Courses:

Course Info

• Course Number / Code:
• 17.428 (Fall 2004) 
• Course Title:
• American Foreign Policy: Theory and Method 
• Course Level:
• Graduate 
• Offered by :
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
  Massachusetts, United States  
• Department:
• Political Science 
• Course Introduction:
•  
• 
  
  17.428 American Foreign Policy: Theory and Method
  
  
  
  

  Fall 2004

  
  
  

  
  
  

  Course Highlights

  
  
  

  This course features samples of student assignments and an extensive bibliography of related readings in the study materials section.

  
  
  

  Course Description

  
  
  

  This course examines the causes and consequences of American foreign policy since 1898. Course readings cover both substantive and methods topics. Four substantive topics are covered:

  1. major theories of American foreign policy;
  2. major episodes in the history of American foreign policy and historical/interpretive controversies about them;
  3. the evaluation of major past American foreign policies--were their results good or bad? and
  4. current policy controversies, including means of evaluating proposed policies.

  Three methods topics are covered:

  1. basic social scientific inference--what are theories? what are good theories? how should theories be framed and tested?
  2. historical investigative methodology, including archival research, and, most importantly,
  3. case study methodology.

  Historical episodes covered in the course are used as raw material for case studies, asking "if these episodes were the subject of case studies, how should those studies be performed, and what could be learned from them?"