Arms control has emerged as a prominent field of interest in the late 1950s when the United States and the Soviet Union have almost become superpowers owing to their burgeoning nuclear arsenals. The irreversibility of the damage that would be caused by nuclear weapons if used, and the transition from kiloton yields to megaton thermonuclear bombs have made taking effective measures against uncontrolled development and use of nuclear weapons an issue of utmost importance. Throughout the Cold War, arms control, which was exclusively associated with unconventional weapons -nukes being at the forefront- has quickly developed into a distinct field of academic study and dominated security agenda of most nations in the West as well as East. Towards the end of the Cold War and especially since the demise of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, the scope and context of arms control has diversified with the inclusion of issues pertaining to unconventional weapons and regional conflicts.

Therefore, this course will provide graduate students with substantial knowledge on the origins, development, and politics of arms control in the first place. The course will also introduce students to such concepts as arms control, disarmament, nuclear strategy, nuclear arms reduction, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles, negotiation & bargaining techniques, deterrence, confidence building measures, bilateral & multilateral agreements, conventional weapons, and global & regional disarmament. Although arms control and disarmament are fundamentally different concepts, it has become customary to use them together by students of security studies.

The fundamental objective of the course is understanding and explaining the making of foreign policies of states that are the essential “actors” of international politics. States that implement policies with a view to best serve their “national interests” in an international environment (i.e. the “system”) are composed of “institutions” that are run by “individuals” who make decisions based on the information available to them. The overall process of making decisions at each of these levels, that culminate in the foreign policies of states, is affected by a number of factors (from within and outside the states) that deserve thorough analysis for a better understanding of why states behave the way they do. The course will emphasize both theory and practice of foreign policy making. Cases will also be analyzed where appropriate.

This course is about the making and implementation of foreign policy in theory and practice. It will cover theoretical literature on foreign and security policy-making as well as case studies. The course has been designed to introduce students to the basics of Foreign Policy Analysis as a sub-field of International Relations.

Specifically, the course aims to generate familiarity with the origins and development of Foreign Policy Analysis, and contending approaches to the analysis of the foreign and security policies of various actors at multiple levels.

This course is about three concepts that have been at the core of our ways of ‘thinking’ about and ‘doing’ world politics, namely: war, peace and security. By introducing a variety of intellectual traditions and contemporary ideas about these concepts to students, this course aims to provide a comprehensive basis for understanding the dynamics of world politics.

This course is about three concepts that have been at the core of our ways of ‘thinking’ about and ‘doing’ world politics, namely: war, peace and security. By introducing a variety of intellectual traditions and contemporary ideas about these concepts to students, this course aims to provide a comprehensive basis for understanding the dynamics of world politics.