Culture and Negotiation: The Pedagogical Dispute Regarding Cross-Cultural Simulations

This article examines one especially challenging aspect of active-learning international studies courses—the use of cross-cultural simulations. What is the significance of culture for negotiation? What difficulties might cross-cultural negotiations pose, and how might negotiators work with cultural differences to achieve successful outcomes? Is it possible to model the effects of cultures on negotiators in a classroom role-play? What are the advantages to using cross-cultural simulations, and what difficulties do they entail? How might an instructor make best use of materials that focus on cultural issues and their effect on negotiation? When teaching students of different cultures by active-learning methods, what ought an instructor to bear in mind? What cross-cultural simulations are available, and what readings might be assigned to accompany them?     

Stimulating Simulations: Making the European Union a Classroom Reality

This article examines the organization and development of the Mid-Atlantic European Union Simulation Consortium (MEUSC), with special emphasis on linking theory to practice within its simulation program. The MEUSC program, initiated in 1993, brings fifteen colleges and universities to Washington, D.C., each December for an intercollegiate experiential learning exercise on the European Union. During the simulation, students meet with professional diplomats from both the United States and Europe, and they engage in consensus-building activities that mirror the decision-making processes of the EU Commission, Parliament, Council of Ministers, and the European Council. As a result, participants are able to refine and enhance a range of academic and practical skills that are keys for success in today's political and business worlds. The authors of this article make special use of a survey that was undertaken to gauge the impact of the simulation on its participants and, thus, its success as an educational venture.     

IR Teaching Reloaded: Using Films and Simulations in the Teaching of International Relations

This article reflects some experiences in teaching International Relations (IR) by using films to supplement the use of simulations and role play scenarios. The authors have used simulations and role play scenarios in order to teach complex issues and theories, and to engage the interest of students. By using films to supplement the use of simulations in classrooms, it is suggested that students become more active in their own learning. A number of ways in which simulations and role play can be used in teaching are established here alongside an array of films that can be shown to students to complement such teaching approaches. The use of films to teach IR theory is also listed. It is concluded that the use of simulations, role play, and films in teaching IR can aid student learning especially in terms of IR theory.     

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.     

The ABCs of Case Teaching

This article builds on the work of scholars who have introduced case teaching to their classes, as well as on the work of scholars who have researched the effectiveness of various teaching methods. It uses lessons learned from collective experience and study to make case teaching accessible to faculty and students. Its purpose is to de-mystify the aura surrounding what case teaching is and who can do it. It does so by providing anecdotal and empirical evidence of case teaching effectiveness, and practical suggestions to the uninitiated for how to get started.     

Chinazambia and Boliviafranca: A Simulation of Domestic Politics and Foreign Policy

Despite a longstanding focus on the systemic distribution of power in the study of international relations, scholarship during the past 20 years increasingly emphasizes the role of domestic politics in foreign-policy-decision making. This simulation enables participants to experience negotiating an international issue—a territorial dispute between two fictitious states, Chinazambia and Boliviafranca—in the context of this "two-level game" between domestic and international environments. The simulation furnishes a vantage point from which students can assess realist, liberal, and alternative theoretical perspectives on international relations as they affect policy making. The simulation is flexible and can be executed under a variety course contexts, as well as time and participation constraints. Additionally, the simulation provides ample opportunity for a number of enriching postsimulation activities.     

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.     

Russia’s Policy towards the Middle East: The Case of Yemen

ABSTRACT

Yemen occupies a peripheral place in Russian foreign policy for three reasons: lack of serious economic interest, the illusory potential of strengthening the military presence there and recognition of Saudi Arabia’s role in the Yemeni conflict. However, a deepening of the split within the Arab coalition in Yemen, primarily between the UAE and Saudi Arabia, has not only forced the Russian authorities to seek a balance between Yemeni actors, but also made Russia part of the so-called ‘Yemeni triangle’ alongside the two GCC countries. Russian involvement in the Yemeni crisis is constrained by its economic weakness and prioritisation of Russia-Gulf relations more broadly.     

Teaching for Implementation: Designing Negotiation Curricula to Maximize Long-Term Learning

Most negotiation students — and their instructors — aspire to develop negotiation skills that they can transfer to real-world contexts beyond the classroom. Instructors can maximize the likelihood of long-term learning through transfer-oriented curriculum design. Curriculum design elements likely to support lasting and flexible learning include (1) articulation of clear, performance-oriented goals; (2) careful selection of a range of learning activities tailored toward those goals, including activities that promote schema development and adjustment, activities that promote behavioral skill development, and activities that reinforce explicit theoretical understanding; (3) provision of multiple opportunities for constructive feedback from a variety of sources; and (4) the facilitation of self-reflection and metacognition.     

The Disruptive and Transformative Potential of Hypertext in the Classroom: Implications for Active Learning

This article describes a further extension of a strategy to move from a teacher-oriented to a student-oriented learning environment through the use of 'collaborative hypertext.' Students were trained in the use of MidasWeb, a Web-based environment for the organization, storage, and retrieval of hypertext documents and images. Over the course of the term students worked in teams to construct their MidasWeb sites by developing the underlying conceptual frameworks for their subject areas and uploading documents. The results of questionnaire surveys of the students suggest that the MidasWeb exercise did achieve our objective of disrupting the traditional relationship between teacher and student to create a more student-centered environment. The more students became involved in the exercise the more they felt empowered with respect to the subject matter of the course and took responsibility for deriving meaning from the information they had obtained. In addition, the experience encouraged them to think about the subject matter across interdisciplinary lines. Because the MidasWeb exercise was structured as a group activity, the effectiveness of the team coordinators had an impact on the success of the teams as well as the nature of the learning experience of the individuals involved. Although the MidasWeb exercise was a successful application of digital technology to classroom learning, it was not a resounding success, because the impact on the students in the course was not uniform. While a substantial majority of them found MidasWeb to be very involving and moved toward student-centered learning, approximately one third of them, especially students who were uncomfortable with computer technology, did not benefit fully from the exercise. This suggests that in the future more time should be spent on training, and that MidasWeb needs to be made more user friendly for unsophisticated users.     

从中东变局透视国际秩序的演变

中东动荡不仅是该地区国家政治和社会发展历史进程的一部分,而且还深刻反映了国际秩序的调整与变化。冷战结束以来,国际环境的迅速变化以及世界政治经济权势的快速转移是诱发中东变局的重要原因之一。从时机上看,美国中东战略的收缩,为中东变革运动的兴起提供了可能;从发展上看,全球化的深入发展,拉大了中东与世界其他地区的差距;从理念和制度建设上看,改革创新的时代精神对缺乏机制和制度创新动力和能力的中东国家形成了巨大冲击。而正在转变中的国际秩序以及世界权力结构的变化趋势,也必将对未来中东地区秩序重构及各国政治及社会转型产生重要影响。     

Teaching with a Mallet: Conveying an Understanding of Systemic Perspectives on International Relations Intuitively— Croquet as Experiential Learning

Structural Realist theory on the operation of the international system has often been likened to theory one might find in physics to describe the motions of the balls in a game of billiards. While this metaphor is usually used in jest, or as critique of Realist theory, the use of such games can effectively convey our understanding of international systemic dynamics from a number of theoretical perspectives. Games involve more than physics-like laws of interaction between similar entities or actors. They also involve social aspects of interaction; they assume the contextual laws involving the premise of the game, accepted and unaccepted behavior, and the dispositions of the actors controlling the balls to their competitive environment.
This paper gives an account of the use of croquet as an instructional exercise in an Introduction to International Relations class. Croquet's ability to convey to students a variety of theoretical perspectives is discussed, as are the "lessons" the students took from the exercise, as described in their post-game reflections.     

Games,Claims, and New Frames: Rethinking the Use of Simulation in Negotiation Education

Negotiation educators have long considered the use of role‐play simulations as an essential classroom teaching method, and have had high expectations regarding their suitability and efficacy for teaching. In this article, we review the literature to examine the degree to which simulations deliver on these perceived benefits, finding that simulations enjoy only limited advantages over other teaching methods. We note three trends that have developed as part of this reevaluation process: improving the way simulations are conducted, deemphasizing the use of simulations as a teaching tool while seeking new methods, and finding paradigm‐changing uses for simulations. With regard to this last trend, we describe our own experiments assigning students to design their own simulations, rather than participate in them as role players. Among other benefits of the design method, we found that designers showed greater improvements in concept learning and motivation than did role players.     

Toward a Global Theory of Mind: The Potential Benefits of Presenting a Range of IR Theories through Active Learning

Active learning is particularly well-suited to teaching across the range of perspectives inherent in the practice and study of international politics for two key reasons: (1) because of its capacity to highlight how subjective, intersubjective, and contested understandings play an important role in determining outcomes in the ivory tower as well as in the real world and (2) because of the compatibility between underlying theories of knowledge that inform active learning and the newer generation of IR theories including subaltern realism, social constructivism, constitutive theory, and postmodernism. This article explores the potential benefits of presenting these and other norm-oriented theories through active learning. It also discusses ways to overcome barriers to the integration of active learning techniques.     

Simulating the Creation of a New International Human Rights Treaty: Active Learning in the International Studies Classroom

This article details a simulation of formulating a new international human rights treaty designed for an introductory international studies course. Student understanding and interest in a range of international relations topics—including diplomacy, two –level games, international law, human rights, and group decision making—are reinforced by actively engaging the students in policy formulation and state –to –state negotiations. The article is structured around the four key components of active learning approaches—educational objectives, design parameters, procedures, and assessment and debriefing—in order to provide a full understanding of the goals, set –up, process, and advantages of the simulation. The simulation has been successfully run multiple times at both a large state university and a small liberal arts institution. Supportive student feedback and an interesting variety of outcomes indicate that this simulation is a positive addition to the course and reinforces the use of active learning approaches in the international studies classroom.     

Making sense of terrorism: a narrative approach to the study of violent events

ABSTRACT

How does violence become understood as terrorism? In this article, we show how a narrative approach to the study of violent events offers a conceptually productive way to understand the process of “seeing” an event as a terrorist act, one that explicitly integrates the phenomenology of violence. While the collective practice of defining terrorism in academia and the policy arena has struggled to produce a universal definition, we identify a set of “common sense” characteristics. We argue that if the framing of violent events prominently features these characteristics as discursive anchors, this primes processes of sensemaking toward interpreting violence as terrorism. While terrorism markers are often articulated as being pragmatic and apolitical indicators of terrorist acts, we show that they are indeed at the core of political contests over historical and physical facts about violent events. The narrative approach we develop in this article underscores that intuitive leanings toward interpreting violence as terrorism are a sign of political agency precisely because they are produced through the stories political agents tell.     

多学科、兼顾历史与现状、教学相长：南洋研究院华人研究特点与存在问题（2000-2006）

南洋研究院的华侨华人研究体现了多学科、兼顾历史与现状、教学相长的特色。除了经济、历史、政治学(国际关系)等主要学科外,南洋院师生越来越多地借重民族学、宗教学、金融学、人口学、语言学、管理学、图书及版本学等学科理论与方法研究华侨华人。在侧重华侨华人现状研究时,仍继续关注华人史研究。在相关学位课程带动下,硕博生的学位论文研究日益成为南洋院华侨华人研究的重要组成部分。就总体而言,南洋院的华侨华人研究仍呈现创新能力弱、文献单薄、低水平重复等问题,这既是国内文科重量化考核导向的结果,也与研究人员浮躁的学术态度相关。     

Regionalism in Asia as Disguised Multilateralism: A Critical Analysis of the East Asia Summit and the Trans-Pacific Partnership

Revolving around the concept of ‘Community’ or ‘community’, debate on an Asian region has ostensibly pitted those who proposed an entity limited to East Asia (China, Japan, South Korea and the ten countries of the Association of South East Asian Nations, ASEAN) against those who proposed a much wider region embracing India, North (and, perhaps, South) America, as well as Australasia. Previously these two conceptualisations possessed their eponymous translation in the East Asian Economic Caucus (reincarnated as ASEAN+3) and the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. However, with the creation in 2005 of the East Asian Summit to include India, Australia and New Zealand and, above all, its 2011 enlargement to include the United States and Russia, the contrast between the two conceptualisations of an Asian region has become confused. In order to explain this development, this article suggests that the language of ‘region’ or ‘community’ is a discursive smokescreen disguising changes in approaches to multilateralism. An examination of the East Asia Summit, contrasting it with another recent regional project, the Trans Pacific Partnership, suggests that the actors involved are seeking to ensure the primacy of individual nation states in intergovernmental multilateral relations.