TY - JOUR
AU - Acharya, Amitav
AB - Abstract This forum explores how societal contexts affect how instructors teach introductory undergraduate courses in international relations (IR), global politics, and international studies. Contributors teach at universities in China, Ecuador, India, Morocco, South Africa, the United Kingdom–Scotland, and the United States. Because instructors vary the structure, content, and pedagogical approaches in their courses (and perhaps most in their introductory courses) to account for their students’ backgrounds, conditions, and paradigms, the discipline can learn about contemporary global patterns by putting regionally diverse pedagogical approaches in conversation with each other. A concluding essay explores emergent patterns of a global IR and sets up points for further conversation. The authors hope sharing their pedagogical strategies will inspire instructors to devote the creativity necessary to improve how they teach introductory IR courses in their own societal contexts. Resumen: En este foro, los autores exploran cómo los contextos sociales influyen en la forma en la que los profesores universitarios enseñan las asignaturas introductorias a las relaciones internacionales, la política mundial y los estudios internacionales. Los colaboradores enseñan en universidades de China, Ecuador, India, Marruecos, Suráfrica, el Reino Unido (Escocia) y Estados Unidos. Como los profesores varían la estructuración, el contenido y las estrategias pedagógicas en sus asignaturas (y, tal vez, aún más en las introductorias) para dar cuenta de las experiencias, las condiciones y los paradigmas de los estudiantes, la disciplina puede aprender sobre los patrones mundiales contemporáneos al producirse un intercambio entre estos métodos pedagógicos que varían según la región. En el ensayo final, los autores analizan los nuevos patrones de las RR. II. a nivel mundial y plantean algunos puntos para seguir debatiendo. Al compartir sus estrategias pedagógicas, los autores desean inspirar a los profesores para que potencien la creatividad necesaria y así mejorar la forma en la que imparten las asignaturas introductorias a las RR. II en sus propios contextos sociales. Extrait: Cette tribune explore la manière dont les contextes sociétaux affectent les cours d'introduction aux relations, politiques et études internationales que les enseignants donnent à leurs étudiants de premier cycle. Les auteurs contributeurs enseignent dans des universités de Chine, d’Équateur, d'Inde, du Maroc, d'Afrique du Sud, du Royaume-Uni/d’Écosse et des États-Unis. Étant donné que les enseignants font évoluer la structure, le contenu et les approches pédagogiques de leurs cours (ce qui est peut-être encore plus vrai pour leurs cours d'introduction) pour tenir compte des antécédents, des conditions et des paradigmes de leurs étudiants, la discipline peut s'inspirer de modèles mondiaux contemporains tout en donnant lieu à un débat sur les diverses approches pédagogiques régionales. Un essai concluant explore les modèles émergents de relations internationales et établit des points de discussion ultérieure. Les auteurs espèrent que le fait de partager leurs stratégies pédagogiques incitera les enseignants à consacrer la créativité nécessaire à l'amélioration de la façon dont ils donnent leurs cours d'introduction aux relations internationales dans leurs propres contextes sociétaux. pedagogy, teaching and learning, introductory courses, regions, global IR, Palabras clave: pedagogía, enseñanza y aprendizaje, asignaturas introductorias, regiones, RR. II. a nivel mundial, Mots clés: pédagogie, enseignement et apprentissage, cours d'introduction, régions, relations internationales Articles in This Forum Meeting Undergraduates Where They Are in Introduction to International Relations Jamie Frueh and Paul F. Diehl Teaching International Relations to Broaden the National Mind (China) Xiaoting Li Adapting International Relations to the Changing Landscape of American Higher Education (United States) Gigi Gokcek Teaching International Relations in Morocco Jack Kalpakian Teaching International Relations at the University of St Andrews (Scotland) William Vlcek and Adam Bower Teaching International Relations in Ecuador: Experiences at the Undergraduate Level Raúl Salgado Espinoza and Santiago Carranco Introducing International Relations to Students in a South African Context Jacqui de Matos-Ala Teaching International Relations in India Navnita Chadha Behera Teaching Global International Relations Amitav Acharya Meeting Undergraduates Where They Are in Introduction to International Relations Jamie Frueh Bridgewater College and Paul F. Diehl University of Texas at Dallas The introductory course in any discipline poses challenges. Almost by definition, the students who populate the first course in international relations (IR) are “novice learners” (National Research Council 2000) who have limited (or no) background in the subject matter; to the extent that they have knowledge, it is often incorrect, incomplete, and idiosyncratic. Accordingly, and because they expect any introductory course to be easy, most students are not ready for the rigors of a new way of thinking (Cabe n.d.). In addition, if the course fulfills core curriculum or general education requirements, a large percentage of students will be non-majors and therefore less likely to be passionate about the subject matter and motivated to learn it. Despite these pedagogical obstacles, the importance of the introductory course is perhaps unparalleled in the curriculum. Success in first courses plays a critical role in retention and ultimately graduation (Strikwerda 2019), especially for underrepresented minorities (Crisp et al. 2009). Student experiences in introductory courses also help determine choice of major (Chambliss and Takacs 2014), and whether to change or retain a major previously chosen. For majors, introductory courses provide foundational knowledge and skills for upper level courses and associated careers. Introductory courses are also important for non-majors in that these might be their only courses in the area and therefore shape their understandings of critical matters throughout their lives, something especially relevant for international affairs and civic education (Zartner et al. 2018). Accordingly, many recommend that schools place their best instructors in introductory courses (Chambliss and Takacs 2014). The essays in this forum focus on introductory undergraduate IR courses, although insights about the power of pedagogical adaptation may apply more broadly as well. As even our small sample indicates, differences in instructors’ personal and institutional contexts can produce significant variations in introductory IR courses. Indeed, it is worth pondering (as Amitav Acharya does in the concluding essay) whether there is a single global thing called IR, or whether regional variations instead reflect multiple disciplines. Because political science doctoral programs rarely include courses in how to teach (Ishiyama et al. 2010), instructors are often left to figure out on their own the best ways to help students understand the complex and shifting events that they purport to explain. Instructors might import course structures from textbooks, but market forces mean these also vary widely in their approaches. Perhaps more critical, however, are courses’ different political and cultural contexts and societal needs that vary across regions and countries (Matos-Ala 2019). There is evidence of persistent Western and gendered biases, although it is not clear whether this is confined to more developed countries (see the sample and findings in Knight 2019). This forum is premised on an assertion that societal contexts affect how students learn IR, and on a corollary assertion that such contexts must therefore affect how instructors teach IR. Pedagogical strategies are influenced by many factors, including the instructor's education, culture, institutional status, and interpretation of the politics of the classroom; nevertheless, instructors must balance their pedagogical preferences (i.e., what is desired) with the contextual constraints (i.e., what is possible). Accordingly, courses are also defined by institutional missions, requirements, incentive structures, and even salient and contemporary events (e.g., more recently the COVID-19 pandemic) (broadly, see Frueh 2020; Scott et al. forthcoming; Boyer et al. forthcoming). As Navnita Chadha Behara and Raúl Salgado Espinoza and Santiago Carranco point out in their essays, instructor choices can further be narrowed by the global and disciplinary dominance of English in instructional texts. The essays in this forum, however, focus on pedagogical choices instructors make because of who their students are as audience. Effective teaching, as with all successful communication, requires that interlocutors share both language and points of reference for the content being communicated. Learning is a process of integrating new information and explanations into existing worldviews, and teaching is the art of helping students increase the complexity of their understandings. The depth of these understandings varies in all classrooms (students have different personal experiences of global political topics), but especially in introductory courses, instructors should begin by empathizing with the least knowledgeable of their audience. Remembering what it was like not to understand their discipline helps teachers predict the multiple ways that students might misunderstand the material and, in response, strategically deploy explanations, illustrations, and metaphors that connect the new information to students’ existing worldviews. The most effective way to create such connections is by drawing upon the cultural meanings, assumptions, and explanations that students bring into the classroom with them. To the degree that instructors vary the structure, content, and pedagogical approaches in their introductory courses to account for the cultural, economic, and geopolitical conditions of their students, the discipline can learn about contemporary global political patterns by putting regionally diverse pedagogical approaches in conversation with each other. There may be no common core that can be triangulated by exploring regional variations in how it is taught, but instructors may improve their teaching by reflecting on the creative and strategic pedagogical choices made by disciplinary colleagues in very different contexts. This collection of essays brings together contributors who teach introductory courses at universities in China, the United States, Morocco, the United Kingdom–Scotland, Ecuador, South Africa, and India, respectively. Each was asked to address the following: Briefly describe the context of your course, including the country where it is taught, student composition, and other pertinent contextual characteristics. Beyond preparing departmental majors for upper level IR courses, what are your learning objectives? What do you hope your students learn that will help them succeed in the societies into which they will graduate? How do you take the cultural context and relative global positions of your audience into account when introducing students to global politics? Do you choose topics, approaches, examples, or pedagogical strategies in an attempt to adapt IR to their backgrounds and global political/economic identities? Do you emphasize some topics because they help you capture the interest of your students or are particularly salient for the country or region where the course is taught? Are there topics you avoid? Have these changed over time? A concluding essay explores emergent patterns of a global IR and sets up points for further conversation. Authors were invited because the institutions where they teach vary with respect to geographic region, cultural/historical context, and global economic position. They also vary with respect to institutional type, selectivity of the student body, and educational mission. Although authors place their courses and curricula in the context of the prevailing higher education environment in their countries, none should be read as speaking for all of the students, faculty, or institutions in their region. Indeed, all the authors describe their unique institutional/personal contexts and emphasize the variations in student backgrounds, experiences, and opinions within their institutions. Variations among students can enliven class discussions, but they also complicate the task of building syllabi that effectively reach all students. The essays demonstrate that many of those students come to IR skeptical of or even openly hostile to global systems and the harm they attribute to them. The common response of these teachers has been to build syllabi, lectures, and coursework that help students see themselves in global politics, while also helping them appreciate the value of what Xiaoting Li calls the “global mind.” Advancing such a perspective requires both empathy for students and pedagogical creativity, qualities readily evident in the essays that follow. One of the forum's main themes is Western and Eurocentric biases in the IR canon. Xiaoting Li (in China), Jack Kalpakian (in Morocco), and Navnita Chadha Behera (in India) are especially articulate about how the legacy of colonialism affects what students expect of IR, even (or perhaps especially) in introductory courses. Each author lays out a context-specific strategy for building courses (and curricula) to engage critically those student expectations and find the complexity underlying overly simplistic understandings. Jacqui de Matos-Ala (in South Africa) describes how apartheid is responsible for both the variations in her students’ academic preparedness and their activism in demanding “decolonised and de-westernised curricula.” In contrast, for Raúl Salgado Espinoza and Santiago Carranco (in Ecuador), unequal access to their private institutions, market demand from economically privileged students, and the dominance of English-language IR texts steer course content toward the neoliberal economic policies favored by the government and institutional administration. Even though students and faculty at St Andrew's University, where Bill Vlcek and Adam Bower (United Kingdom–Scotland) teach, are among the most privileged globally and academically, these privileges do not limit the content of courses, and in fact courses and teaching responsibilities are changing to better represent that global variety of voices. Gigi Gokcek (in the United States) is also deeply committed to bringing that diversity of IR perspectives to her small private university, even as she has changed her courses in response to global recession to provide better “the skills [students] demand for future employment.” IR has enough varied entry points to allow creative pedagogues to lead students into its more interesting complexities, regardless of the positions from which they begin the journey. IR is largely the study of power and how it works on a global scale. In taking IR courses, attentive students will have a difficult time avoiding the power implications of their own relative positions and those of the states/governments that represent them. The essays provide an opportunity to explore global political trends by juxtaposing the adaptations instructors make to connect with their students. Navnita and Xiaoting ask their students to explore global politics from the perspective of citizens of “rising” or “ascending” states. Jacqui positions students in South Africa as both Africans and residents of a BRICS country. For Jack, Morocco is a “lower-middle” country on the periphery. Gigi sees her students as digital denizens. Bill and Adam embrace the global character of their student body. All, however, follow Xiaoting in encouraging students to critique these labels and positions, to approach IR as an open dialogue and with a global rather than a national mind. A conversation for another time is the degree to which such a global mind converses in English (especially as textbooks and other readings are predominant in this language), a language that Navnita, Jacqui, Raul, and Santiago point out does not always facilitate communication with students. Nevertheless, authors also tap into regional or country-specific philosophical traditions to connect students to IR theory—Islam for Jack in Morocco, Confucianism for Xiaoting in China, Kautilya for Navnita in India, and Ubuntu for Jacqui in South Africa. Underlying all of this is the foundation in respect for the students and their diversity that Jack highlights. That respect is both an assumption and a solution. The same should apply to readers. The purpose of this forum is to represent rather than exhaust a range of experiences and perspectives in hopes that readers will be inspired to reflect on points of coherence and tension with their own experiences. The discipline needs more conversations about pedagogy. Such conversations are built on respect and empowerment, not recipes to be followed. Having said that, each author has submitted syllabi that are available on the journal's website in case readers want to explore how they make their solutions work in practice. Teaching International Relations to Broaden the National Mind (China) Xiaoting Li East China Normal University Teaching IR in rising developing countries has become more complicated than ever. Politically, the power shifts from the West to the Rest have undercut Western primacy in the international arena, creating a larger space for non-Western agendas and initiatives. Ideologically, the success of non-Western go-getters has encouraged them to “think big” on their own terms, rather than submit to the guidance of Western theories and approaches. As a result, IR teachers in ascending non-Western nations face inescapable challenges. Given the prevailing reputation of IR as a Western-dominated social science, native educators have to demonstrate, for obvious reasons, that they are not blind admirers of “Western IR” but sharp-eyed critics of its shortcomings, especially its latent parochialism and ethnocentrism (see Acharya 2014). Meanwhile, however, finger-pointing at the West hardly guarantees that non-Western theories and practices are flawless and bound to make this world better. Thus, it is the duty of a responsible educator to stay on guard against parochialism and ethnocentrism in his/her own national context too, instead of using the classroom to exalt one's own country above other countries. In short, teaching IR should be a way of broadening the national mind and not closing it. Preparing Students for Broadmindedness Admittedly, this task is not easy in China, given the country's unique political and ideological orientations. Still, it is not incompatible with two prominent themes of official Chinese discourses, namely, “reform and opening” (gaige kaifang) and “bear a great power's responsibilities” (dandang daguo zeren). Implicitly, these well-known slogans exhort China to learn from the outside world, act responsibly in international affairs, and work with other major powers (especially the United States). Therefore, it is my strategy to underscore these themes in teaching two introductory-level IR courses, Introduction to International Relations Theory and The Rise of China and Sino-US Relations, at East China Normal University, one of China's thirty-six leading national universities. Because the university is located in Shanghai, a vibrant metropolis, the campus atmosphere is fairly cosmopolitan and my class composition is diverse in gender, academic major, and socioeconomic background (including a small but growing number of international students). With an eye to highlighting the manifold linkages between IR theory and China's rise, my two courses complement each other in dealing with the theoretical and practical complications associated with China's newfound status in international society (for details, see the syllabi in the online appendix). As corroborated by past studies of Chinese youths’ worldviews (e.g., see Johnston 2016), most of my students do possess a level of intellectual sophistication that, if underestimated by an instructor, will greatly diminish his/her teaching effectiveness. I thus experiment with teaching IR not as some sort of prescribed dogma, but as a search for knowledge that benefits from hearing multiple perspectives. Accordingly, at the beginning of each course, I expound on the significance of learning IR with a “global mind,” as opposed to a mere “national mind.” From personal life, we know well that it is quite easy to form and hold a strong opinion, but it is just one point of view and there is probably much to be said on the other side. Likewise, in studying international politics, it is necessary to recognize that all nations are fallible and so dialogue is better than monologue. A true dialogue, however, always combines criticism and self-criticism: while participants argue against each other, they should also reflect critically upon the limitations and potential distortions that their own perspectives imply. This capacity for self-reflection (and self-adjustment if necessary), I remind my students, might hold the key to their future career successes regardless of what they do in society, and my courses are intended precisely to stimulate this capacity by involving students in a dialogic engagement with the kaleidoscopic world of IR. Having informed students of my pedagogic objectives, I proceed to compare schools of Western and non-Western thought in IR as the first step. I take care not to draw a sharp distinction between Western and non-Western thinking, but to call attention to the fact that Western and non-Western ideas overlap: realism, for instance, is hardly a Western monopoly, nor is liberalism a purely alien concept in non-Western contexts. Meanwhile, although each side has something distinctive to offer, it may have only limited or partial value in certain critical regards and hence need to learn from the other side. In fact, on closer inspection, it may look astonishing how many “Western” elements have been subtly built into our “non-Western” ways of thinking. Under the circumstances, is it wise, say, to pit Kant and Morgenthau against Confucius and Sun Tzu in oppositional terms? Must we subscribe continually to Kipling's gloomy assertion that “East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet”? Is it not better to realize Gothe's cheerful forecast that “East and West are inseparable” (sind nicht mehr zu trennen/Orient und Okzident)? After students become aware that simplistic dichotomies are more of a hindrance than a help in understanding IR, I proceed to show how dialogue between different positions can stimulate self-reflection and promote common understanding. I begin by creating imagined conversations between chief exponents of divergent traditions and theories, Western and non-Western alike (e.g., Confucius versus Morgenthau, Morgenthau versus Sun Tzu, Sun Tzu versus Confucius). Students are assigned the roles of those venerable spirits who are eager to defend their views, question each other, and if possible produce new ideas together. Overall, my students meet the challenge admirably and learn through this exercise to assess the logical coherence and empirical validity of a particular theory critically. More important, they come to appreciate that no point of view is so watertight that there is no merit in opposing arguments. On the contrary, dissent from the other side is a necessary condition for rigorously examining one's own position and modifying it for the better. In this sense, dialogue bridges the gap between self and other by turning their differences into sources of mutual learning. Thinking Internationally about China's Rise Having prepared grounds for broadmindedness, I proceed to place the rise of China in a broader theoretical context. To expose the common predicament that confronts emerging powers (not just China), I lay special emphasis on the following questions: What are the rights and obligations of a major state in international society? What if those rights and obligations are sometimes contradictory? How should a major state cope with the tensions, dilemmas, and trade-offs that arise from such contradictions? Is there a chance of promoting win–win outcomes when a major state finds itself in disagreement with other countries? What are the positive and negative actions that could affect the prospects of such outcomes? In raising these questions, I make clear that they are profoundly important but painfully complex to answer. Thus, the point is not to devise definitive, conclusive answers, but to adopt an attitude of sober objectivity and avoiding fanatic nationalism. After all, one of Confucius's timeless adages is “Do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself” (ji suo bu yu, wu shi yu ren). Afterward, current issues and topics are viewed through these theoretical lenses. Naturally, China's troublesome relations with a wide range of international actors are matters of utmost concern to students. Many of them, however, are ready to suspend judgment and in no hurry to praise China and blame its opponents, and so I proceed to encourage students to probe more deeply the assumptions that often produce adversarial interactions. In theory, I emphasize, self and other are equal in their right to voice their opinions and defend their interests. Bearing this in mind, a pragmatist embraces empathy by seeing the world from his/her counterpart's perspective and by eschewing rigid dogmas and inflexible practices that obstruct mutual accommodation. Conversely, if one country attempts to maximize its power and security at the expense of others, the end result will be a security dilemma likely to trigger a conflict that nobody really desires. Thus, when pondering an issue in dispute, it is necessary to ask ourselves: Do we have to assume that the interests of “us” and “them” are diametrically opposed? In upholding “our” positions, must we veto the legitimacy of “their” concerns? Have we done enough to maintain a posture of adaptability and flexibility, instead of narrowing the options available to all involved? In fairness, I do not present these questions merely to indicate that something may be awry on China's part. Rather, I point out that no contentious dispute can be settled without reconciling different views and finding common ground for competing interests; therefore, China and its opponents have a shared responsibility to reject zero-sum perceptions of each other and foster complementary approaches to their disagreements. At a minimum, we should learn from the past mistakes of those statesmen whom history gives poor marks for grossly disregarding the concerns and interests of other nations and precipitating wars to the detriment of all participants. In drawing the historical lessons, I rely mainly on three sources, including Thucydides's History of the Peloponnesian War (1954), Kennedy's (1980) classic study of the pre-1914 Anglo-German antagonism, and Clark's (2013) compelling account of how Europe went to war in 1914. Since official Chinese discourses repeatedly stress the necessity for both rising and established powers to avoid the so-called Thucydides Trap (see Allison 2017), I feel it is not inappropriate to aver that, toward that end, both sides need to change their thinking and mend their ways. In fact, most students are quick to notice the parallels between the past and present Thucydidean conflicts, including narrow and aggressive pursuit of “national interest,” demonization of opponents’ intentions, and hypersensitivity to the perceived slights to the “national honor.” Going a step further, I then encourage them to consider (1) whether there were viable alternatives to the path taken in those historical cases and (2) whether such alternatives, if any, are applicable to contemporary situations. To my satisfaction, students are generally capable of addressing these questions in a mature and independent-minded manner. Acting like real decision-makers, they insist on presenting all divergent views of the problem at stake, keeping open a range of options for solving it, and leaving room for bargaining and compromise. This perhaps shows the sky over China is not of brass and iron yet. Begun in a sobering mood, however, my courses are usually concluded on a note of light humor. Serving as my parting reminders, two quotations from non-Chinese authors never fail to elicit understanding smiles from students. One comes from Walt Kelly's lovable Pogo, who famously declares, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” The other comes from Rabindranath Tagore, guru of modern Indian literature, who spoke his mind through a fictional figure as follows: “I am willing to serve my country; but my worship I reserve for Right which is far greater than my country. To worship my country as a god is to bring a curse upon it” (cited in Sen 1997). Indeed, when the national mood is puffed up with pride and confidence, learning to poke fun at oneself a little may be salubrious and ever increasingly so. Adapting International Relations to the Changing Landscape of American Higher Education (United States) Gigi Gokcek Dominican University of California Teaching International Relations in the United States As a professor of political science, I teach courses in IR to undergraduates at Dominican University of California, a small private comprehensive university located 12 miles north of San Francisco, California, on the western coast of the United States. While Domincan is located in a region that is politically liberal, the university draws students from all over the state and the country, who may hold conservative viewpoints. Given the diversity of the student population in the United States, I strive for an IR course that is objective and balanced, representing a myriad of perspectives. This means covering all of the theoretical traditions equally and assigning readings from both female and male scholars, as well as those from the Global South and North. Additionally, the course aims to address important global issues that matter to all, not just a particular group, country, or region. The increased focus on college as an investment in securing employment that followed the 2008 recession, and the 2020 pandemic, has meant that the IR course I have taught for well over a decade had to be reimagined to adapt to the needs of today's American students. In previous years, I assumed that most undergraduates enrolled in introductory IR would continue with other political science or international studies courses. I now expect that most of the students in my course are non-majors and may not directly be exposed to the subfield ever again. Therefore, teaching an IR course today means introducing students to the major theories and world issues, while providing them with the skills they demand for future employment. Post COVID-19, I seek to teach IR in a way that prepares contemporary students to become informed global citizens able to manage challenges that previous generations did not prevent. Adapting to a New Landscape My IR course fulfills the following learning objectives: (1) evaluate critically IR theories, concepts, and issues in the areas of security studies and political economy and (2) demonstrate writing, analytical, and research skills that conform to the scholarly expectations of the political science discipline. Students not only learn IR theories and concepts, but also acquire, develop, and sharpen their critical thinking and communication skills, thereby making them attractive to future employers. Additionally, the course also helps students develop as global citizens who are aware of the different cultures and expectations found throughout the world. This is not only because some students may seek employment or attend graduate school outside of the United States, but as individuals living in a country with many privileges, they need to be sensitive to the challenges others face. Having lived through a shared human experience like the COVID-19 pandemic, students are aware that government responses varied not only from state to state, but also among countries and global regions. Most students, regardless of their ethnic or racial background and socioeconomic status, have a somewhat naïve understanding of the world. This does not negate the fact that all students are empathetic to the difficulties experienced by those outside the Global North. They see images in the news of human beings suffering from hunger, disease, and/or conflict. Until they study IR, however, it is not easy for them to make sense of why people living in other countries might not have the same advantages that US students take for granted. Moreover, they do not grasp that policy decisions with global impact are not the result of happenstance, but reflect patterns of human behavior familiar to those of us who study IR. The course is organized around five sections and relies on Bloom's Taxonomy (in its revised form—see Anderson and Krathwohl 2001) as a framework. The first section (remembering) draws from history to introduce students to IR broadly. The second section (understanding) introduces students to the major IR theories/lenses/viewpoints/tools (realism, liberalism, Marxism, constructivism, and feminism). As we review each theory, students encounter related concepts (balance of power, bandwagoning, security dilemma, multipolar/bipolar/unipolar, alliances, deterrence, relative versus absolute gains, multilateral/bilateral/unilateral, hegemony, collective security, cooperation, comparative advantage, core/periphery/semi-periphery, etc.). The third and fourth sections (applying and analyzing) focus on real-world security and political economy issues, respectively. In these sections, students apply the IR theories they have learned to analyze critically the most pressing global issues. Each year, I vary the issues depending on what may be the most newsworthy topics in the world at that time. The fifth and final section (evaluating and creating) requires students to demonstrate comprehension of IR course content by transferring that knowledge to new settings. I initially either shied away from covering feminism and constructivism or would review them quickly, not dedicating as much time as to realism, liberalism, and Marxism because of their relative complexity. As time went on, I realized this was my own misperception and that students did not have difficulty understanding either constructivism or feminism. While some undergraduates in America might not be well versed in the politics of the world or other countries, once introduced to new ideas, students welcome and embrace them with great interest. Now, the only things I leave out of my IR course are any issues that are not newsworthy during the particular semester/year in which I am offering it. For example, if nuclear proliferation is not regularly in the news, it is omitted because in a short semester I want to make sure to engage the topics that students hear and want to talk about. If an international issue appears to be salient, I include it. I apply the same rationale to terrorism, ethnic or religious conflicts, cyber warfare, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction, human and sex trafficking, trade disputes, global recession, customs unions, global warming, pandemics, food/water scarcity, multinational corporations, women's rights, and anything else that seems timely. Creative Teaching for Students of the Digital Age The course I offer eases undergraduates to the study of IR because the composition of the class often includes first- and second-year students, non-majors, majors, first generation, and sometimes even transfer students from community colleges. During the first week, I provide a “fun” quiz composed of random questions about international affairs that may not be common knowledge for students. For example, “Which countries make up the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council?” or “What is the World Trade Organization?” or “Can you spell out NATO?” or “What causes global warming?” and so on. I begin the course this way so that students understand that by the end of the semester they can easily answer all of the questions. Next, the course prompts the students to think about: Who are the different actors in IR? Why do countries have borders? Why do we speak different languages? Why do we have different cultures? Why do we sometimes engage in war, and at other times cooperate through trade? It is less daunting to approach IR in this way, especially for non-majors, who may be unfamiliar with some of the common terminology, concepts, and ideas that political science and international studies students might take for granted. American students are curious about others and the world, but may not always feel confident discussing what they deem as lacking in their knowledge. An IR course can fill in that gap leaving them to feel more secure about their own knowledge when approaching global issues. As we begin to lay down the foundation for IR knowledge, I assign a reflective essay on a pressing global issue that concerns students and how it connects to their daily lives in the United States. As citizens of the world, they reflect on what they can do to educate others and even find solutions to alleviate the problem through local and global means, such as volunteering with non-profit organizations that provide services like clean water in Africa or education to women in Central America. Halfway through the semester, and after the completion of the theoretical perspectives, I test student comprehension through closed-book exams, with essay questions to assess students’ ability to think critically, to formulate an argument, and debate both sides of an IR issue using logic and evidence derived from course textbooks, lectures, discussions, and activities. In the second half of the course, I shift the focus from the study of IR theory to the application of the theories. Over the years, alumni surveys revealed that the application of knowledge and skills to communicate effectively, to solve problems, and to work collaboratively with their peers were the key takeaways from college for success on the job. One creative pedagogical technique I employ is teaching IR with unconventional movies, “big popcorn flicks” that draw large audiences on opening weekends and fall into the science-fiction, action-adventure, and superhero genres (Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Mission Impossible, James Bond, and Fast and Furious). I do not use the movies to teach per se, but instead rely on them as educational tools that allow students to demonstrate what they have learned (hence, application). This entails creating movie-viewing assignments that encourage students to identify and explain the IR theories/concepts they believe are portrayed in various scenes. This pedagogical strategy aims to satisfy the needs of our students, who want marketable skills that employers find attractive. Through the movie activity, students have an opportunity to be creative in their analysis and approach to common international issues. As students interact with their peers who hold opposing viewpoints, they learn to negotiate and settle on a cohesive approach to a particular global problem. The assignment is intended to encourage students to build on their previous experiences, utilizing the knowledge and skills acquired inside and outside of the classroom. International Relations Today and Tomorrow Two decades ago, creative pedagogy was not the cornerstone of an IR course. Financial crises have accelerated the tendency for families facing financial challenges to question the value of a college education, especially when all of it shifted temporarily to remote instruction in spring 2020. With today's students of the digital age, professors are seeking innovative strategies to convey IR knowledge beyond readings and lectures, whether they are delivered in person or virtually. American students seem receptive to learning through multiple mediums, which is why I seek alternatives to the standard lecture and discussion that defined my own student experience. A decade ago there were not any limitations to covering any issue in my IR course. Since the 2016 presidential election and with the 2020 pandemic, much has changed in the country and the world to make it challenging to teach issues of IR without eliciting significant emotion. Based on an informal class survey, my US-based students seem concerned with economic recession, response to pandemics, political divisiveness, mass shootings, the environment (fires in the Amazon, overuse of natural resources, etc.), poverty (homelessness, access to food and water in America and the rest of the world), and tolerance of refugees, especially those who are different from themselves (a desire not to fear but to welcome and coexist with people from other cultures). I am mindful that in any given semester the class composition can include both students from areas of the state and country that support an aggressive anti-immigration policy and those who may be undocumented. Before 2016, topics like human rights and terrorism were common, as the United States was fighting two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now a global pandemic, migration, women and development, the environment, and nuclear proliferation seem more pressing and of interest to students. In response to the changing demographics of the undergraduate population in the state and country, today it is even more essential to effectively teach IR theories, along with imparting the skills required to analyze and communicate their application to everyday problems. On day one, there are always some students who walk into my IR classroom knowing very little, but by the time the term has concluded, I am satisfied that what I have delivered will start them on a journey to respect and appreciate their place in the world, a world that is unlike the one they will have lived in, and read about, prior to the 2020 global pandemic. Teaching International Relations in Morocco Jack Kalpakian Al Akhawayn University, Ifrane Introduction It is easier in many ways to teach IR theory in Morocco than in the United States. Morocco is located less than ten miles from Spain and it sits on a major international waterway. Millions of Moroccans work abroad and keep in touch with their relatives at home, so there are some contextual factors that make a Moroccan student more immersed in the world than his or her US counterpart. There are nevertheless particularities that make teaching IR theory a difficult exercise in a Moroccan context, although it has gotten easier over time. Teaching IR in Morocco starts with respecting the country's culture, history, and perspectives. Exercises like the Soliya Connect Program (2019), held during the second half of the semester, and the Model United Nations, held during the last week of the semester, have been very helpful. Viewing the subtle transformation of my students and of the country over the last eighteen years remains a deep privilege. Teaching IR to Moroccan students is a wonderful exercise. Postmodern feminists share the classroom with Salafi Islamists and Islamic traditionalists along with secularists of all stripes. The resulting discussions concerning IR theory have enriched my own approach to theory and to life generally. The conversation keeps changing with the larger country outside, but some things have remained more or less the same. First, the narrative of IR theory remains outside the traditions of the country unless interpreted in. Second, it is a narrative that relegates the country and its perspectives to the periphery. Third, understanding it through critical engagement is essential for promoting the country's place in the world. Context IR theory is a course that came to Al Akhawayn University as part of its bachelor's degree program in international studies. The university was opened in 1995 with the aim of supplementing the Moroccan tertiary educational system with one liberal-arts-oriented university. The university focused on fields where the English language predominates as the medium of academic work. In the 1990s, these fields were regarded to be business, international studies, communication, and computer science, which served as the first undergraduate majors at the university. The course dates from that time period, and it originally began as a third-year course. Since the mid-1990s, the student mix has changed substantially. Originally, the university could be afforded mainly by elite Moroccans, and while substantial financial aid was made available, the school's reputation for cost tended to get the better of it in terms of recruitment. The situation began to change slowly in the second half of the first decade of the 2000s, when more students of modest means began enrolling in the university. This meant that the students taking the course had fewer international experiences such as travel or living abroad than their earlier predecessors, and I had to attempt to bring the world to them more actively. Morocco is a lower middle income North African country, and its leading religious tradition, Islam, ties it to the Middle East. Many of my students speak at least two languages other than English, and some speak four or even five languages (Arabic, French, English, Tamzight, and Spanish). Regardless of class background, they have access to international media, especially European and Gulf satellite TV networks. The internet also has penetrated the country and the culture deeply first through cybercafes in teleboutiques and later through extremely affordable and competitive internet access through cellular phone networks. As a result, many of my students know a great deal about events in Europe, the Levant, and the Gulf. The Course Material and Professional Life Afterward The international studies program was established for several reasons. The first was to supply potential diplomats to the Moroccan Foreign Ministry. At no point was there a pipeline arrangement, however, and the Ministry made sure that it recruited from a wide range of candidates from the whole country. Another motive for creating the undergraduate program was to create private and public sector employees aware of the international sphere and engaged in relations with the outside world in such diverse fields as tourism, investment, trade, logistics, security, and even agriculture. Our students were and are seen as potential recruits for the IR offices that have appeared in nearly all Moroccan government institutions. The private sector has also become deeply embedded in the economies of Europe and Africa, and has sought international studies graduates from Al Akhawayn University. My course helps students understand the fundamental problems that confront the various actors in the international scene. Although theories of IR may appear to be distant from the practical concerns of the public and private parties recruiting our students, it is actually helpful to our students in terms of getting them acquainted with the concerns that face both public and private actors in the international scene. Students interested in service in the government dealing directly with politics have reported to have benefited from a critical reading of realism. Those who went to work at the ministries dealing with economic issues found their readings addressing interdependence quite useful, as did those who went to work for banks and other private for-profit corporations. Marxian readings that discussed concepts like the Global South, development, and the inequalities of the system were also seen as very useful, because the country and its firms have to deal with economies like the United States, China, and the European Union from a position of relative weakness. As a Muslim country where Arabic and Tamazight are official languages, Morocco's identity commitments and stances play a role in its economic relations, policy stances, and national concerns. Readings that address the issue of identity and how it is constructed have been helpful to our students, whether or not they have gone into government service. This realization generally takes place after students begin work and realize that IR theory is distilled from real events and from real-world phenomena. More broadly, reading and critically engaging theory helps our students develop skepticism and a desire to test claims by comparing them to real-life situations, and this testing of reality is a fundamental skill that has shown itself to help our students in their careers. Audience Interests and Identities Aside from a very legitimate interest in pursuing productive lives after finishing their education, our students reflect the society in which they were born and raised. Fundamentally, it is always important to start from a position of respecting the culture of Morocco, and by making sure that students do not feel that their identity is not seen or labeled problematic in class. Like their peers elsewhere, our students vary in their approaches to their country and its heritage. Many embrace it warmly, committing themselves to its religious traditions as espoused by the state and many people. Others critique and even reject it in favor of secular, regionalist, or Salafi worldviews. Respect is fundamental for managing the diversity among the students. It is also important in terms of teaching IR, particularly to students belonging to a country that had fallen prey to Western colonialism, whose predominant identity is linked to issues like Islamophobia and the marginalization of the rights of the Palestinian people (with whom many Moroccans empathize). The body of theories taught in class also reflects a Western, often White, and almost always male perspective, with a few exceptions. Given that women have always made up a majority of our international studies students, this makes IR a difficult topic to teach. Consequently, I always spend time highlighting feminist IR theory and its contributions. In addition, I have used several approaches, and chief among them has been Moroccanization of the substance of the discussions. For example, I have the students use an independent/participatory leader typology on various historical Moroccan leaders. When we discuss the laws governing war, I make sure to include the Sharia's discussion of war and its limits. Considerations of ethics in IR are often a good way to invite participation from students with more religious perspectives. I have also found that the liberal and neo-realist rejection of the idea that human nature is inherently bad has some appeal to more religious students, because Islam is seen to hold that creation is by definition good. When we discuss international law and the International Court of Justice, I make sure to have the students read excerpts from the ICJ advisory decision concerning the Sahara—an issue that remains central in Moroccan foreign policy. In short, I believe that material has to be made relevant to the students and their context. To make the students aware of other perspectives and views, I have used two class activities that have proven successful over the last eighteen years—the Model United Nations and the Soliya Program. An abbreviated Model United Nations Security Council exercise is held during the last week of the semester. It requires a position paper related to the student's term paper reflecting the interest of her or his assigned country in a current or historic issue. Playing the role of another country, often one that shares no cultural or historical links with Morocco, helps my students develop empathy for other perspectives. Adjusting the Model United Nations exercise to the context of Morocco means that certain issues such as Palestine or the Sahara dispute, in which many of my students are deeply invested, are avoided because of the difficulty in using them pedagogically. The same can be said about the Soliya Connect program, which originally began as an independent non-governmental organization's program, then evolved into a program run by the now defunct United Nations’ Alliance of Civilizations, and is currently housed in the Aspen Institute (Soliya 2019). Soliya entails students participating in online moderated discussions with peers from North America, Europe, the Middle East, and the Gulf. These discussions cover assigned topics and readings. It has been my experience that our students learn a great deal about the constructed nature of identity through the program. They also learn about the perspectives of others and they develop empathy. A fifteen-year program assessment indicates that over 300 participants in the exercise have ranked it highly in terms of being able to see others’ points of view (Soliya 2020). Topics Issues related to Morocco, particularly those concerning terra nullius and the colonial map of Africa, play an important role in the class. The students tend to be very interested in events in the Middle East, especially about the conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis. They are also deeply concerned with US, Turkish, Iranian, and Chinese involvement in the region. These issues provide a very fruitful base for class discussions concerning IR theory. When I arrived in Morocco, three issues were considered off-limits due to students’ self-censorship: religion, the government, and the Sahara. Today these issues can be discussed in an academic setting as long as there is respect for differences between and within cultures—meaning that there is an absence of both a colonial “gaze” and othering among the students themselves. Terrorist attacks both in the country and in the North African/Middle Eastern region also provide a platform for discussing the Westphalian state and its limitations. The greatest change over time has been the students’ approach to the Palestinian issue. While the students’ opinions remains pro-Palestinian, they have become far more nuanced in the wake of events in Syria as well as the increasing realization that there is plenty of blame for all sides, including foreign powers that manipulate the dispute for their own purposes. The students also no longer feel a need to assert absolute religious solidarity in situations in which a fellow Muslim is accused of a human rights violation, especially in the wake of the Khashoggi affair. Conclusion: The Way Forward As Morocco becomes more and more embedded in the world economy, it has had to face the deep challenge of upgrading its population's skill sets. To a large extent, Al Akhawayn University plays a significant part of its response. But as the coronavirus crisis showed, there an urgent need in the country for well-trained, critical, and constructive people. While the greater world economy holds great promise for the country in terms of being able to sell its products, buy what it needs, and offer its services, it also holds great risks. One of the problems that the university faced from the start has been its cost. The crisis forced Moroccan schools and universities, including Al Akhawayn, to go online. The Soliya Connect program has always been online, and Model United Nations could conceivably be also held online. The crisis may open a path toward the democratization of the liberal arts education offered by Al Akhawayn University to the larger Moroccan public, perhaps as continuing education or as life-enrichment courses. Already colleagues at other universities are posting their lectures on international politics online in freely accessible forums. These lectures are in Arabic and are widely disseminating the discipline's foundations to a larger audience. Consequently, my work has been made substantially easier. Teaching International Relations at the University of St Andrews (Scotland) William Vlcek and Adam Bower School of International Relations, University of St Andrews Academic Context The University of St Andrews has been a place of learning, study, and research on the coast of Scotland for over 600 years. Established in 1411, it was granted full university status by a papal bull in 1413 and was modeled after the University of Paris (chartered in 1200). St Andrews is a place steeped in international history where an undergraduate specialization in IR has been offered for over twenty-five years. The School of International Relations is recognized as one of the premier undergraduate IR programs in the United Kingdom. Unusually, IR is a stand-alone undergraduate degree and is not embedded within a more general politics or government department. Moreover, the School is large by UK standards, with more than fifty full-time teaching staff plus a sizeable cohort of PhD tutors. Culturally, the University presents itself as “internationally Scottish” with staff members and students from 137 countries. This diversity comes with two important caveats that are relevant to our teaching. First, even though our students come to us from a wide range of geographic locations, they by and large benefit from comparatively privileged socioeconomic backgrounds (Scottish students are typically among the least advantaged). This does not directly inform instruction: no topics are off-limits due to cultural or political sensitivities and the UK continues to support robust and free academic inquiry. Yet we do assume that students will have received a strong and wide-ranging high school education. Second, beyond the methodological diversity common to many departments, the School takes an avowedly pluralistic approach to the study of global politics. In addition to IR and political science, faculty hold PhDs in fields including anthropology, economics, history, philosophy, and sociology. In terms of professional training, however, our faculty are more homogeneous, with approximately 85 percent receiving their PhD from a university in the United Kingdom, United States, or Canada. A central challenge, then, is how to accurately portray such a diverse field of studies with distinctive approaches for conceptualizing the IR discipline. The IR program benefits from a large number of applications and selective entry requirements, meaning that we are able to set and sustain high expectations for our students. Unlike many other university subjects—such as history or the natural sciences—IR is generally not included on high school curricula in the United Kingdom. In our experience, therefore, students tend to enter university without systematic knowledge of, or experience with, IR as a distinctive academic discipline. The structure of the Scottish four-year undergraduate degree—known as an MA (Master of Arts) Honors—is longer than the usual three-year undergraduate degree elsewhere in the United Kingdom and therefore leaves space to more deeply develop foundational aspects of the discipline. Rather than offering a single introductory course, therefore, the first two years of the undergraduate degree (known as “sub-honors”) are designed as an integrated, comprehensive introduction to IR with a set teaching regimen spread across four semesters. Students studying for the IR degree do not select their IR subjects in first and second years, but instead progress through an interconnected series of semester-long modules that build upon one another to address core conceptual, theoretical, and empirical issues that define the IR discipline (described further below). This common foundation prepares students for the wide range of more specialized modules at the “honors” (third- and fourth-year) level. Furthermore, it permits a more thorough engagement with theoretical approaches and the application of theory to substantive topics than may be accomplished in a single, introductory module. Pedagogic Objectives and Structure The School, and the University as a whole, is guided by a pedagogic philosophy emphasizing research-led instruction and student-driven learning through structured engagement in the classroom and independent study beyond formal contact hours. All first- and second-year IR modules are team-taught, with a different faculty member delivering the lectures on a given topic of their own expertise supplemented by a weekly small-group (maximum twelve students) tutorial session led by a PhD student. In first year, there are three hours of lecture with a weekly one-hour tutorial, and during the second year there are two hours of lecture with a weekly one-hour tutorial. This model allows us to draw on particular staff experiences while introducing students to different teaching styles and perspectives, but with consistency in terms of structure and expectations provided by a single faculty coordinator for that sub-honors year. Tutors complete a University course in classroom teaching methods and undergo regular peer training and annual faculty review. We do not, however, impose a uniform style of teaching but rather encourage both lecturers and tutors to use the method(s) they find most productive to generate student engagement and—for tutorials—active participation. Our core learning objectives for the IR program entail the development of critical analytical skills that can enhance students’ employability and capacity to act as responsible and engaged citizens. Our students both are highly international in composition and have a wide array of objectives including further studies and careers in civil service, diplomacy, non-governmental organizations, business, banking and finance, and journalism, among others. While we do not serve as a training school for any specific field, our sense is that students want to see the “practical” implications of their degree and that this can be provided by demonstrating the utility of concepts, theories, and methods for analyzing IR as well as a wider array of social, economic, and political interactions. One of the core pedagogic objectives of the IR undergraduate degree is therefore to expose students to a wide array of scholarly writing on global politics to instill a comfort in reading complex material efficiently and at volume. Equally important, in our view, is the ability to synthesize large amounts of information, draw out key similarities and differences, and organize one's reflections on the material. At first-year level, students are required to read three pieces each week, usually comprising one textbook chapter and two scholarly works (articles or book chapters). For a number of years, we have used Baylis, Smith, and Owen's The Globalization of World Politics (2017) in the first semester and Smith, Hadfield, and Dunne's Foreign Policy: Theories, Actors, Cases (2016) in the second semester. Our view, reinforced in student feedback, is that these volumes strike an effective balance between suitably rigorous analysis and structured learning with key terms, reflective questions, and additional study resources. This required reading is supplemented by a more extensive list of optional readings for students if they want more information on a subject or as an initial resource in researching their essays. The readings are determined by the module coordinator in conjunction with the lecturer for the week. This allows for a dialogue between the lectures and assigned readings that we find enhances the comprehension of material. In line with our overall approach, readings focus on academic debates and students are expected to fill gaps in their own historical and contextual knowledge through further independent (but faculty-assisted) study. Assignments at sub-honors are designed to foster core research and writing skills that are refined through the degree progression. Given the large size of the first- and second-year cohorts, these assessments are limited to formal essays—which receive extensive written feedback focusing on structure, argumentative logic, and academic best practices. While less varied in terms of their format, the essays, in particular, provide the foundation for a much more varied range of assignments in the final two honors years. Reflections: Reimagining International Relations This approach has been highly successful, as the School consistently ranks at the top of UK-wide measures of student satisfaction and attainment. Yet the teaching program requires regular refreshing to be able to effectively capture the rich and evolving character of international affairs as an increasingly diverse sphere of interaction. The University self-consciously identifies as a “global” institution and while our students generally share attributes of socioeconomic privilege, they also come from a wide range of cultural backgrounds. As a consequence, most already imagine global politics as comprising much more than conventional Euro-Atlantic narratives, and are eager to see their own experiences reflected in the curriculum. Furthermore, the undergraduate cohorts in the School of International Relations are disproportionately female, with typically at least 65 percent of applicants and subsequent entrants identifying as such. The School and University are actively working to redress this gender imbalance. We share the view that IR needs to address its privileging of Western visions of global politics by “mainstreaming” marginalized perspectives from the Global South, women, and minority communities. With this in mind, the School has recently undertaken a comprehensive review of its sub-honors teaching to make the first- and second-year programs more inclusive and responsive to contemporary trends in the study and practice of international politics. This initiative is part of a broader effort—within the School, University, and UK higher education sector as a whole—to promote equality and address persistent barriers experienced due to gender, sexual, ethnic, or other identities. This process has involved extensive consultation within the School among students, PhD tutors, faculty, and administration, and has received further input from external evaluators as part of the School's regular teaching review. Three major themes can be highlighted. First, we have reconsidered how content is ordered and presented across the four semesters that comprise sub-honors, with a greater emphasis placed on sequencing material to build from core concepts to more specific applications of scholarship over time. The revised first semester of first year—Concepts in Global Politics—considers foundational topics including states and sovereignty, power, identity, war and diplomacy, ethics and law, wealth and poverty, and the environment. Our objective exploits students’ existing enthusiasm and curiosity by introducing IR as a scholarly field that addresses issues they may already be thinking about. Second semester of first year—Foreign Policy and Diplomacy in Global Politics—extends these foundations through an examination of core debates in the development of foreign policy. The module introduces some of the theories used to explain and understand foreign policy and diplomacy, the role of institutions, culture, and society in the production and execution of foreign policy, and then presents a series of case studies drawn from faculty expertise. By restructuring the modules in this way, we aim to provide first-year IR students with a firm grounding in key issues and debates that characterize the study of IR and thereby prepare them for advancement to second year where they will engage more fully with IR theories and methods. Second, we are seeking to further embed academic skills within the core curriculum, through the integration of additional lectures and practical workshops on the philosophy and methods of social scientific inquiry, research strategies, writing, and citation. The School of International Relations already runs a popular Academic Skills Project workshop series that addresses many of these issues. This program is currently only able to accommodate approximately 10 percent of the total student cohort for any given workshop. The revision of sub-honors teaching provides an opportunity to expand skills training through a further investment in program content and resourcing. Third and most importantly, we aim to enhance the diversity of “voices” in sub-honors teaching and thereby engage with calls for a genuinely “global IR” as an intellectual, normative, and pedagogic challenge. We recognize a need to enhance internal diversity by ensuring that female and visible minority staff are appropriately represented in sub-honors lecturing. Faculty composition and path dependencies with respect to the allocation of sub-honors lectures have led to imbalances that are regularly raised by students in their end-of-semester feedback questionnaires. While not fully reflective of the School overall, this can give the impression—especially for first-year students—of an excessively homogeneous faculty, which is contrary to our values and objectives. We have sought to address this by reallocating lecturing responsibilities across sub-honors modules. This can have the added salutary benefit of challenging faculty to consider new topics, thereby expanding their own teaching repertoire. In consultation with the Director of Teaching, the sub-honors coordinators and weekly lecturers have also revised the module reading lists to enhance our student's exposure to non-male and non-Western scholarship. This is part of the School's stated commitment to incorporate a wider range of perspectives concerning the development, operation, and future prospects of global politics and IR as an academic discipline. To that end, faculty now complete an annual reading list survey for each of their modules that both gauges current distributions among required and optional readings and offers an opportunity for reflection. Working with an outstanding group of students means we can set and hold high standards for academic study and engagement. Most importantly, not only our students rise to the challenge of this demanding program of independent learning, but we find at the honors level that students continue to excel. Teaching International Relations in Ecuador: Experiences at the Undergraduate Level Raúl Salgado Espinoza FLACSO Ecuador and Santiago Carranco UIDE/FLACSO Ecuador The discipline of IR in Ecuador is relatively new and its teaching at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels is focused in Ecuador's two biggest cities, Quito and Guayaquil. According to a survey conducted for this publication, at present there are twenty-seven Ecuadorian higher education institutions that provide programs offering courses related to international studies. Twenty-one of these offer undergraduate programs and six universities offer courses at the postgraduate level, including a doctoral program in international studies at FLACSO Ecuador. Of the twenty-seven institutions, the majority are in Quito, the center for foreign policy, and Guayaquil, the center of international trade. In addition, undergraduate programs are presently only offered by private universities, restricting access to IR education for socioeconomic reasons. This is evidenced by the undergraduate IR programs at the Universidad Internacional del Ecuador (UIDE) and the Universidad San Francisco de Quito (USFQ). Teaching International Relations at UIDE At UIDE, teaching IR gained prestige with the creation of the School of Diplomacy and International Relations in 2006 by a group of lawyers and diplomats, who also served as lecturers. Recently, the inclusion of lecturers in political science, IR, and international political economy from universities outside Ecuador has helped to diversify the areas of study. The bachelor's degree in IR at UIDE is composed of a curriculum divided into nine semesters. Students study a variety of materials directed at their humanistic education, including specific IR courses, before they focus on more functional subjects related to their professional aspirations. Two specific courses introduce the students to the discipline in their first year. The first course, Introduction and History in IR, focuses on general topics as it introduces concepts such as power, sovereignty, and anarchy. At the same time, it provides an overview of world history and the historiography of IR, including themes, such as both World Wars and the Cold War, that are necessary to understand the context of the so-called debates of IR. In the second course, Theories of IR, students focus on the theoretical and epistemological approaches of the discipline in combination with the specific topics of the BA degree's program. Both courses at UIDE are designed together and are complementary. They have content that enables an understanding of theories of IR while distinguishing the field from political science, economics, and sociology. For this reason, two principal texts are used, namely Globalization of World Politics: An Introduction to International Relations (Baylis, Smith, and Owens 2017) in the Introduction and History in IR course, and The Oxford Handbook of International Relations (Reus-Smit and Snidal 2010) in the Theories of IR course. These are read alongside specialized texts by authors from Western academia. The introductory classes are each split into thirty-two sessions that introduce concepts while describing world historical events, such as feudalism and absolutism, and events of national interest such as the signing of the peace agreement between Ecuador and Peru. Also, topics related to contemporary regional scenarios are introduced, such as the crisis in Venezuela and its effects on human mobility in the region. These topics are chosen because their proximity and the effects that they have on daily life generate special interest among students. In the Theories of IR class, students also take two sessions per week over sixteen weeks. Each week's first session is a general master class about theory and the second session is practical in character, focusing on methods for the use of theory in research. The aim of this approach is to provide students with relevant concepts such as balance of power, international cooperation, and complex interdependence that will be useful in their professional lives. While there is an emphasis on dealing with local issues, the first sixteen sessions in both classes focus on theories such as neorealism and neoliberalism and make use of more international examples such as the Second World War, the Cold War, and the Bretton Woods Institutions. This helps students bring their general cultural knowledge up to date. When controversial concepts are considered, however, more emphasis is given to local themes that are normally dealt with on an ad-hoc basis. For example, recently attention has been given to South American regionalism, human mobility, and the growth of informal industry such as mining and fishing as matters of transnational character, as well as emerging networks of narcotrafficking and their effect on local development. These issues sometimes help generate questions that are difficult to answer using more mainstream concepts but that are helpful in introducing students to more critical and eclectic approaches. Generally, classes at UIDE consist of fifteen to twenty students. Since it is a private university, most students come from a medium or high socioeconomic background and come from the province of Pichincha, whose main city is Quito. Only about 10 percent of students come from other provinces. Of the students, those who come from private educational institutions have a good command of two or three languages. Students who come from state educational institutions and from the provinces generally have a poor understanding of world history and politics and struggle to use a second language. This causes major problems because 80 percent of course readings are in English. Hence, success requires that these students become familiar with general culture, world history, and English in the first semesters of the degree. At UIDE, there is pressure to maintain high matriculation and because student fees are paid monthly, the curriculum caters to students’ interests. In some ways, this transforms education into a commercial good, accessible to students largely from families with medium to high financial means. However, there are no institutional requirements related to discussion topics in the classroom, and topics suggested by students are treated as recommendations. Teaching International Relations to Undergraduate Students at USFQ USFQ is among the most elite and expensive private universities in Ecuador, and the experience of teaching IR at the undergraduate level there is similar to teaching it at UIDE. USFQ came into existence in a context of instability of the education offered by the state and the creation of various private universities at the end of the twentieth century. Therefore, access to this university is also determined by the socioeconomic level of students’ families. The exceptions at USFQ are a few students who qualify for grants and stipends that are considered contributions from the university to the Ecuadorian society in order to strengthen national identity and the general development of historically excluded groups (USFQ 2019). The current BA program in IR is part of the College of Social Science and Humanities, which was created in 1992. The IR program has been running since 2017. The program takes four years to complete and begins with introductory courses, including Introduction to International Relations, taken in the first year. At USFQ, approximately twenty-five students register in this class, and the majority are either white or of mixed race. There are also usually some indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorian students, who are typically the students who receive grants because they come from groups that historically have been excluded. These students generally have a very high academic profile because they require high grades in order to qualify for a grant. The teaching content is broad, yet simple. It aims to include a wide range of topics related to IR, including ones that are critical and controversial. For example, the recent return of the IMF to Ecuador and the role played by indigenous groups in the recent protests are included in class discussions. Nevertheless, the university ethos does bias how international political economy (IPE) is taught, restricting discussions and the analysis of various perspectives. For example, critical perspectives such as (neo) Marxism are seldom introduced and discussed in the introductory courses because these views clash with the foundational principles of the university. In contrast, economic (neo) liberalism and related themes such as globalization, interdependence, and orthodox IPE are favored in the discussions because their principles are coherent with the foundational ethos and views of the institution. This introductory course is not limited to IR students, but is accessible to students from all the liberal arts programs. It aims to help all students understand the IR discipline despite their diverse educational and cultural backgrounds. In that regard, the course's objective is not only to prepare students for a postgraduate degree in IR in Ecuador and abroad, but also to introduce them to a disciplinary field and its content of study and to prepare them for life in a global society (Colmenares 2019). The introductory course has two parts. The first is determined by the readings in the introductory textbooks, which are largely in English. Such texts make it possible to become familiar with various approaches to IR. The aim of assigning these texts in the first part of the course is to present a variety of general themes of international character, while focusing on the established approaches to IR, so that students can familiarize themselves with the discipline's content. Hence, at the starting point of the course, a syllabus is presented with themes mainly related to international affairs in the context of mainstream theories. It is here that restrictions of topics and approaches can take place. The syllabi can be modified during the course according to the changes in the international events and suggestions of the students. For example, the improvement of the political Ecuadorian–US relationship and the visit of US Vice President Pence to Ecuador in June 2018 was a sudden political change that needed to be discussed. In the second part of the course, the aim is to relate theoretical concepts to appropriate topical issues. For example, topics such as the role of the United States in the politics of Latin America during the democratization process and contemporary crises in Venezuela are used to explain liberalism. Similarly, in order to explain social constructivism in IR, students are presented with the history of the creation of the South American Union of Nations (UNASUR). Concepts of regionalism and integration are introduced using the history of South American states since the independence period and the Bolivarian ideas of a Great Latin American state. The choice of topics is also related to the events reported by the media, as most students have access to the local and international news. Thus, the content of sessions can change according to the current local and international affairs, as this triggers the interest of the students in the field of IR and helps relate it to their daily lives. Conclusion To conclude, it can be argued that an education in IR in Ecuador principally reaches social groups who are more economically privileged, whereas other social groups mainly access such education through grants for fees and maintenance. The teaching themes are selected mainly by the lecturers, but the interests of students and current international affairs are also sources of new topics in the classroom. Thus, the content of introductory IR courses is mainly related to the demands of economically privileged students who agree with theoretical perspectives and topics favored by the management of the university. The readings are largely in English or Spanish translations from the English, and this tends to influence the content, examples, and topics of teaching. Introducing International Relations to Students in a South African Context Jacqui de Matos-Ala University of the Witswatersrand While IR is an exceptionally popular first-year course at the University of the Witwatersrand, most of the students enrolling in the course have had no exposure to the academic discipline. For them, the discipline of IR is synonymous with its practice and their understanding thereof is largely informed by popular culture, social media, and political rhetoric. My classes are always extremely ethnically, culturally, socially, and economically diverse. For most of my students, English, which is the language of instruction at Wits, is their second or third language, and many students’ social and economic circumstances provide limited social capital for navigating their new reality. Students who have attended state schools have limited historical knowledge as history is not taught at high school, and they frequently confess to me that high school does not prepare them adequately for the demands of university. Consequently, many of my students find university to be an alien and often hostile space, and IR represents a foreign world with strange new discourses, cultures, knowledge, and practices for which their lived realities provide few frames of references. Cognizant of these facts, I have tried to create a learning environment that helps students acclimatize to the discipline so that it transitions rapidly from the alien to an exciting world beckoning for their exploration. I believe that learning is most effective when students’ introduction to the discourse of an academic discipline is situated within a sociocultural milieu that is familiar or relevant to them. Therefore, my goal has been to make the subject matter of IR relatable and ultimately meaningful within our students’ sociocultural context, which includes both South Africa and Africa more broadly. This goes beyond merely merging content with relevant local examples to also considering African philosophical interpretations of IR concepts and theories. I also make it clear to students that I am their guide, not an all-knowing sage, and that the journey to discover IR is one that we will undertake together. The most challenging characteristic regarding the first-year cohort is that most of them are deemed by the university to be at risk either of not completing their degree in the allotted four years or of dropping out of tertiary education before graduation. A 2014 Council on Higher Education study tracking students for a three-year period found that only 50 percent of students completed their degrees (Council on Higher Education 2016). Moreover, a 2016 University of Stellenbosch working paper (von Broekhuizen et al. 2016) showed that the completion rate for white students (71.6 percent) was significantly higher than that of black (53.5 percent) and colored (53.8 percent) students. These figures are attributed to the inability of post-Apartheid governments to make meaningful inroads in reversing the structural inequalities of the past, particularly, poverty, unemployment, and the provision of free quality public schooling (von Broekhuizen et al. 2016). I believe that although the impact of these factors on student performance at university should not be trivialized, neither should they be used to stereotype students as being inherently deficient in terms of the knowledge and skills demanded by tertiary level education. The primary objective of the introductory course is not to fix student deficits but to introduce them to the specialized discourse and culture of an unfamiliar discipline that their schooling has not prepared them to study. Although classes are large, we have endeavored to keep the learning environment highly interactive to facilitate the development of deep approaches to learning by students. This further aligns with a sociocultural approach to learning that demands a high level of lecturer–student or student–peer interaction. A necessity in this regard is having venues that have audio-visual facilities and Wi-Fi. These allow us to illustrate concepts or events being discussed by showing video or audio clips. Students are also able to access online learning platforms during class to find additional information or class exercises. Introducing Students to the Discourse and Culture of International Relations The fact that IR is new intellectual space for all learners irrespective of the socioeconomic or educational backgrounds simplifies matters considerably. It enables us to start with the assumption that all my students have little or no knowledge about the subject. The course is designed for students located in a South African and African context and frames key concepts, ideas, and theories within these contexts so that they are not only relatable to the students but also of more relevance and interest. This creates a learning environment conducive to student engagement. Consequently, focusing on the 9/11 attacks as a turning point from a period characterized by peace to one of military intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq would not ring true for African IR as this event has not significantly impacted the lives of most Africans. Issues of cooperation and conflict more relevant to my students would be former South African president Thabo Mbeki's African renaissance initiative, ideals of Pan Africanism, and the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM). The cooperation in the APRM is focused on ideals of collectively encouraging good governance, economic development, and growth, and is different from the agenda of the United Nations. As African conflict is largely intrastate, the course focuses on the cases and solutions to intrastate conflict using examples from the continent. The rise of South–South cooperative fora such as India, Brazil, and South Africa (IBSA) as well as Brazil, Russia, Indian, China, and South Africa (BRICS) extends the ambit of the course to include exploration of how states from the Global South can construct international regimes more reflective of their strategic interests with partners who have similar visions. The course endeavors to go beyond the Western narrative. Its discussion of the history and study of IR includes its evolution in an African context and that of the larger Global South. To establish African peoples and states as agents in IR, we discuss precolonial Indian Ocean trade between African, Arab, Indian, and Chinese kingdoms. Moreover, for students to understand the state in an African context means going beyond the evolution of the Westphalian model. The Westphalian ideal of the state comes to Africa second hand, via the processes of Western colonization and decolonization. Its impacts have had profound influences on the capacity of African states to function optimally. African states may have juridical statehood, but many governments must contend with repeated challenges to their sovereignty from non-state actors. The African state and its foreign policy cannot be understood without investigating its internal dynamics. For instance, the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda challenges state security and sovereignty as its operations in the north of the country make areas no-go zones for government forces. Moreover, its ability to cross into neighboring states impacts Uganda's foreign policy with its neighbors. Indeed, examining the porous nature of African borders and their origins is another component the course uses to discuss sources of cooperation and conflict on the continent. In studying foreign policy, it is also important to introduce students to African ideas that have filtered into states’ foreign policy, such as Ujamaa and Ubuntu, which favor decisions and actions achieved through communal consensus. This explains foreign policies such as South Africa's decision not to arrest Omar al Bashir and Mbeki's quiet diplomacy with Zimbabwe more effectively than Western-based models. Ultimately what the course does is reframe the way actors from the Global South are presented in many introductory IR textbooks. They are no longer defined only in terms of their relationship with the Global North, but as agents in their own right. Further students are introduced broadly to the theories of realism, liberalism, normative theory, constructivism, and critical Theory, but are asked to critically evaluate the utility of these theories as explanatory tools when analyzing the IR of African states. In line with the course's sociocultural approach to learning, we have employed Biggs’ (1996) concept of constructive alignment, which is based on the premise that students learn by doing and interacting with ideas, debates, and other course material at a specific cognitive level that usually correlates with a particular year of study. It is through engaging in these types of activities that students create meaning from a discipline's content. Classes, activities, and assessment should all be aligned so that students are enveloped in a structure that facilitates their engagement with the course and their achievement of its objectives. Consequently, the introductory course is activity rich. Despite having large classes, we build activities into lectures. This usually takes the form of showing a video clip of a current South African or African IR event that is related to the topic being covered. Student groups are then required to apply the concepts or theories they are learning to analyze the event. We have found that this instrument helps to expand students’ awareness of international affairs and exponentially increases their engagement and desire to learn (Hornsby and Matos‐Ala 2013). One of the most challenging of these scenarios asked students to critically consider South African's controversial voting record as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council related to the protection of human rights, which is a key pillar of its foreign and domestic policy. In 2007, South Africa voted against a resolution condemning human rights violations in Myanmar as well as a 2009 one to impose sanctions against Zimbabwe for the same reason. Our school curriculum has taught students that not only does South Africa have the most advanced constitution regarding the protection of human rights, but that upholding these is a sine qua non for its state institutions, and this scenario contests this stance. Using the IR theories and concepts together with models of foreign policy encountered in the course as analytical tools, students are asked to account for these discrepancies between policy and practice. The task is complex as it requires students to select and amalgamate knowledge from the entire curriculum. Nevertheless, it allows students to appreciate the complexities that are revealed when we employ the tools at our disposal to analyze a state's IR and that in reality certain policies are often sacrificed so that more important ones can be achieved. These types of scenario-based learning environments are further replicated in weekly tutorials. Here readings and exercises based on each week's lectures are worked through in a small-group environment with the assistance of our postgraduate and PhD students. We have found this type of peer learning very effective. Continuous assessment is also a feature of the course. Students are required to complete six different forms of assessment, including multiple-choice tests, an article analysis, and a policy brief. Each assessment is designed to help students master specific academic content and skills such as inculcating a culture of reading IR, learning to analyze IR content, and finally applying knowledge from the course to a specific event and making policy recommendations. We have received substantially positive feedback from students about their learning through these assessment forms (Hornsby and Matos‐Ala 2013). Conclusion Despite the course not being designed to expressly address the academic deficits of at-risk students, its design nevertheless seems to cater optimally for these students. Since its inception, the course has consistently had over an 80 percent pass rate (Hornsby and Matos‐Ala 2016). This indicates that creating a learner-centric environment that facilitates student engagement through a variety of activities and interactions with peers and lecturers allows students to flourish. Moreover, including African knowledge and contexts has become even more relevant in light of student demands for decolonized and de-Westernized curricula. Teaching International Relations in India Navnita Chadha Behera University of Delhi Teaching IR in India has undergone a gradual but significant transformation in the last two decades, although these changes are more evident in curriculum development than critical pedagogies. As India's single largest central university, University of Delhi has steered this journey, especially in the domain of undergraduate teaching. This is reflected in the design of both the IR curricula and IR courses. National and Institutional Academic Context The praxis of IR teaching at University of Delhi, as indeed elsewhere in India, needs to be understood against the backdrop of three important structural shifts. The first pertains to the “generational” factor. Senior faculty, especially those schooled in India, were themselves introduced to the IR discipline at the postgraduate level and hence have little personal or institutional memory of IR teaching practices at the undergraduate level. The TRIP survey, conducted for the first time in India in 2015, corroborates that only 50 percent of the existing faculty members and researchers were first introduced to the IR discipline at the undergraduate level, while 44.5 percent had their first encounter with the discipline at the postgraduate level, and another 4 percent at the MPhil and PhD levels (Behera 2015). About 38 percent of students are first taught IR at the undergraduate level (Behera 2015). The second structural shift is to IR's disciplinary orientation. In the past, international studies in India was a peculiar product marked by a conceptual conflation of area studies and disciplinary IR whereby the latter was often subsumed under the former's rubric. The past two decades have, however, witnessed a gradual transformation with disciplinary IR increasingly shaping curricula and research agendas. The third shift in introductory IR courses involves replacing a Eurocentric, diplomatic account of world history with key conceptual frames/tools and contemporary global issues and practices. Teaching IR at the University of Delhi has also broadly followed this trajectory. With more than 50,000 students enrolled in its undergraduate programs of BA (Bachelor in Arts) and BA Honors in fifty-two constituent colleges along with about 95,000 students in its School of Open Learning, the University of Delhi is the single largest collection of students, scholars, and faculty doing political science in the country. IR is taught as one of its sub-disciplines. The university has a unique federal character wherein the Department of Political Science, where I have taught for nearly two decades, works in close collaboration with the faculty at its geographically dispersed constituent colleges to design the curricula and develop reading lists and materials for students. The International Relations Curriculum Curriculum development in University of Delhi itself is, however, an extremely complex and long-drawn-out process that passes through several academic bodies. These layers of approval severely limit teachers’ autonomy in making choices about offering specific courses to the undergraduate students and the content of their syllabi because the entire process is centralized and applied uniformly through all colleges. Because the same course is taught by more than a hundred teachers to thousands of students, the challenges faced by University of Delhi are indeed peculiar and complex with myriad structural constraints. Three critical factors are constantly at play, though their varied combinations and severity yield differing results. First, teachers’ own professional background, teaching styles, and research interests make a big difference. The younger generation of teachers, for instance, is relatively more conversant with the latest theoretical developments in the field. College faculty who received their doctoral degrees in the last decade tend to rue the absence of “constructivism” as a lacuna in the university's syllabi. Some of them are also more willing to experiment with alternate teaching tools such as movies and simulation workshops, though all encourage their students to actively participate in conferences and special lectures by experts. A large proportion of the senior faculty tends to foreground the empirical milestones of world history. Of course, neither group is homogeneous. Some very senior teachers interweave and contextualize the theoretical debates in their classes by drawing insights and narratives from the local contexts to hold students’ interest in the subject. Teaching styles also influence preferred modes of assessment. Whereas most teachers prefer the standard mode of written exams, some insist upon research essays and written assignments as part of their endeavor to help students improve their writing skills. Second, the university draws students from a diverse mix of upper, middle, and lower classes including some first-generation learners, and hence many students face basic challenges such as their ability to buy books and computers for access to online resources at home. A very large proportion of students—in some colleges, as many as 60–70 percent—are proficient only in the Hindi language. As a result, several colleges have separate sections for teaching IR to English- and Hindi-medium students. This brings us to the third factor, the rather poor availability of good textual resources in the Hindi language, especially foundational texts and the latest textbooks. In this context, classroom teaching acquires a special significance because the onus is on the teachers to make the literature of the subject comprehensible to students who are not proficient in the English language. Keeping the above factors in mind, over the past decade the Department of Political Science has evolved a practice of designing reading-based courses with common syllabi content and reading materials to provide a common frame of understanding and teaching. Teachers in different colleges, however, certainly exercise their discretion in using alternate, additional, or updated textual resources and exploring suitable texts in Hindi. Introductory Courses In terms of courses, University of Delhi offers two introductory courses: Perspectives on International Relations and World History and, Global Politics. A key stated objective of the first course is to make students aware of the implicit Eurocentrism in IR by highlighting specific perspectives from the Global South. Even though there are no standard pedagogical strategies devised for this purpose, the syllabi do provide a basic take-off point by not assuming the Westphalia as the ubiquitous reference point for the creation of the international state system. Framing the debate in terms of “pre-Westphalia, Westphalia, and post-Westphalia” invites students to trace the system's historical birth to Europe and, at the same time, cast their gaze much wider by exploring different kinds of states and empires from other parts of the world. Some teachers then build on this through different methods. One colleague, for instance, underlines the importance of first grounding the students in “how to do social science,” which she attempts by introducing the macro idea of a “time-space grid.” This evokes fundamental questions such as where and how something (creation of states in this case) is taking place. By highlighting the need to understand historical context and relevance, students find it easier to later contextualize the key concepts and premises of IR. A typical question in her class debates is what the world looked like in 1648 when the Peace of Westphalia was being negotiated in Europe. Another colleague places this debate against the larger backdrop of the intellectual history of ideas in IR by juxtaposing the works of Thucydides and Machiavelli with Kautilya and comparing the practices of statecraft and the idea of sovereignty as it evolved in the European context with that of the tributary system in China and suzerainty as it evolved in India. A widely shared and serious hurdle in teaching perspectives from the Global South, however, is the lack of locally produced, high-quality textbooks. In teaching the main theoretical approaches ranging from realism and liberalism to feminism and Marxism, for instance, all teachers inevitably rely on Western textbooks. Very few teachers make the effort necessary to explain these theories by drawing exemplars from their respective local/Global South positionality, though those who do so recognize it as an effective strategy in sustaining students’ interest in the subject. Large segments of the syllabi focusing on world history remains a bone of contention among the IR faculty. While some argue that this is at cross purposes with the overall objective of moving away from the Eurocentric historical accounts of IR and that more attention needs to be paid to discussing critical developments in the realm of IR theorizing, others lament that doing so makes the syllabi too long and unwieldy. Those in favor explain the usefulness of shifting students’ gaze from understanding the Cold War and post–Cold War developments from the superpowers’ perspective to the vantage point of the Third World countries and the role played by the Rising Powers in the contemporary context. The generational factor strongly impinges on this debate, with most senior faculty in favor of retaining it and younger colleagues in support of substantial changes. The Global Politics course complements the first course well as it introduces students to key debates on the meaning and nature of globalization and addresses a diverse array of global issues ranging from global economic governance, proliferation of nuclear weapons, and ecological issues to international terrorism, human security, and migration. This course offers ample scope for the faculty to weave in local/national, regional, and global perspectives by bringing voices from both the Global North and the Global South into class debates that naturally tend to focus on Indian positions on the issues at hand. The syllabi of this course have been devised to facilitate such debates. For instance, classroom discussions on the institutional anchors of world economy such as the IMF, the World Bank, and the WTO are juxtaposed with the roles played by non-state actors, civil society, and social movements in leading global resistances. On ecology, debates on climate change unfolding in the institutionalized forums of global summits that are most often dominated by the powerful, developed states of the Global North are put in perspective by the global commons debates wherein India has, over the years, been at the forefront in articulating the Global South's position, which is informed by the core principle on “common but differentiated responsibility.” Though scarcity of foundational texts and academic literature in Hindi language remains a persistent problem, the faculty has, over the years, steadfastly sought to include the writings of scholars from the Global South on these issues. The works of K. Shimko, Arjun Appadurai, Amitav Acharya, Achin Vanaik, and Amrita Narlikar, among others, are assigned to students. Although the predominant anchor for teaching this course remains empirical developments in the respective domains, there are several notable exceptions wherein teachers encourage students to understand these issues by drawing insights from theoretical frames taught in the preceding course. Most of these are driven by instructors’ predilections and research. A class debate on migration, for instance, yields very different understanding if it is strictly framed within the parameters of a state-centric worldview or offered as a feminist interrogation that might bring students attention toward conflict-induced forced migration or the phenomenon of environmental refugees. Given that University of Delhi caters to thousands of students, the overall learning objectives of students naturally vary a great deal. Although many students pursue careers in academia or journalism, or join civil services, NGOs, or foreign missions, what counts from a pedagogical standpoint is the critical faculties they develop during their undergraduate years, which help them learn and make sense of the world around them. The curricula and courses at University of Delhi have thus far sought to attune the global practices to the national and regional cultural milieu; the next challenge lies in developing alternate and critical pedagogies for the mainstream IR that do justice to diverse global realities so as to deliver the disciplinary knowledge in a manner that actually “speaks to them” and enables them to make better sense of the world around them. This calls for devising different pedagogical strategies that do not start teaching with a priori conceptual frameworks but that open up the foundational concepts of IR to be mediated by the history, societal norms, and cultural values of their respective loci. Teaching Global International Relations Amitav Acharya American University There is already a growing literature on the state of IR that speaks to the dominance of Western scholars, publishers, and publications, and the exclusions and biases that this creates for scholars from the Global South. However, much of its focus has been on research and publication (Acharya and Buzan 2019, chapter 10). The teaching dimension of IR's Western dominance has received less attention. Although graduate training conditions a future generation of teachers, undergraduate training shapes a generation of leaders (as well as teachers and other professionals). It provides the first window to the field for a larger number of students and can have a lasting impact on their ideas of what IR is about. Based on a survey of 48 “Introduction to International Relations” syllabi from ten countries, Knight (2019, 1) finds that an overwhelming number of readings are by “US-resident, US-trained, male authors.” Moreover, 38.1 percent of the “required” readings have the United States as their geographic focus, followed by Europe (30.1 percent). This means the United States and Europe together account for more than two-thirds of geographic focus. In short, when it comes to geographic focus, IR teaching as it stands today is far from global. While many studies on the lack of diversity in IR have been quantitative, this forum has a refreshingly human touch, presenting a vivid account of real-life challenges to teaching IR from the personal vantage points of instructors at both Western and non-Western universities. Below, I offer my own thoughts on the subject, drawing not only from their contributions, but also on my personal experience in teaching IR at universities in Asia, Australia, Africa, Europe, and North America. Context Although all contributors to this forum lament the lack of diversity in IR, none asks for a complete reboot of the discipline. Instead, their call seems to be for critique, contextualization, and localization of the imported IR literature when used for teaching. This supports the idea of a Global IR (Acharya 2014), which does not seek to displace, but challenge and transform the discipline as it stands now to fully account for the voices and experiences of marginalized groups, including but not limited to the Global South. The contributors use a variety of pedagogical strategies to achieve this, ranging from using more Global South perspectives to challenge Eurocentrism (Kalpakian), offering local examples, providing “African philosophical interpretations of IR concepts and theories” (Matos-Ala), holding “imagined conversations” between Chinese and Western thinkers (Li), “juxtaposing the works of Thucydides and Machiavelli with Kautilya,” and showing respect for local culture (Behara). Respect for cultural diversity is important not only in the Global South, but also for the classrooms of the West. Although diversity and inclusion have now become buzzwords for Western universities, this is yet to filter down to radical curriculum reform. Often, it involves creating endless committees and task forces, and adding a handful of new courses covering other cultures, and training faculty and staff in intercultural communication. In this context, the call by Vlcek and Bower of St Andrews University for “mainstreaming” the “marginalized perspectives from the Global South, women, and minority communities” deserves attention. This in their view would diminish IR's “privileging of Western visions of global politics” and “engage with calls for a genuinely ‘global IR’ as an intellectual, normative, and pedagogic challenge.” For me, mainstreaming requires not just creating a few additional courses on other cultures or regions, but ensuring that every course in IR contains diverse perspectives, and accommodates the voices, experiences, and contributions of others. Diversity for its own sake is of course not a panacea. It is important to remind ourselves that what diversity means varies from country to country, region to region. Hence, scholars from different part of the Global South or Global North will deploy diversity from different conceptual and empirical contexts, and “localize” it to suit their respective audiences and classrooms. This could lead to some fragmentation of the discipline, a prospect that would be unwelcome to many scholars, especially in the West. However, the degree of such fragmentation of IR or the fear of the consequences due to diversity and localization of IR could be exaggerated. It is eminently possible to have a global IR with more local foundations (including national schools) through “constitutive localization” (Acharya 2004). Arguments against diversity and localization of IR certainly do not justify keeping the field as is, in a pristine form of Western-centrism, against the evidence these writers and many others have presented. Some fragmentation may be inevitable and may even be creative. The challenge would be how to incorporate diversity while engaging in intersecting conversations to create a more pluralistic discipline. Agency Another important message from this forum is the importance of agency. As Matos-Ala (South Africa) puts it, IR textbooks need to “reframe the way actors from the Global South are presented”; they should be “no longer defined only in terms of their relationship with the Global North, but as agents in their own right.” A key form of agency in international affairs is regionalism. Hence, in the context of Africa, teaching IR stresses the ideal of pan-Africanism from the colonial era, the more recent African renaissance initiative, and the APRM. Latin America, the birthplace of the modern concept of regionalism, shows an intellectual and political passion for the regionalist concepts, starting with Bolivarian ideal of pan-Americanism. Since there is little regionalism in South Asia, Behara is silent on regionalism, thereby demonstrating how local context matters. History Both context and agency converge on history, especially civilizational history. Many precolonial societies had greater agency in world affairs that was lost during colonialism. While postcolonial scholars think of agency mainly in terms of anti-colonial struggles and this is extremely important, global IR gives equal if not more stress on precolonial agency. Teaching IR with the nation-state as its unit gives us less than 500 years to play with. These are also the centuries of the rise and dominance of the West. So a Westphalian-centered IR cannot neuter the existing Western bias of IR. Yet teaching IR from a civilizational perspective gives us 5,000 years. During that time, many civilizations in non-West areas have arisen and left their mark on world politics. Civilizational history not only levels the playing field and introduces a richer menu of concepts, such as Ujamaa and Ubuntu in Africa, but also generates the kind of respect that Kalpakian talks about. The reference to pre-colonial civilizations and their core ideas is evident in the contributions on Africa (including Indian Ocean trade), China, India, South Africa, and Morocco. However, the essay on Latin America in this forum does not do this, although the pioneering work of Victor Raul Haya and José Carlos Mariátegui La Chira of Peru a century ago addressed the role of people from pre-Columbian civilizations (Acharya and Buzan 2019). Such work should not just pay attention to the story of the Spanish conquest and its consequences, but also highlight the political systems, governance innovations, and interaction patterns (trade, warfare, and rituals) of the Mayas, Aztec, Incas, and the inhabitants of Teotihuacan. Canadian scholars including some from indigenous communities and Global South (Lightfoot 2016; Lightfoot and MacDonald, 2017) have brought the study of indigenous communities into IR curricula; such progress needs to be represented in the wider curricula of undergraduate teaching in the West and around the world. National Mind versus Global International Relations Another key issue about teaching and writing IR is flagged by Li when he calls for “learning IR with a ‘global mind,’ as opposed to a mere ‘national mind.’” But are these mutually exclusive? One could argue the opposite: the path to the global mind could begin through a national or local one. Attempts to draw IR ideas and narratives from local sources and history should not be regarded (one can only assume unflatteringly) as “nativism” or “culturalist” (Alejandro 2019, 182). This mischaracterizes global IR, which from the very outset has stressed the need for avoiding cultural exceptionalism and parochialism (Acharya 2014). It also misrepresents the intellectual purpose of many if not all non-Western scholars, including in India and China, who draw on local or national history and culture with a view to challenge and engage the discipline of IR, including its concepts and epistemological repertoire, which they see as deeply “nativist” and “culturalist” but in favor of the Western civilization. Dissident and postcolonial scholars have also invoked culture and civilization for the same purpose. There is no question that civilizational discourse can be and has been abused by authoritarian forces, both in the West and in the non-West. Such abuses must be exposed and resisted. Moreover, national IR must be able to travel beyond their place of origins and provide general understanding and explanations of world affairs, and avoid legitimizing repressive regimes (Acharya 2019). However, rejecting the study of non-Western civilizations outright would be another form of intellectual gatekeeping and silencing. Textbooks A final thought on this forum concerns textbooks. Undergraduate introductory courses on IR are more likely to use one or two mass circulating textbooks. Textbooks published in the West are expensive, but there is an acute lack of locally produced texts. Behara, who teaches at one of India's largest universities, points to the language barrier, since even in India, where English in a national language, some 60–70 percent of students are proficient only in Hindi whereas most textbooks are in English. This is not the only issue with textbooks. Powell (2019, 1) shows that undergraduate texts produced in the West create a bias in favor of Western or European history and ideas because of the way they deal with history, presenting the European past as normal and inevitable and “obscuring non-Western significance.” Textbooks vary widely, even among those produced in the West. In my view, a good way to judge a textbook (and go about writing/editing one) would be to ask the following questions. First, do they have historical chapters before World War I or Westphalia? While some popular introductory texts like The Globalization of World Politics, which are used by Espinoza and Carranco in Ecuador and Vlcek and Bower in Scotland, do start with history of non-Western civilizations, they do not substantively discuss non-Western civilizations or IR concepts or contributions derived from them. For me, another test for textbook is whether in discussing the emergence of IR, and tracing it to the creation of the Woodrow Wilson Chair at Aberystwyth in 1919, do they bother to take into consideration ideas and struggles of people from colonized nations (Acharya and Buzan 2019)? Do they cover national and regional IR, e.g., the development of IR in India, China, Brazil, Turkey, Russia, or regionally as in Asia, Middle East, Latin America, and Africa? Do they integrate or “mainstream” race, postcolonialism, imperialism, and dependency into the core narrative of the book, or set them aside in separate chapters. More importantly, do they include discussion of Global South agency in building international norms and institutions? My own sense is that these discussions do exist, but are grossly inadequate. Last but certainly not the least, major Western textbook publishers have rarely brought out IR textbooks written solely by scholars from the Global South or jointly by them and Western scholars. Even texts that are edited collections have only token representation of contributors from the Global South. This sort of gatekeeping is all the more inexcusable because, while publishing in refereed journals is daunting for anyone, textbooks are more managed and guided products and there are plenty of authors from the Global South who can write texts and at least contribute chapters on every conceivable subject, including on theory and general issues of war, peace, and cooperation. Regrettably, publishers and editors of IR textbooks remain insensitive to this need, especially compared to the welcome attention increasingly given to the inclusion of women contributors. In conclusion, drawing upon this forum but also from my experience, I suggest that teaching IR from a truly global perspective must include: drawing from global history and philosophy, and developing narratives on the basis of autonomous, comparative, and connected histories; incorporating regions, regionalisms, and area studies, rather than viewing them as non-IR; shedding Westphalianism, and acknowledging the contribution of classical and hierarchical systems by studying civilizations; focusing on agency—material and ideational—of non-Western states and societies by exploring how local actors resist/modify global norms/institutions and create new ones; paying attention to both material and ideational/normative causes and consequences to bring in a focus more likely to be global because many countries outside the West are weak in power or resources but rich in ideas, the weapons of the weak; questioning the alleged universal applicability of certain concepts, such as nation-state, territorial sovereignty, balance of power, free markets, liberal order, and hegemonic stability, which are regarded as Western in origin, yet timeless, unexceptional, and applicable to all societies; identifying multiple and global origins of concepts and processes that have been credited to the West, such as human rights, balance of power, and just war. 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TI - The Introductory Course in International Relations: Regional Variations
JF - International Studies Perspectives
DO - 10.1093/isp/ekaa009
DA - 2020-09-25
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/the-introductory-course-in-international-relations-regional-variations-oDf98DO7ar
SP - 1
EP - 1
VL - Advance Article
IS - 
DP - DeepDyve
ER -