Crowdsource Syllabus: Advanced IR Theory (Updated)

14 December 2011, 1415 EST

I’m teaching a PhD-level advanced IR theory class next semester, and my syllabus is growing a bit stale. The idea of the course is to cover recent-ish topics (and necessary background, when appropriate) of importance in the subfield. For example, I usually do a week on “the practice turn,” a week on “arguing and bargaining” that covers a range of approaches to the subject, and so forth. This year I’ll be opening with PTJ’s The Conduct of Inquiry in International Relations.

I thought it might generate some good ideas — both with respect to topics and to specific readings — if I asked our readers for their suggestions. So that’s what I’m doing. Right here. Right now. Thoughts?

Per Facebook request, Kate McNamara’s syllabus for the first part of the IR theory sequence:

Dan Nexon

Daniel H. Nexon is a Professor at Georgetown University, with a joint appointment in the Department of Government and the School of Foreign Service. His academic work focuses on international-relations theory, power politics, empires and hegemony, and international order. He has also written on the relationship between popular culture and world politics.

He has held fellowships at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation and at the Ohio State University's Mershon Center for International Studies. During 2009-2010 he worked in the U.S. Department of Defense as a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow. He was the lead editor of International Studies Quarterly from 2014-2018.

He is the author of The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe: Religious Conflict, Dynastic Empires, and International Change (Princeton University Press, 2009), which won the International Security Studies Section (ISSS) Best Book Award for 2010, and co-author of Exit from Hegemony: The Unraveling of the American Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2020). His articles have appeared in a lot of places. He is the founder of the The Duck of Minerva, and also blogs at Lawyers, Guns and Money.