POLS 170 - International Politics

  Drew Augustine Transnational and Global Politics The coronavirus pandemic combined with the death of George Floyd helped spark Black Lives Matter protests not only in the United States but throughout the world. When George Floyd was killed by police officers in Minnesota it was during the time when covid was just beginning and people were told to stay in their homes. This really pointed out a lot of inequalities between people's lives. Some people were not able to stay at home because they had to go to work so them and their families could survive. Although at the time of George Floyds death people were supposed to stay in their homes, protests spread across the United States in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. People were able to see how much racism still existed and they went against the stay at home orders to protest. As protests spread across the United States many other countries began to hold their own protests. Some were in support of George Floyd and the ra...

  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 thi...

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 ...

  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.  T...

  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 a...

                                                                        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 ...

  Jack Cahalane Professor Shirk POLS 170 April 20, 2022 Global Cooperation and the Issue of Climate Change Arguably the most pressing issue facing future generations is the global issue of climate change. As stated by author Nhina Le in Are Human Rights Universal or Culturally Relative?,  “Among the scientific community it is no longer controversial that anthropogenic climate change is real and a significant threat to the well-being of both current and future generations. But it is also widely acknowledged that human development is an important way to address high levels of global poverty, that such development is energy intensive, and the cheapest sources of energy available are not likely to be clean energy types” (Le 2016).  Up until the 18th century, the changing of the climate and global warming was largely parallel to the natural processes of the Earth correlated to the eccentricity of Earth’s orbit relative to the Sun. Yet, with the onset of the Industrial Revolu...

  Cassie Lawler International Politics: POLS 170-03 Professor Shirk Due: Wednesday, April 20, 2022 Blog Post #4 The Unintended Consequences of NGOs Non-governmental organizations are non-profit that operate outside of the government, are independently organized and run to further a political motive, whether that motive be in the realm of humanitarianism, labor protections, or environmental, among many other things. Although the overwhelming majority of the time, these entities are well-meaning with aspirations to pick up where the government leaves off and serve a purpose for the greater good, they are typically not as advantageous for those they seek to help as they intend. The major caveat among NGOs in modern society is that they reap unintended consequences upon creation at whatever community, national, or international level they require mainly due to the fact that they crowd out government services and impede the existing and future efforts for the cause. Unfortunately, this ...

  Blake Burchill International Politics  Blog Post 4 Redefining Terrorism  The attacks on 9/11 were the beginning of a new era of terrorism. It made the US realize that this is a reality that could happen again and they needed to do everything in their power to stop potential future attacks. This leads to a terrorist watchlist overseas and at home but this brings up the question of what individuals and groups makes are considered terrorists. Every year there are attacks in the US and while each is terrible, not all of them are considered terrorism. If a white man shoots up a school, he is considered to have mental problems but if a Muslim man does the same thing, it is a terrorist attack on American values. In the perception of Americans, the color of your skin and your nationality can make you a potential terrorist, “Since 2001 the terrorist has come to be imagined almost exclusively as Muslim or Arab” (Husain). If a group or individual is deemed as a terrorist, the gove...

Authors Katri Bertram, Ngozi Erondu, and Madhukar Pai write, “Historically, global health has been mainly a top-down, North-to-South enterprise led primarily by white, elite men. (Bertram)” The repercussions of the system’s failures have made themselves more prominent than ever during the COVID-19 pandemic; lack of transparency from medical companies, the disproportionate distribution of resources, and unnecessary reserves have resulted in an underrepresentation of low-income populations and countries.  Within the medical field, there are often disproportionate representatives for criteria that are affected by health differently, for example gender. The article Silenced Voices in Global Health explain that both women and people from low income countries are underrepresented in leadership positions within the health community. This case of not being taken seriously can be detrimental to the people they represent and exposes the hierarchy among gender, race, and ethnicity. This...

Since the beginning of 2020 the United States has been in a complete disarray. The coronavirus, race riots, and political divisions have crippled this country in the last few years. Now as a global crisis unfolds we now find ourselves at a crossroads, to intervene in the Russo-Ukraine war or to take a isolationist stance on the matter. Although Ukraine is requesting support, I do not believe it is our place to intervene and I do not believe the issue is worth starting a third World War over. The biggest reason we should not engage is that President Putin is virtually threatening a nuclear war. Although Putin did not outright say he would launch nukes, he threatened the west with “consequences greater than any you have faced in history” if the Ukrainian invasion is interfered with. According to the New York Post, research suggests it would only take between ten and one hundred nuclear warheads to effectively destroy the environment. With their being around 15,000 nuclear bombs in exista...

International relations is characterized by both change and continuity, sometimes simultaneously. A fascinating illustration of this idea in current events is the predicament with Ukraine and Russia. The United States has been at odds (in varying degrees) with Russia and previously the Soviet Union, for over a century. The reasons for the animosity and distrust have varied, as well. One could make the argument that in modern international relations, negative feelings between Russia and the United States have provided continuity to the international politics of the United States and Russia. What has changed is how that looks within the political landscape of the U.S. interest. Even with Putin as a constant for almost twenty years (with the four year exception of Medvedev) the political machines within the United States have switched up in a dramatic way. For many decades, Republican presidents have been considered “hawk” administrations, ready for war. Republicans vote for troop deploym...

The question of needing the International Criminal Court has been debated for many years now. Recently, with the Russo-Ukrainian war currently taking place, the ICC has been in the news a fair amount. Political figures and commentators have predicted Vladimir Putin should/will be held accountable for the invasion of Ukraine at the ICC if defeated. The likelihood of this actually happening is extremely low, but the idea that it could happen is exactly why we need an international court system. Any given leader of any given country should not feel above the law in any way. When the world's most powerful leaders know that their actions will have consequences and they realize they will be held accountable, the world will ultimately be a safer place. The problem is that the ICC has not achieved this whatsoever. The ICC is extremely disorganized and not an actual threat to leaders of major world powers. The first problem is that the ICC has no authority or jurisdiction when it comes to...

  Cassie Lawler International Politics: POLS 170-03 Professor Shirk Due: Wednesday, March 23, 2022 Blog Post #3 The Inadequacies of International Law and the ICC In 2001, the International Criminal Court was created in an attempt to pick up where domestic law left off. International law’s purpose has since become convoluted as proponents of the anti-ICC viewpoint believe that the organization does not do enough to fulfill their mission. But above all else, the ICC was created on the basis of a few core tenets. These tenets include the promotion of peace and order in the world, advancement of human rights and protection, and fostering of stable and organized international relations. International law mimics domestic law in the sense that it is was founded upon the same fundamental principles but has such core differences that put the two forms of legal systems in entirely different arenas. On the most basic level, domestic law applies to citizens while international law is applicabl...