POST-2230Y: World Politics

Instructor: Philip Giurlando

Course Code: POST 2230Y

When Taken: Fall/Winter 2021/2022

Class Notes: Class Notes (5), World Politics Class Notes.docx

Major Assignment: Greek Tragedy Theory_ Understanding the Israel-Palestine Conflict.docx, Constructivism and Liberalism_ Approaching Pandemics.docx, McNamara’s Ideology_ Lessons Learned.docx

In second year politics students get to decide if they want to take the Canadian politics stream, or the world politics stream. I chose to take world politics, and thus took this class as my mandatory course. It was a full year course, the first full-year class I had taken in university. Being a full year course, it had two major themes. In the first semester we focused mainly on major theories of international relations and world politics. In the second semester we focused on major issues in current world politics.

This class was really just a short introduction to a hugely complex field of study. Looking at how countries, all countries, interact with each other and non-state groups is a massive scope, and this class really was just the theoretical tool box to understand these issues, and how people can use certain theories to explain or make decisions. My biggest takeaway from this class was learning how to apply theories to the real world, either through examining if they present a potential solution to an emerging issue, or to understand why certain actors make the choices they do, and how to potentially predict their future actions.