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Course Info for POLS - 318 - 01, Fall 2023
Class number: 2118 Title: Statebuilding Department: Political Science
Career: Undergraduate Component: Seminar Session: Regular
Instructor's Permission Required: Yes Grading Basis: Regular Units: 1.00
Enrollment limited to 19 Current enrollment: 17 Available seats: 2
Start date: Tuesday, September 5, 2023 End date: Thursday, December 21, 2023 Mode of Instruction: In Person
Schedule: TR: 10:50AM-12:05PM, HIL - DININGROOM Instructor(s): Matsuzaki, Reo
Prerequisite(s): None
Distribution Requirement: Meets Social Sciences and Global Requirements
Note: The course is Methodologically Focused. This course is a Sophomore/Junior Seminar
Note: 6 seats reserved for Sophomores, 6 seats reserved for Juniors, and 7 seats reserved for Seniors
Course Description:
Strong governmental institutions are necessary for providing security, protecting human rights, and advancing material wellbeing. This insight provided the moral justification for the various statebuilding missions the United States and its allies undertook across the globe in the last three decades. However, these efforts to build strong and democratic states have largely ended in failure and suffering. Is statebuiding through foreign intervention and occupation even feasible? If so, is it ethically justifiable? This course examines these and other questions surrounding statebuilding in three parts. First, we examine the factors that led to the development and adoption of the modern state in Europe and elsewhere. Second, we turn our attention to the imposition of modern state institutions onto the rest of the world under colonialism, and the outcomes and legacies of colonial statebuilding in Africa and Asia. Finally, we will discuss the strategic and normative rationales undergirding US and UN-led statebuilding campaigns in the contemporary period.