Foreign Policy Analysis

2026/2027

Учебный год

ENG

Обучение ведется на английском языке

3

Кредиты

Кто читает:

Департамент политологии и международных отношений

Статус:

Курс по выбору

Когда читается:

1-й курс, 3 модуль

Course Syllabus

Abstract

Foreign policy rarely follows the tidy logic that introductory theory assigns to it. It is negotiated among rival bureaucracies, filtered through the private convictions of individual leaders, bent by domestic coalitions that never appear in official communiqués, and increasingly shaped by information environments that no single actor fully controls. This course equips graduate students with the conceptual and methodological instruments needed to diagnose which of these forces is actually driving a given foreign policy outcome, and to construct a judgment that would withstand professional scrutiny. Rather than proceeding theory by theory, the course is organised around live analytical problems. Sessions move from the structural logic underlying the rivalry between Washington and Beijing, through the domestic and psychological currents shaping Moscow's external conduct, to the layered bargaining that produces European external action and the contested identities animating Middle Eastern and wider Global South diplomacy. Each seminar pairs a specific analytical instrument, among them neoclassical realism, poliheuristic and bureaucratic politics models, two level games, operational code analysis, role theory, and computational methods for foreign policy research, with a substantive regional case, so that theoretical fluency is tested immediately against evidence rather than rehearsed in the abstract. Students completing the course will carry away more than a catalogue of approaches. They will possess a working method for producing the kind of assessment that foreign ministries, international organisations, and analytical institutions commission as a matter of routine, and they will have practised defending that assessment under the kind of scrutiny such institutions actually apply.

Learning Objectives

• • To furnish students with an integrated repertoire of analytical frameworks for explaining and forecasting foreign policy conduct across differing regimes and regions • To cultivate sound judgment in selecting the level of analysis and the theoretical lens best suited to a given foreign policy question, rather than defaulting to habit or convenience • To develop practical fluency in leadership profiling, computational and quantitative methods, and structured forecasting techniques as they are used in professional analytical practice

Expected Learning Outcomes

• identifies the level of analysis and theoretical framework most suited to a specific foreign policy question, and to defend that choice against plausible alternatives
• produces a professional grade analytical brief under realistic constraints of time and incomplete evidence
• reconstructs a political leader's operational beliefs from primary source material such as speeches and public statements
• applies computational and quantitative methods, including event data and automated text analysis, to questions of foreign policy
• formulates a calibrated, probabilistic judgment regarding the likely trajectory of a foreign policy case, stating its confidence level and principal sources of uncertainty
• demonstrates informed command of the comparative dynamics shaping American, Russian, Chinese, European, Middle Eastern, and wider Global South foreign policy conduct

Course Contents

• The Analyst's Toolbox: Levels of Analysis and Schools of Foreign Policy Analysis
• Systemic Pressure and Great Power Rivalry: Reading the United States China Competition
• Rational Choice and Poliheuristic Reasoning in Crisis Decision Making
• Domestic Politics as International Strategy: Two Level Games
• Profiling Leaders at a Distance: Belief Systems and Operational Codes
• Bureaucratic Politics Reconsidered: Agencies, Rivalries, and the Limits of the Unitary State
• Public Opinion, Media, and the Politics of Persuasion
• Contested Roles and National Identity in Foreign Policy
• Forecasting and Structured Judgment in Foreign Policy Analysis
• Computational Foreign Policy Analysis: Event Data, Text, and Networks
• Final Assessment

Assessment Elements

• Policy Brief
  A concise analytical brief, written in the register of a professional country assessment rather than an academic essay, in which the student applies one method encountered during the course to a case not discussed in class and arrives at a stated, probabilistic judgment about its likely trajectory.
• Research Paper
  A longer piece of sustained argument, either comparing two cases through a common analytical lens or testing the limits of a given theory against evidence that resists it.
• Seminar Participation and Case Presentation
  Each student leads discussion of one seminar's case, applying the method assigned to that session in front of peers who are expected to press and question the analysis. The remaining weeks are graded on the quality, not merely the frequency, of contribution to discussion.

Interim Assessment

• 2026/2027 3rd module
  0.35 * Research Paper + 0.25 * Seminar Participation and Case Presentation + 0.4 * Policy Brief

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

• Leira, H. (2019). The Emergence of Foreign Policy. International Studies Quarterly, 63(1), 187-198. https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqy049
• Vasileiadis, P. (2025). Reconstructing neoclassical realism: A transitive approach. International Relations, 39(4), 657-681. https://doi.org/10.1177/00471178231185747

Recommended Additional Bibliography

• Wehner, L.E. (2026). Gradual Change in Foreign Policy: A Role-Theoretic Approach. International Studies Perspectives, 27(3), 269-289. https://doi.org/10.1093/isp/ekaf007