POLS 170 - International Politics

  Drew Augustine Institutions and Economics Who prosecutes and sentences people in positions of power and those that commit crimes against humanity? You may think it is the International Criminal Court but, “ 36 indictments, two convictions and six acquittals, with several decisions pending” (Abebe) show that the I.C.C. is not doing a great job of prosecuting and sentencing anyone. The I.C.C. was meant to hold trials for people that committed crimes against humanity and war crimes. It is very difficult to coordinate and organize this due to the international scale. Since the I.C.C. has not experienced much success in doing their job, we should do away with it and look to local and regional courts to handle these matters.  The International Criminal Court is extremely expensive to fund. This money can be spent in many other places especially considering the courts success rate. Although the idea of the I.C.C. seems like it would work, a closer look at it shows that many things were

Jack Cahalane Professor Shirk POLS 170 May 4, 2022 Diplomatic Risk For our last week of classes, our class played Diplomatic Risk in order to visualize International Relations firsthand. From my point of view, I perceived that the game portrayed the historical or future hypothetical interactions of major powers in the world through the lens of conflict. In turn, I believe that it can be argued that the Diplomatic Risk simulation played in class (at least how it was played in our class simulation without extensive bargaining or diplomatic incentives other than to go to war) relates to the idea of the international relations school of Realism. As a result of the simplified nature of Diplomatic Risk, I believe this notion coincides with the shortcomings of Realism: the simplicity and perception which ignores incentives which do not promote morality or coalition building.      The game was prepared using a world map board from the actual game of Risk and consisted of five teams: black,

  Cassie Lawler International Politics: POLS 170-03 Professor Shirk Due: Wednesday, May 4, 2022 Blog Post #5 The Modern World and Diplomatic Risk Our seemingly trivial simulation of diplomatic risk did a great deal to accurately reflect the ongoings of international relations on a global scale today and in places where it lacked in representing the many complexities and nuances of today’s world, it raised interesting questions as to what our world may look like if it was more like “Risk.” The game was certainly a valuable learning experience and despite the fact that I enjoyed it very much, it failed to take into account the idea that many states participate in collective action while working to achieve their own respective goals. To preface, the five teams were tasked with a goal each. My team, the yellow team had the objective to take over Ukraine with World Sanctions, which was in direct opposition to the red team’s goal, which was also looking to control this territory.  The simult

  Blake Burchill International Politics Blog post 5 Diplomatic risk Diplomatic risk is a very interesting game for an international politics class to play. While it is just a game, it creates an atmosphere that is as close as we can get to feeling as though we are on the international stage. This is also a game where the goal is not necessarily to create peace amongst others. Groups want to make war and peace where it would be most strategic to achieving their goals. There were five groups (red, blue, black, green, and yellow). Each group chose a president and a diplomat. The president was in charge of making final decisions whether that be to create an alliance or to declare war. The diplomat met with the other diplomats before each round to decide on the order of the turns or any other deals that needed to be made. Each team had its own specific goal. To win, your team had to achieve that goal. It would seem that some groups' goals were harder to achieve than others. For exampl

Ingrid Hoopes POLS 170  4 May 2022 It was brought up today in class by a student that The Other by Tzvetan Todorov can be analyzed as a parallel between globalization today and the original conquest of the Americas by Christopher Columbus. Todorov analyzes passages from Columbus’ journal to get a better understanding of his reasoning and purpose for the discovery and colonization of the Americas. On page 8, he mentions that the sole purpose of the journey was greed, which is evident from Columbus’ texts, and the promise of gold was strong enough to venture across the uncharted world. This desire for the ability to trade and find values elsewhere can be connected to globalization today in terms of transnational trade, which has boosted the global economy to its level today. Columbus, his crew, and the backers of the expedition such as the Spanish monarchy, all had the hope of profit from establishing dominance in a new place. The process of globalization within the economy began as th

                                                                        Paris climate accords The Paris Agreement, which required the United States to substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions, was a horrible deal for American taxpayers, energy corporations, and every single American who relies on inexpensive, reliable energy. It was also not ideal for any of the countries involved, therefore Trump made the correct decision by pulling out of it. The first reason it was a bad deal was its economic impact it would have on the United States. If the Obama administration's Paris energy restrictions were implemented, they result in the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs, harm to American industry, and a loss of $2.5 trillion in GDP by 2035. The United States was also paying more than any other country which is a crear indicator that this agreement was not in our best interest. It is certainly not in the best interest of our people to suffer economic loss for this agreement. The se