This seminar introduces students to international security studies research by covering a substantive topic in the field each week (such as war, nuclear weapons, etc.). Students will study the discipline’s fundamental questions and will engage with how scholars generate knowledge as well as the various research designs, inferential strategies, and analytical methods they have used.

What have been the effects of nuclear weapons on international politics? Students will take a scholarly approach to exploring the invention and use of nuclear weapons, the Cold War arms race, arms control treaties, nuclear proliferation, and the global disarmament movement. The course will cover qualitative, statistical, experimental, and game theoretic approaches to studying nuclear politics.