a series of more recent, cross-disciplinary frameworks designed to understand states as sites and objects of emotional politics. The bulk of the course then engages with a series of closer studies on topics of contemporary significance; these topics may include: contestation over historical memory and collective trauma, performances of emotion in diplomatic summits, struggles for recognition and status, narratives of national decline, conspiracy theories and foreign policy, the role of humor and insult in foreign policy discourse, and the rise of populism and nativism.

Distribution Area: Social and Behavioral Sciences

AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4), Ethics and Foundations (FA5)

EN Foundational Abilities: Engagement with Society (FA4)

For students undertaking internships that focus on international fields or topics. Students wishing to enroll in this course must consult with the International Studies Program before submitting an Independent Study Request in SIS.

Prerequisite(s): You must request Customized Academic Learning using the Customized Academic Learning form found in Student Self-Service: Registration > Online Forms.

AS Foundational Abilities: Citizens and Society (FA4), Projects and Methods (FA6)

For students undertaking research projects that focus on international fields or topics. Students wishing to enroll in this course must consult with the International Studies Program before submitting an Independent Study Request in SIS.

Prerequisite(s): You must request Customized Academic Learning using the Customized Academic Learning form found in Student Self-Service: Registration > Online Forms.

AS Foundational Abilities: Writing and Communication (FA1), Citizens and Society (FA4), Projects and Methods (FA6)

For students undertaking independent study projects that focus on international fields or topics. Approval Required.

Prerequisite(s): You must request Customized Academic Learning using the Customized Academic Learning form found in Student Self-Service: Registration > Online Forms.