UMass Boston

Course Overview

Description

This course examines the way countries make their foreign policy. It considers the international, domestic, and even interpersonal settings in which policymakers pursue their goals in different countries. Understanding these goals and the constraints on their pursuit helps to explain why policymakers sometimes choose policies that, in retrospect, turn out to be unproductive or even damaging to their own or their country's interests. This course explores the ways that seemingly irrational policies can nevertheless be explained in rational terms, but it also encourages students to view the temptation to "rationalize" critically in their own analyses of foreign policy.