Culture Change in Latin America

Effects of urbanization, industrialization, population increases, international politics, and modernization upon primitive and peasant population of Latin America.

Prereq: Three credits of anthropology or permission of instructor.

WOMEN AND SOCIAL CHANGE                                                                      Function of changes in women’s roles in socio-cultural urbanization, revolution, and modernization. Women in Third World countries compared to women in industrialized countries.

Political Anthropology

Social power in the global political economy. Co-existence of various emergent and residual social formations, such as tribe, peasant, and state. Conflicts over identities in terms of nationality, gender, ethnicity, race and/or class.

Political Anthropology

Social power in the global political economy. Co-existence of various emergent and residual social formations, such as tribe, peasant, and state. Conflicts over identities in terms of nationality, gender, ethnicity, race and/or class.

Problems in the Anthropology of South Asia (Seminar)

One topic of theoretical concern to anthropologists dealing with South Asia, e.g. caste, kinship, village, Hinduism, economics, urbanization, rural/urban networks

Disease and Human Evolution

Interaction of human populations with major diseases: plague, typhus, small pox, measles, AIDS. Biological and cultural effects. Human variation: mutations, blood types, race, and disabilities. Various aspects of human microevolution

CULTURE & AIDS                                                                                         Relationship between AIDS and cultures in which it spreads. Cultural practices and sexuality and social effects of widespread AIDS, including healthcare in Asia, Africa, Latin America and USA.

LANGUAGE, CULTURE AND SOCIETY

Cross-cultural survey of the role of language in culture and society, including cognition and language usage along the dimensions of class, gender, race, ethnicity, and social status.

Prereq. for ANT/LIN 472: anthropology or linguistics majors with senior standing.

Anthropology of Global Transformations

Impact of global processes, including industrialization, capitalist expansion, transnational migration, environmental change, and international tourism on the daily lives of men and women in Third World contexts.

SOCIAL MOVEMENT THEORY 

The course offers in-depth analysis of collective action for social

change, with case studies from around the world. Topics covered include

historical contexts of activism and mobilization, political process

theory, framing, oppositional consciousness, collective identity,

leadership, counter-hegemony, popular culture and resistance, the

spatiality of tactics, nonviolent insurrection, the relations between

SOCIAL MOVEMENT RESEARCH METHODS                                                       A range of research methodologies relevant to the study of social movements. Stimulates critical thinking about these methodologies’ ethical implications. Students develop proposals for projects carried out the following semester.

CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGICAL THEORY                                                         Theoretical Issues of the past two decades. Includes feminism and anthropology. Reflexive and interpretive ethnography. Sociobiology versus culturology. Marxist anthropology.

Development Anthropology

Provides students of public administration in developing countries with a briefing of the culture and social organization of Third World peoples. Recurrent problems of "development" these peoples confront viewed from an anthropologist's perspective.

Gender and Globalization

The impact of the increasing hyper-mobility of capital and culture flows across borders on gender relations.

Stabilization and Growth in Emerging Markets

Stabilization and Growth in Emerging Markets is a rigorous theoretical and applied course on the macroeconomics of emerging market countries.  It is designed to complement other SU courses which tend to adopt a decidedly microeconomic emphasis to the study of such countries. The course targets professional degree students, including those pursuing the international relations master degree, master degree candidates in economics and political science, as well as undergraduate economics honors students and economic majors.

“Emerging Markets” is a popular, albeit often loosely employed term, incorporating two distinct classes of countries - developing and transitional. These two groups share certain structural features and policy dilemmas but their institutional and historical differences are equally marked. While similarities exist with some developing country experience, wholesale systemic transformation renders macroeconomic adjustment in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe unique, at least in certain key respects. A dual theme of the course is thus, variations in macroeconomic conditions and performance between emerging markets and advanced industrialized countries, and the contrasting experience of developing and transitional countries.

The approach taken is largely theoretical. A principal aim of the course is to convey systematically the central concepts and techniques of modern macroeconomic thinking, which are relevant to the emerging markets.  Students should leave the course with a rigorous analytical framework with which to evaluate key macroeconomic debates and approach the analysis of macroeconomic data. The end goal of studying economic modeling, however, should be to become more sophisticated at evaluating pressing policy issues. That is our ultimate objective.

More specifically, the course covers the following major topics:

- A review of macroeconomic models relevant to developing and transition economies, featuring specific structural features of their labor and financial markets and a focus on fiscal rigidities.

- Special attention is given to the fiscal, monetary and exchange rate policy tradeoffs amidst international capital flows. 

- We examine problems of short-run macroeconomic management during periods of trade, price and financial liberalization, including a review of the debate on the sequencing of reforms.

- We examine the role of political factors in the adoption and abandonment of stabilization and structural adjustment programs.

- The course reviews the political economy of adjustment and the conditions for sustained economic growth.

International Macroeconomics and Finance

Monetary, fiscal, and regulatory consequences of mushrooming international financial markets including equities, bonds, and other securities, commodity and options contracts, and bank deposits and loans.

Prereq: ECN 302

Law and economics

Use of welfare theory and microeconomic tools in analysis of law and legal regulations.

Prereq: ECN 301 or 311 or permission of instructor.

Economics of science and technology

In an ever-changing world, technological change both influences policy decisions and is influenced by policy.  This course looks at the interaction of policy and technological change from both directions.  Throughout the course, we will use examples from current policy debates to highlight important issues. The course begins with an introduction to the economic analysis of knowledge.  We begin by discussing the role that knowledge plays in the economic growth of nations.  Next, we look at why economists consider the creation of knowledge to be a public good, and discuss how the public goods nature of knowledge affects the creation of new knowledge.  We then ask how government policy, such as patent protection and government funded R&D, influences the development of new technologies. Next, we look at the diffusion of knowledge.  We begin by looking at how new knowledge is transferred, both across institutions the industrialized world and to developing countries.  Finally, we conclude by considering how technological change affects policy.  We consider the impact of  information technology on the "New Economy", and discuss how technological change affects policy.  For example, should sales taxes be collected on Internet purchases?  Should drug companies should receive patent protection in developing countries? How can health policy keep up with changing medical technologies?

Survey of Microeconomic Theory

Microeconomics. For graduates with little recent work in economics.

Prereq: ECN 101,102 or equivalent.  This course is intended for students pursuing the joint degree in IR and Economics or for straight IR students looking for a slightly more technical version of microeconomics. 

macroeconomic theory
Macroeconomics. For graduates with little recent work in economics.

Prereq: ECN 101,102 or equivalent.

Economics for Managers
Micro- and macroeconomic theory for managerial decision making. Forecasting. Not open to students seeking advanced degrees in economics.

Public Finance

Economics of expenditure and taxation decisions of U.S. federal government. Public choice, economics of transfer payments to individuals, personal and corporate income taxation, and economics of social security program. For master’s candidates.

Economics of development

Uses basic economic tools to analyze and survey major issues currently important in the study of economic development in the Third World; measures and theories of development; key domestic issues; international links between LDCs and the rest of the world; policies to provide development.

Prereq: ECN 601 or equivalent.

International Economics

Balance of payments, foreign exchange markets, international trade theory, tariffs, quotas adjustment mechanisms, and exchange controls.

Advanced International Trade

Economics 765 presents international trade theory at the Ph.D. level. The course focuses almost entirely on general equilibrium approaches to modeling trading relations and to testing hypotheses derived from these models. Topics covered include models of trade with constant returns and perfect competition, models of trade with variable returns and imperfect competition, gains from trade with constant and variable returns to scale, and positive and normative analyses of commercial policy. We also examine recent evidence on the factor content of trade, endogenous tariff formation, and scale economies. Lectures, class discussions, and assignments
are geared toward developing competency in understanding and creating models of open economic systems. Problem sets, two take-home examinations, and a critical literature review allow students to demonstrate this competency.

To complete the Ph.D. sequence in international economics, students should follow this course with Economics 865, Topics in International Trade.

Course Prerequisites: A working knowledge of multivariate calculus and linear algebra is required, as is completion of a Ph.D.-level course in microeconomic theory (Economics 611 or the equivalent).

Business, Finance & Economics  

This course will cover basic accounting, economics, finance, very rudimentary taxation concepts, securities and investments, and other topics such as life and hazard insurance

topics in international trade

Understanding of intuition, theory, and methods underlying current research on trade and trade policy. Overall picture of research on international trade policy.

Concepts of Sustainable Development

Three hours of lecture/discussion per week. This course presents the ecological and development principles and theoretical underpinnings guiding local and global initiatives for sustainable development. Four overlapping themes will be considered and linked: the relationship between patterns of wealth, poverty and environmental quality; the role of efficiency in reducing environmental impacts; the theme of frugality and sufficiency in advancing development; and questions of environmental equity and the quality of development. Fall

Note: Credit will not be granted for both ENS 626 and EST 426.

Environmental Science Seminar

Discussion of current topics and research related to environmental science. Fall and Spring.

The Geography of Capital

In-depth reading of Marx’s Capital to understand: (a) the relationship between political economy and the geographical landscape; (b) the formative role of Capital in contemporary geographic theory.

GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS

This course is designed as an introduction to geographic information systems (GIS).  The overall goal of the course is to provide students with the theoretical and practical knowledge necessary to understand the uses and limitations of GIS, and conduct typical GIS operations and analyses.  We will use ArcGIS Desktop software (ESRI, Redlands, CA) as the primary software package in the course, but other programs will also be demonstrated.  Students should complete the course with the necessary knowledge to enable them to extend their learning to a variety of applications and software environments, and prepare them for more advanced training in GIS.  The purpose of this course is NOT to teach students to become experts in using ArcGIS software.  Students only interested in learning how to drive ArcGIS software should not take this course.

The course will introduce the basic principles of GIS.  Specific course objectives are to i) introduce operations and analytic functions of GIS, ii) demonstrate the varied applications of GIS, iii) provide hands-on practical experience with a leading GIS program, and iv) provide an overview of current issues relating to GIS.

Topics to be covered include an introduction to GIS and applications; geographic representation; spatial data; georeferencing; spatial data modeling, including raster, vector, and surface models; methods of data input and editing; attribute data management; data analyses; and developments and the future of GIS.

There are no prerequisites to this course.

SEMINAR ON LATIN AMERICA                                                                         

We shall critically examine many distinctive types of sources that are available for those conducting research in Latin America, examining both actual sources, as well as exemplary studies that have used the source or multiple sources. Students will be charged with selecting one or more sources that they are using (or may/will use) in their own research on Latin America, and this will be the basic material for the course paper, the primary means of evaluation. The sources and themes to be discussed in this course will be of interest to students in a wide range of disciplines in the social sciences and humanities.

"CULTURAL GEOGRAPY" TRANSNATIONALISMS & URBAN ETHNOGRAPHIES: FRANCE, ENGLAND, AND SOUTH AFRICA COMPARED

First we shall look at contemporary Strasbourg.  This is work-in-progress for me, a human geographer who has always been intrigued by the mesh of society, time, and place.  This Rhineland city has been both French and German in living memory, and now has become postcolonial/multicultural/globalized, beyond "European."  I am excited that you can work with me on this before any final mold to the book I am writing has been set; your inputs will be appreciated.

And now to London in the late 1980s, a world-city and then well on its way to its current remarkable cosmopolitanism.  For next four weeks, however, we encounter in particular some of a very earliest Caribbean settlers who arrived 30 years before, and who from 1956 onwards actually set London on its multicultural path, and then observed it unfolding. We may at some time during this section be fortunate to have Dr. Beverley Mullings visiting from Queens University, Canada; she will provide some readings.

If the subtext to Strasbourg and London hints at a certain ineluctable (if not necessarily triumphant) socio-cultural fusion, then the third section treats Cape Town under a regime that was trying to prevent the very possibility of any such fusion: the hyper-segregation of apartheid in the late 1970s.  However, we may ask, what has been achieved since apartheid's banishment a dozen years ago? Sometime during this section we may be able to have Dr. David McDonald visiting from Queens University, Canada; he'll also provide readings for us. 

Overview: If Cape Town is generally drawing closer to the societal shape that Strasbourg and London have been taking, in what ways are there still differences, and what is their significance?  At the course’s conclusion, then, we are in a position to attempt a "compare-and-contrast" perspective on these three cities.

Grades will be determined via a number of factors, the precise configuration depending on how many persons join the seminar. Clearly, however, there will be attention paid to degree of preparation evident, to participation in class, to presentation(s) made to the seminar, and to the quality of a substantial end-of-term research paper.

US Intelligence History

Please contact Professor Lasch-Quinn for course requirements:  edlasch@maxwell.syr.edu.

NAZI GERMANY
Contact instructor for course requirements: fdmarqua@maxwell.syr.edu

WORLD AT WAR

A study of the major developments in the military history of the first and second world wars.

On World War I: The setting for the war in the struggle for mastery in Europe to 1914; the Schlieffen Plan and its fate in the critical early months of the conflict; the creation of the killing ground of the western front trenches by 1915; the massive attrition battles in the arenas of death at Verdun, the Somme and in Flanders Field; the war in the east and its implications for the fate of Russia; the war at sea to Jutland and after; warfare beyond the European battlefields; the war in the air; American entry and the final encounters 1917-18.

On World War II: The heritage of Versailles and the rise of Hitler; after appeasement and isolationism – the war begins in Poland with blitzkrieg and the shaping of new tactics and strategies as well as the use of new weapons systems; the Fall of France and the Battle of Britain. Barbarossa and Hitler’s run of victories in Russia; Pearl Harbor and America’s road to war; counter-attack in the west and the making of allied strategy; from Stalingrad to the Kursk Salient and beyond as the war changes course in eastern Europe; the Pacific war from Coral Sea and Midway to the offensives in the Central and Southwest Pacific; Holocaust – the war against the Jews; closing the ring in Europe; Iwo Jima, Okinawa and the decision to use the atomic bomb.

Films will be used as one tool for understanding the nature and scope of conflicts which changed the world.

HISTORY OF NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, 1945-PRESENT

      This course will deal with the negotiations on nuclear disarmament. It
will explain why disarmament agreement per se was never achieved, and
will explain what was achieved, after all, and why. It will descirbe
the influence of international diplomacy as well as domestic politics on
the progress of the negotiations, and it will describe the conceptual
change that took place in the United States' attitude that led to a
conceptual transition from the concept of disarmament to the concept of
Arms Control, a change that eventually allowed the signing of agreements
like the Partial Nuclear Test Ban, the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the
SALT agreement, and so on.

THE PALESTINE-JEWISH/ISRAELI CONFLICT                                                    

   The seminar will deal with the origin and development of the
Jewish-Palestinian conflict and its evolvement into the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It will trace the evolution and
development of the two national movements, the Palestinian and the
Jewish, and the means each community employed to achieve its goal.
Particular emphasis will be placed on understanding the composition of
Jewish and Arab communities in Palestine, the respective political
culture of both, and to the description of the development of the
struggle between the two communities up to the 1947-8 civil war in
Palestine. Then the seminar will deal with the reemergence of the
Palestinians back to the world of politics, after the defeat they
sustained in 1948, and their resort to violence as a means to achieve
their national goals. With that the seminar will deal with the
development of Israeli counter-terrorism strategy and the development
and escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the mid 1960's,
through the 1982 war in Lebanon, the first Intifada (1987), the Oslo
Accords (1993) and their collapse, with the second Intifada (2000).

  

FUNDAMENTALS OF CONFLICT STUDIES
This course exposes students to a broad range of areas related to the analysis and resolution of conflict. The addition of many Faculty guest lecturers provides diverse frameworks for analyzing conflict and thought provoking cases of conflict and conflict management. The course emphasizes a solid foundation in conflict theory as well as a review of important faculty research and interests in the conflict studies field, giving students an excellent opportunity to get acquainted with faculty and their work.

INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC AND NGO MANAGEMENT

The new international order evolving at the beginning of the Twenty-First Century involves governments, international organizations and non-governmental organizations. Government management has been studied for centuries, that of international organizations very little and of international non-governmental organizations not at all. The management of these organizations is becoming a key issue as some governments, including the United States under the Bush Administration, have questioned the worth of international treaties and by implication the capacity of the international organizations set up to implement them. Management is increasingly "results-based" where organizations are expected to plan strategically, program tactically and monitor and evaluate outcomes leading to the achievement of concrete objectives.

The course focuses on how international public and non-governmental organizations strategically plan and manage five key functions: regime creation, norm enforcement, peace, security and humanitarian assistance, development assistance and internal management. The course is the first of a two course sequence on results-based management in international public and NGO organizations. The second course is IRP/PPA 633.

This seminar is also offered as a distance course using web pages, text chat, email, and video conferencing starting with an in-person session in Syracuse in September with an additional in-person session in Washington, DC sometime in late November. This course focuses on how international public and non-governmental organizations manage five key functions: regime creation; norm enforcement; peace, security and humanitarian assistance; development assistance and international management. Organizations are examined from a management perspective in terms of these functions through specific case studies. Topics include the nature of global governance and the role of non-governmental organizations; how management of international public and NGO management differs from national and private management and principles of multilateral negotiation and the role of NGO's.

EVALUATION OF INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMS AND PROJECTS                                 The course addresses the issue of how to evaluate the impact of programs and projects undertaken by international public and non-governmental organizations.  This includes programs of development cooperation and humanitarian assistance as well as the regular programs of organizations dealing with such diverse functions as regime creation, monitoring of human rights, trade regulation and elimination of weapons of mass destruction.

HISTORY OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

This course examines influential events of the 20th and 21st Centuries, reviewing how theorists and practitioners sought to make sense of these events and their consequences.  Additionally, we try to anticipate how probable events of the near future might alter the practices and understandings of international relations.

OBSTACLES TO DEMOCRACY IN THE MUSLIM WORLD
The emphasis in this seminar will be on alternative opinions, approaches, and policies to the Arab-Israeli conflict. The course begins with a description of the role of personalities in the Oslo peace process.  It will then goes on to analyze American and Norwegian approaches to conflict resolution in the Middle East, an analysis that will focus on the Oslo accords, themselves.  The course asks the question, “Why does conflict resolution at one stage lead to conflict at another stage?”  In the second part of the seminar,  psychological dynamics as obstacles to peace in the Arab-Israeli conflict will be examined. In the third part of the focus will shift to the propaganda war in the Middle East.  Metaphors of conflict in the Middle East, the use and misuse of the term “terrorism” in the conflict, and the use and misuse of religion in the conflict between Jews and Arabs will be analyzed.  In the fourth part of the seminar, the focus will become how conflict resolution in the Middle East can be achieved.  Underlying causes of conflict, lessons from the conflict of Nagorno-Karabakh in the Caucasus, and how the lessons from this case can be applied to the Arab-Israeli conflict will be studied.

QUALITATIVE SKILLS IN IR

TRADE AND ECONOMIC NEGOTIATION
This course, taught by Eliza Patterson, an international trade attorney and former adviser to the GATT and Overseas Development Council, centers on a major trade or economic negotiation simulation. Through varied case studies, special exercises, and with the assistance of trade experts, the seminar exposes the class to major issues, contending positions and values at play internationally. The course is particularly useful for those considering careers in international trade, business, markets and finance. Ms. Patterson, a JD with wide experience as an adviser to the GATT and the ODC, has served as international affairs adviser to the NY-NJ Port Authority.
IRP 715 Section M002, Class#: 14825

DEFENSE CHALLENGES IN 21ST CENTURY
U.S. national security strategy and policy face great challenges in the 21st century.  Political, military, legal, and economic factors will affect both strategy and policy.  This course will assess those factors and their effects on possible solutions to those challenges.  The course approaches national security from both military and government-wide prospectives and addresses the executive branch, the congressional, and the global environments.
The professor will emphasize a practitioner's approach to issues and will use lectures, readings and original source documents, class discussions, and guest speakers from the national security community.  Students will deliver short written papers, mostly in the form of one-page memos, and will undertake group assignments leading to oral class presentations.  The primary focus is on contemporary issues and events, but the instructive value of history is also prominent throughout the course.  For students who wish to take this course, prior knowledge of or study in national security is strongly recommended but not required. This course will help students with foreign policy and security studies concentrations prepare for the evolution and challenges of coming years.
This course will be taught by James Keagle.  Click here for bio of Keagle. 
IRP 715 Section M006, Class #: 18470

GLOBALIZATION AND THE INFORMATION SOCIETY: INFORMATION, COMMUNICATION AND DEVELOPMENT

Illustrated by a wide range of empirical indicators, the world is experiencing a fundamental social, political, economic, and cultural transformation. The underlying processes leading to this transformation are sometimes characterized as globalization with the end result being the development of an information or knowledge society. Within such a dynamic global environment, it is important for students interested in the interdisciplinary fields of information, communication, public policy, international development, and more to have exciting opportunities to engage in cutting-edge learning opportunities that prepare them for these new
global realities. This global graduate seminar on Globalization and the Information Society: Information, Communication and Development (Globalization Seminar) is designed to provide such a learning opportunity.
The Globalization Seminar is an advanced graduate seminar, developed and conducted by Professor Derrick L. Cogburn. It is an initiative of the Collaboratory on Technology Enhanced Learning Communities (Cotelco) at the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University. The seminar consists of thirteen weekly seminar sessions. Currently, it involves participants registered at up to six universities (three in South Africa and three in the United States), and other participating in the seminar from around the world. At Syracuse University, the seminar is designed to contribute to the Web-based Information Science Education (WISE) Consortium. Students from American University are participating in the seminar as part of the international communications and international development specializations. At the University of the Witwatersrand, the
seminar contributes to the Master of Management in Information and Communication Technology Policy and Regulation (MM-ICTPR) at the LINK Centre. In the past, other seminar participants have been drawn from the University of Fort Hare, Howard University, and the University of Pretoria. Seminar participants will be participating in the development of a policy collaboratory with Transnational NGO Initiative (TANGO) and Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP), National Science Foundation funded projects being undertaken in Cotelco Lab.
 

The approach to the seminar is to use synchronous and asynchronous learning techniques to break the boundaries of space, time and distance. Using a geographically–distributed computer supported collaborative
learning (CSCL) pedagogical model developed by Cotelco, the seminar employs a suite of web-based tools to create a highly-interactive, globally networked collaborative learning environment. Within this learning environment, seminar participants explore the socio-economic, political and cultural implications of globalization and the on-going development of a knowledge-based Information Society. While the seminar will take a global approach, particular emphasis will be placed on the responses to these issues from the perspectives of Africa, the developing world, and especially the civil society sector.

Throughout the seminar, participants are immersed in key readings and engage in a range of synchronous and asynchronous activities designed to foster a deeper theoretical and critical understanding of the issues
covered. The primar