IR 5118 Global Perspectives on IR Theory

IR theory is usually taught as a Western canon, and this graduate seminar pushes against that by asking who gets to theorize international politics and from where. After a fast refresher on the mainstream paradigms and their critics, you spend most of the term on the sociology of the discipline itself, the core-periphery debates, the "Global IR" and homegrown turns, and how IR is actually done outside the American mainstream, including in Turkey. The work is reading-heavy and discussion-driven, capped by a research paper and a student-led workshop, so it lands best after an introductory IR theory course and sets you up for thesis work that needs a sharper meta-theoretical footing.