Critical Pedagogy for the Present Moment: Learning from the Avant-Garde to Teach Globalization from Experiences

Closer to us in what it integrates and in its consequences, global politics still gets conceptualized as if it belonged to a realm of its own, disembedded and abstracted beyond quotidian experiences of power. Still folded in a supernatural world that cannot be of their making, as far from experience as their cold war predecessors were, international studies (IS) students are as alienated and find it as hard to work with critical imagination.
To teach students to be more than mere technicians of whatever new world order may be born of present circumstances, we have to unmake the political separation that still exists between the study and teaching of global politics and everyday life in the world economy.
This article presents a record of a decade-long teaching experiment conducted in the department of political science at Laval University in Québec City. Borrowing techniques and inspiration from the "historical avant-garde," I have worked to reinvent my pedagogical practice to create "situations" in which students can be full, unalienated subjects in the learning process.     

Experiencing Globalization: Active Teaching and Learning in International Political Economy

This article explores the teaching and learning challenges for the discipline of international studies (IS) that arise from the contemporary social, economic, and political changes usually labeled "globalization." The focus is upon the challenge posed to IS by a transformation in the nature of the relationship of teachers and students to the subject matter that they study: that is, teachers and students increasingly experience and contribute to globalization in the course of their daily lives as they simultaneously teach and learn about it. Significantly for the study of globalization in IS, pedagogical debates surrounding active teaching and learning highlight the potential for strategies that actively engage students' interests and everyday experiences with the subject itself. On this basis, the article outlines some potential routes into the active teaching and learning of globalization in the field of international political economy, illustrating these with examples from classroom activities and exercises.     

Location "Authority" in the Global Political Economy

This article addresses the problematic nature of "authority" in the global political economy. Focusing on the rules governing international commercial relations, which today form part of the juridical conditions of global capitalism, the location and structure of political authority are argued to be historically specific. They have changed with the emergence of different historic blocs and as a result of consequent alterations in state-societyrelations. The article emphasizes the significance of private corporate power in the construction of the global political economy and hegemonic authority relations. However, the significance of private authority is obscure and little understood by students of international relations. This gives rise to analytical and normative grounds for adopting a historical materialist approach to theanalysis of global authority that incorporates national, subnational, and transnational influences.     

Drug Trafficking, the International System, and Decision-Making Constraints: A Policy-Making Simulation

The classroom simulation laid out in this article can help international relations educators to identify compelling linkages between the abstract global theories and concepts typically analyzed in an introductory international relations or international political economy course and what most students have experienced as a 'local,' even deeply personal issue—illicit drugs. By role-playing an international drug cartel intent upon advancing the global production, trafficking, and consumption of illicit drugs, students will see the world as it increasingly appears to non-state actors—as effectively borderless. By assuming the role of consultants to the U.S. drug czar, students experience for themselves the often vexing decisional constraints that hamper the ability of governments to respond effectively to transsovereign challenges. By offering a primer on constructing and running this simulation, the article contributes to a growing literature within the discipline that advocates and supports moving away from traditional lecture methods of teaching toward approaches that advance discussion-based, interactive, and participatory learning.     

Approaches to Defining "Empire" and Characterizing United States Influence in the Contemporary World

The militant unilateralism of the George W. Bush administration has revived interest in such closely related and contested terms as "superpower,""hegemon,""empire," and "imperialism." This article identifies four different but somewhat overlapping approaches to defining "empire": ideal type, self-consciously empirical, constructivist, and overtly normative. The author's personal view is that any notion of American Empire or indeed U.S. hegemony or even superpower is profoundly misleading. Although the United States still ranks high on the scale of most traditional realist power factors, United States capabilities appear to be gravely waning today and its exercise of both hard and soft power has recently been so inept as to limit its current influence and possibly future role in global politics.     

Global Governance Reform

President Barack Obama has trumpeted a ＂new era of engagement＂ for the United States. The central components of his strategy include a world order characterized by peaceful accommodation between established and rising powers; the collective management of transnational problems; and the overhaul of international institutions to reflect these shifting power dynamics and the new global agenda. Placing less emphasis than his predecessor on the pursuit of American primacy, Obama envisions--indeed, insists-that other global powers assume new responsibilities. Notwithstanding its multilateral instincts, though, the Obama administration is limited in its practical ability to promote and embrace sweeping reforms to global governance. Therefore, rather than casting its lot entirely with universal organizations like the United Nations, the United States will adopt a pragmatic approach to international cooperation that combines formal institutions with more flexible partnerships to achieve US national interests. The balance sheet for Obama＇s first year in office underscores both the opportunities for and the constraints on global governance reform in the current geopolitical environment.     

BABO Negotiating: Enhancing Students’ Perspective‐Taking Skills

Negotiation educators recognize that collaborative problem‐solving is a critical negotiation skill. Negotiation outcomes are often better when negotiators take a collaborative approach to the process, and they are better able to do this when they are able to take the perspective of the person with whom they are negotiating. Over the years, I have developed several techniques to help my students improve their collaboration and perspective‐taking skills. One of these techniques is to use collaborative terminology (BABO = both are better off) rather than more competitive language (win‐win). In this article, I describe the strategies I employ in my negotiation class to increase students’ perspective‐taking capacities and discuss how this focus enhances their ability to negotiate collaboratively.     

地缘政治学与现时代

随着全球化的不断发展和科学技术的日益进步,地缘政治学似乎已经过时了。但是,从地缘政治学的理论立论来看,“人与自然环境”的联系链条作为其立论的依据是始终存在的,地理环境对国家政治行为的影响是客观的事实。在现时代,分析冷战结束以后的国际政治现实以及中国所处的国际环境,也说明了地缘政治研究的重要意义。因此,现时代的地缘政治研究性质抛弃了原有的旧观念,是用适应时代发展的新的观念来考察新的国际政治现实,其意义更为重要。     

United Nations "Policy": An Argument with Three Illustrations

This article explores whether and in what sense there is a "United Nations policy," a topic unexplored in the literature. The UN's universal character provides legitimacy, a precious asset in formulating global public policy. It is thus the forum of choice for regime negotiation and norm promotion for contested contemporary challenges, reflecting its comparative advantage and its unique ability to formulate policies that aspire to universal application and relevance. This essay explores the UN's particular contribution to global problem solving for terrorism, sustainability, and controlling pandemics in order to show, through these three illustrations, how the United Nations contributes to the advance or retreat of global governance.     

The Sovereignty of Nature? Environmental Protection in a Postmodern Age

Recent postmodern international relations (IR) scholarship threatens to undermine global environmental protection efforts. Global environmental protection is fundamentally about conserving and preserving nature. It involves safeguarding the quality of the earth's air, water, soil, and other species. Postmodern critics have shown, however, that "nature" is not simply a given, physical object but a social construction—an entity that assumes meaning within various cultural contexts and is fundamentally unknowable outside of human categories of understanding. This criticism raises significant challenges for global environmental politics. How can societies protect the nonhuman world if the very identity of that enterprise is cast into doubt? How can states cooperate to protect nature if the meaning of the term is socially and historically contingent? This article argues that postmodern criticisms of "nature" do not undermine global environmental protection efforts—as many IR scholars suggest—but rather provide their own guidelines for practice. Postmodernists value the so-called "other"; they aim to give voice to the poor, oppressed, and otherwise disadvantaged in an attempt to limit hegemonic tendencies of the powerful. The article calls on postmodernist IR scholars to take their own concerns seriously and stand up for the paradigmatic "other," the nonhuman world in all its abundance and diversity. It calls on postmodern IR scholars to extend their concern for the "other" to the realm of plants, animals, landscapes, and so forth, and work to protect the radical "otherness" of the so-called natural world. The article, in other words, uses postmodern criticism against itself to ground commitment to global environmental protection.     

The Highs and Lows of Teaching IR Theory: Using Popular Films for Theoretical Critique

This article introduces an approach to IR that uses popular films to teach students how to critically analyze IR theory. By pairing IR traditions (like Realism) and the slogans that go with them (like "international anarchy is the permissive cause of war") with popular films (like Lord of the Flies ), this approach poses questions not about the truth or falsity of IR theories but about how IR theories appear to be true. This technique works because it draws upon visual analytical skills that students already possess and transfers them to analyses of IR theory and international politics. Overall, it challenges the positioning of IR theory as beyond culture and politics rather than as part and parcel of it, transforms what we think of as doing critical IR theory, and repositions students from passive recipients of IR truths into critically active and engaged analysts of IR theory's commonsense views of the world.     

Chinese outward direct investments in Europe and the control of the global value chain

This article will adopt a long-term perspective on the possible evolutions of the respective role of China and Europe in the global division of labour and in international trade and how it affects the flow of Chinese outward direct investments in Europe. The Chinese leadership has been pursuing an active industrial policy to enable its national champions to move up the value chain and challenge the European incumbents. In that context, Chinese authorities have been fostering strategic asset-seeking outward direct investments by Chinese firms in the European Union to capture technology and management know-how by taking over European enterprises weakened by the crisis. This new challenge affects very differently the various European Union member states according to their level of technological development and their role in the regional division of labour between the economic centre and the periphery of the European Union. This analysis will explain the evolution and distribution of Chinese outward direct investments in Europe and provide elements for a prospective analysis of this phenomenon.     

"Women, Children and Other Vulnerable Groups": Gender, Strategic Frames and the Protection of Civilians as a Transnational Issue

This article offers an explanation for the use of gender essentialisms in transnational efforts to advocate for the protection of war-affected civilians. I question why human rights advocates would rely upon such essentialisms, since they arguably undermine the moral logic of the civilian immunity norm on which their normative claims are based. This can be understood, I argue, as part of a strategic framing process in which pre-existing cultural ideas, filtered through an environment characterized by various political constraints, impact the rhetorical strategies available to advocates. In-depth interviews with civilian protection advocates reveal that many believe that warring parties, the global media, transnational constituencies and partners in the international women's network will all be more receptive to their message if it is couched in terms of protecting "women and children" specifically. Network actors believe that while this may undermine the protection of adult male civilians and while it may reproduce harmful gender stereotypes, these problems are outweighed by the gains in access to needy populations and the benefits of getting "civilians" on the international agenda. I conclude by considering the extent to which this cost/benefit analysis is being contested and reconsidered by some actors within the civilian protection network.     

东盟:区域化“国际社会”的理论与实践——英国学派的视角

冷战结束后,区域化"国际社会"的全球发展趋势明显,用传统的国际关系理论很难诠释和驾驭,英国学派的"国际社会"理论在更广阔的时空观中来观察和分析国际关系的区域化进程,提供了一个独特的视角,东盟则提供了一个典型的个案。     

Power Politics, Diplomacy and Role Playing: Simulating the UN Security Council's Response to Terrorism

In the International Organizations classroom, students learn a lot about the nuts and bolts of international organizations in theory, but do not always have the opportunity to understand how international organizations work in practice. Understanding negotiations, diplomacy and interstate relations is essential in understanding the strengths of weaknesses of international organizations. To this end, the use of in-class simulations, where each student represents a different country, can be an effective tool in teaching students about international organizations and global governance. This article describes a simulation run in an International Organizations class in the Fall 2002 semester. It involved a fictitious serious terrorist attack in Singapore during a performance of "Kiddush for Naomi" performed by the Israel Habima Theatre Company. The article describes the goals of the simulation, the preparation the students undertook throughout the semester, the implementation of the simulation itself, and the post-simulation debriefing and assessment of the students and lessons learned for future in-class simulations.     

A Survey of International Studies Programs at Liberal Arts Colleges and Universities in the Midwest: Characteristics and Correlates

International studies majors have become increasingly popular at liberal arts colleges and universities in the Midwest. What are the features of various international studies programs, particularly regarding the degree of "structure" in the major? What factors appear to be related to whether a liberal arts college or university offers an international studies major in the first place? What explains the variations that exist that characterize international studies majors? This paper empirically investigates these questions by surveying sixty-six liberal arts and sciences colleges and universities in Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri. We find that although international studies majors are somewhat prevalent in the "heartland," there is considerable variation in how they are structured. Further, the results suggest that whether or not an institution has an international studies program is largely a function of whether an institution has a graduate program in a field that allows for a concentration in international affairs. We conclude with some observations that might promote future discussion on development of international studies majors.     

"Ripple Effects" in Youth Peacebuilding and Exchange Programs: Measuring Impacts Beyond Direct Participants

A number of organizations have a mission of encouraging peace throughout the world by enhancing young people's knowledge and understanding of other countries and cultures. One strategy used to further this mission is international or intercultural exchange programs. Most evaluations of exchange programs gather data only from the direct participants who traveled to another country. But these programs have the potential to have impacts that expand beyond the direct participants—or "ripple effects." Thus, a more appropriate methodology to evaluate exchange programs is "360-degree feedback," which gathers data from multiple sources. This study uses 360-degree feedback to evaluate a youth peacebuilding and exchange program by gathering data not only from the exchange students but also from chaperones, host families, and students and teachers in the host school. ANOVA analyses finds that the program had positive impacts on the exchange students and, in many cases, even greater ripple effects on indirect participants.     

Mega-Simulations in Negotiation Teaching: Extraordinary Investments with Extraordinary Benefits

A mega-simulation is a complex-negotiations teaching exercise involving complicated issues and challenging conditions that is undertaken by three or more teams of students. In this article, I draw on two decades of teaching with mega-simulations in international business negotiation courses to discuss potential learning goals for this type of experiential exercise, effective ways to organize the experience, challenges for the instructor, and the distinctive educational benefits that justify the substantial investment of time and resources required to implement these mega-simulations. These simulations can help students to develop greater sophistication in basic negotiation skills, become more extensively exposed to complex skill sets, and develop a deeper understanding of negotiation subject matter and complex processes than they would by conducting standard role plays. Mega-simulations offer major opportunities for students to move to advanced levels of negotiation skill not just in international business, but in diplomacy, law, engineering, and a host of other professional arenas.     

Gestalt Ontology in International Relations: The Case of European Integration

This article proposes a new interdisciplinary perspective in international relations (IR). It suggests that contributions from perception studies can help us reconceptualize some elements of IR. Specifically, the article takes up the concept of Gestalt and applies it to European integration. The Gestalt laws and phenomena demonstrated by European integration can be identified in other examples of regional integration, as well as in various international organizations, or alliances. They also provide insight into other features of IR, such as the international order. The Gestalt approach per se may contribute to the development of a psychological constructivist theory of IR.