This course is designed to help students improve their capacity to analyze international policy. The analysis of foreign economic and security policy is "soft" in that it rarely requires the use of sophisticated statistical methods, but this does not mean it is easy. Quite the contrary, international policy analysis can, for that very reason, be quite difficult to perform well; it is soft and hard at the same time. The course begins by exploring the qualities of good arguments and analysis, the role of international relations theory in this type of work, and the uses of analysis in the formulation and implementation of international policy. We then examine a number of interesting real-world examples of analysis, identifying their strengths and weaknesses, learning how to clarify why different analysts disagree, and considering what additional information and/or analysis would be required to resolve these disputes. The analyses we study are chosen from a spectrum of sources, including popular and scholarly journals, think-tank studies, and government reports. All focus on current issues in international political economy and national security, including (for example) American grand strategy, the formation of regional trading blocs, global warming, nuclear disarmament, and U.S. policy toward China.
