CANZPS Courses

Fall 2019

INAF-309: Australian / New Zealand Tutorial Independent Study

  • Faculty: Alan Tidwell

INAF-314: Immigration and Conflict: Australian and American Experience

  • Time: Tuesdays 5:00-7:30 pm
  • Faculty: Gregory Brown

Migration is variously characterized as an important determinant of national identity, political instability, cultural power, imperial expansion, ethnic conflict, radicalism, terrorism, environmental degradation, and economic growth or stagnation. In high immigration receiving states such as Australia and the United States–among the world’s most inclusive migrant incorporation regimes–migration and global mobility more generally complicate foreign policy making choices and present special challenges and opportunities for advancing national interests. This course will examine the migration-security nexus and the policy choices that Australia and the United States confront. Fundamental questions include: What causes people to migrate across national borders and settle in foreign countries? What are the benefits and costs of migration for migrants, sending countries, and receiving states? How do migrants in Australia and the United States maintain social and political relationships with those back in their home countries, and does this affect their sense of national allegiance and social integration into their host societies? To what extent do migrants and their descendants alter foreign policy considerations or affect international relations? And how do Australians and Americans cope with conflicts between ethnic or migrant communities when those conflicts originate, or are strongly fueled by, homeland conflicts?

INAF-360: Smaller States and Peacemaking

  • Time: Wednesdays 5-7:30 pm
  • Faculty: Alan Tidwell

Not all states are built the same when it comes to peacemaking and conflict. Some, like the U.S., have extensive resources and are able bring to bear a wide range of resources and political influence. Most others, however, struggle to nurse limited national resources and limited political influence. These smaller states often utilize their limited resources in very clever and focused ways to deliver peacemaking outcomes. Often smaller states will fund the peacemaking activities of NGOs or financially support the peacemaking efforts of regional organizations. Of course, these states (great, medium and small) pursue peacemaking objectives in the name of their national interest (however that may be defined). Norway, for example, has supported peace initiatives in Guatemala, Sudan and Sri Lanka. While none of these countries had significant relations with Norway, the Storting (the Norwegian Parliament) funded these initiatives because they were deemed in the national interest. The same may be said of Japanese support for the Aceh peace initiative, as well as a host of others sponsored states around the globe. Arguably, no state is entirely dedicated to peacemaking along. In pursuing national interests some states may pursue peacemaking in one place, and conflict promotion in another.

In this course students will have an opportunity to examine a range of case studies that illustrate the peacemaking efforts of smaller states. Cases might include peacemaking efforts in Aceh, Mindanao, East Timor, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, Guatemala, and Colombia for example, and states acting as peacemakers include Japan, Switzerland, Norway, Australia, New Zealand, Qatar and the Vatican. Of course in examining any of these cases it will be instructive to ask “what’s in it” for the given state. States do not pursue their international relations in purely cooperative terms and are not always benign. Indeed, some states may pursue peacemaking in a punitive or aggressive fashion.

INAF-367: Trade in Asia Pacific

  • Time: Wednesdays 5-7:30 p.m.
  • Faculty: John Mullen

The course will examine the various tracks to achieving economic integration through a region-wide free trade agreement, the geopolitical issues that will have to be addressed in the process, and why this is important. Starting with how to define Asia-Pacific, its importance to the United States, and Australia’s and New Zealand’s Asian-Western identities, the course will consider the region’s post WWII history and alliances and the more recent political architecture such as APEC, ASEAN, and the East Asia Summit. The course then will focus on the global post-WWII trading system and the range of free trade agreements among countries in the region, with an intensive examination of the origins, prospects and fate of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), and how that possible track to a region-wide agreement such as FTAAP compares to a broader Asian track that includes China and perhaps India. Finally the course will consider security and political challenges to regional integration, how cooperation on a range of science, technology, and transnational issues may affect the outcome, and what is possible versus what is likely in pursuit of a transformational 21st Century goal.