International Policy and Practice Online Program of Study

To earn your Master of International Policy and Practice you must successfully complete our 27 credit program which includes 9 credits in core courses and 18 credits of electives which should constitute a coherent specialization, addressing one or two overarching functional or regional areas of study.

 

Master of International Policy and Practice Program of Study

 

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Self Designed Specialization

Students will choose 18 credits (six courses) of electives to create a self-designed specialization.

The current MIPP Online electives can be found below. 

Electives

IAFF 6118 Applied Qualitative Methods

The objective for this course is for students to become consumers and producers of scholarly research and knowledge. Students will become familiar with various qualitative methodologies, with a focus on those most often used in international affairs. Students will develop the skills to determine how useful and applicable various methods are likely to be in different circumstances and settings, given a research focus and question. In addition, students will engage with scholarly research in the field via reading, commenting on, and critiquing the work of others, including their classmates.

The activities and assignments in this course build toward a draft research design. This project and the activities leading up to it are designed to give students as close to real-work and hands-on experience in research as possible, given the limitations of the online classroom. As such, the class will utilize experiential learning activities and will make extensive use of discussion boards and out-of-class material.

 

IAFF 6138 Gender and Development

This graduate-level seminar will begin by examining the evolution of theoretical approaches regarding gender and development and the debates that have emerged over how to promote gender equity and rights across the gender spectrum. We will then consider some of the key issues in the field of gender and development and the challenges and successes that development practitioners have experienced in addressing gender inequalities. Throughout the course, we will seek to identify general patterns and lessons with broader applications as well as to recognize differences within and between societies. We will use a combination of academic sources, international development reports, and other materials produced by development practitioners to ground our discussions and study how organizations have sought to implement gender-sensitive approaches to development. The assignments are practical and relevant to professional work in the field of gender and development.

 

IAFF 6138 Bottom-Up Development

From William Easterly to Dambisa Moyo, and from Jeffrey sachs to Paul Collier, development thinkers have expressed both considerable frustration with policies, programs, strategies and institutions charged with alleviating poverty, as well as the need to focus additional resources on or reformed actions toward populations at the ‘bottom.’ Despite the analyses and fretting, and resultant actions, hundreds of millions, if not more than a billion, of the earth’s population remains tragically poor, somehow managing to survive on $2.00 a day or less. This graduate seminar takes these analyses, frustrations and unsatisfactory results as a starting point to delve into prospects for more effective poverty alleviation through the application of ‘bottom-up’ approaches. After briefly examining failings of foreign aid from both grassroots and top-down perspectives, the focus turns to bottom-up approaches, casting an eye on evolutionary aspects, critical components, and current applications. Subsequently, attention is placed on how poor people manage to survive, and in some cases get ahead, with few resources, before turning to an examination of several increasingly noted mechanisms responding to poor people’s needs for assistance to improve their economic standing. The seminar closes with consideration of the pros and cons of these mechanisms and approaches, and their prospects for achieving poverty alleviation from the bottom-up.

 

IAFF 6163 Transnational Security

This seminar will assess the dynamics of globalization in addition to the threats and opportunities it poses for U.S. and global security, economic prosperity and governance. Is globalization an enduring successor to the bipolar system of the Cold War, with its own unique actors, distribution of power, regulatory mechanisms and sources of stability and instability as Tom Friedman suggests, or is it a more ephemeral phenomenon that could be jettisoned by such threats as terrorism and protectionism?

 

IAFF 6171 Introduction to Conflict Resolution

This course provides students with an introduction to conflict analysis and resolution. The course will introduce students to the major concepts and issues currently animating the field, explore the main strategies for responding to conflicts, and help them recognize the assumptions upon which these strategies rest.

 

IAFF 6173 Security and Development

This course considers the relationship between security and development over a number of issue areas. It reflects the fact that there is growing interest from the security field in issues that have traditionally been the purview of development, and vice versa.

 

IAFF 6186 United States National Security

This course examines the problems and issues confronting American national security policymakers using a combination of empirical information and conceptual analysis. The course content includes conceptual definitions of national security, policymaking processes and debates, national security institutions and organizations, relationships between foreign, economic and defense policy, and civil-military relations. The course presumes familiarity with American politics and U.S. history and encourages students to keep up on relevant world events by reading legitimate news sources. At the end of the semester, students should be able to critically engage, understand, articulate and explain ideas and arguments about the U.S. national security process and the complexity of American strategic interests and decision-making processes.

 

IAFF 6186 Russia and International Security

This course examines how Russia’s security apparatus executes disinformation campaigns, political sabotage, election disruption, government subterfuge, artificial intelligence “bots” in social media, computational propaganda, and new technologies to dominate conventional battlefields. Other topics include: Pre-Soviet and Soviet military history; Russian foreign policy and grand strategy; NATO enlargement; the Ukraine/Crimean crisis and aftermath, energy security; cyber warfare and espionage; status of new Russian defense systems and military capabilities; post-Soviet States’ security and Eurasian conflicts; nuclear strategy, arms control, and missile defense; and whether the US, Russia, and China are enemies, allies, or rivals.

 

IAFF 6186 Emerging Threats

This course surveys emerging risks and challenges that threaten human, national and global security. It does so by paying special attention to a range of military and non-military issues where science and technology play a major role. Topics covered include how to think about the concepts of risk and securitization; revolutions in military affairs and hybrid warfare; the challenges of nuclear security and terrorism; conflict in cyberspace; the uses and consequences of robotics, drones and autonomous weapons systems; military developments in biotechnology; artificial intelligence; as well as non-military issues related to demography, urbanization, public health, the environment, and outer space. For each issue, the course examines the politics of scientific and technological evolution by identifying the key drivers of change; the nature of threats at the local, national, and global levels; and how existing security policies should be reformed in response. A technical background is not required but will enhance one’s understanding.

 

IAFF 6186 Cyber Threats and Policy

This course examines current issues in the realm of cybersecurity, focusing on cybersecurity strategy, threats, conflict, and policy. It begins with an understanding of the power inherent in cyberspace and considers the policy issues facing the civilian, military, intelligence and private business sectors in dealing with offensive and defensive cyber activity. Through case studies, it examines previous and ongoing cyber conflicts to understand their impacts on international relations. Students will analyze the roles of several different types of actors in cyber security including states, non-state actors such as criminal and terror groups, and private sector responses. This course will also analyze cyber deterrence and the unique aspects of offensive and defensive cyber activities by all cyber actors. Technical background is not required and basic aspects of cyber operations will be discussed and demonstrated as part of the introductory class sessions.

 

IAFF 6186 US Grand Strategy

This course examines U.S. grand strategy, meaning the politico-military continuum of means and ends that the state employs to achieve security. The course first analyzes the concept of grand strategy: what it means, how it’s achieved and when it fails. The course then turns to causes of grand strategy—the international conditions, technological developments, geographic circumstances, domestic actors and ideological beliefs that shape strategic options. Finally, to make these concepts more concrete, the course examines U.S. grand strategy at two pivotal points in recent U.S. history: the early Cold War, when the United States introduced nuclear missiles into the military, and today.

 

IAFF 6186 Insurgency and Counterinsurgency

This course provides students with an introduction to the nature of insurgency, some key historical examples of how insurgencies were defeated, and analytical frameworks and tools for understanding and countering insurgencies. It is intended to provide a solid foundation for further inquiry into related topics such as irregular warfare, security and development, stabilization and peacebuilding, responses to terrorism, and conflict resolution. The course examines the multi-disciplinary nature of insurgencies, and introduces students to the major concepts and issues of the topic, explores the main types of insurgencies, and analyzes in depth a number of strategic cases of counterinsurgency to help students understand the complexity and the variety of this form of warfare in the modern world. The course provides key frameworks for analysis for the study of insurgency and explores possible solutions to a number of current conflicts. 

 

IAFF 6186 Terrorism Today

The course is designed to provide a basis for understanding the phenomenon of terrorism, and to set it into an appropriate context in relation to other critical issues facing a globalized society. Students will develop recommendations in how to deal with policy problems and engage in online discussions by analyzing contemporary economic issues and concrete economic policy problems with relevance to security affairs.

This course examines explores questions such as: How economic policy affects technology and immigration - and vice versa? What are the implications of various trade policies on the global economy? How has globalization and rapid spread of high-tech communication affected the US economy?

 

IAFF 6222 U.S. Foreign Policy 

This course examines the practice and theory of U.S. foreign policy. Students begin by analyzing the institutions and processes used by the U.S. Government to formulate and implement foreign policy. The course then presents an overview of U.S. foreign policy decisions, from post-independence, to the Cold War, post-Cold War, War on Terror, and the post-primacy era of Presidents Obama and Trump. As students move through U.S. foreign policy history, they examine specific case studies as well as theoretical underpinnings including exceptionalism, realism, and liberalism. Finally, students analyze and debate the future of U.S. global leadership as well as articulate a vision for how the U.S. can engage effectively in Great Power Competition.

 

IAFF 6222 Advanced Data Analytics

In this course, students will further their knowledge and understanding of how to use advanced statistical analyses to test theories and hypotheses in the field of international affairs.  This course builds on basic linear regression models to include an introduction to various multivariate models that require added specifications and considerations.  Such models include maximum likelihood models, logit and Probit models for binary dependent variables, event count models, survival models, and an introduction to time series.

By the end of the course, students will be able to adequately describe how and when to use these models, and produce a research paper that employs one of these models to test theories found in the study of international affairs.

 

IAFF 6222 Ethics in Security

This course will introduce students to the common ethical dilemmas associated with the security policy community to contribute to the decision-making in fulfilling national security goals. It will provide students with the context for ethical challenges they will face and knowledge of the laws governing intelligence work. Students will be presented with real scenarios and articulate what they believe to be ethical decision making in class presentations.

 

IAFF 6222 Civil-Military Relations

This course will examine a broad range of topics regarding civil military relations to extend beyond just the relationship of the government and the army to include such issues as media, war crimes, and race/gender in modern warfare. Students will analyze how political leaders, professional military officers, and citizens interact.

 

IAFF 6222 International Security Politics

This course is an introduction to the dynamic and deeply important field of international security. The purpose is to provide you with an overview of the theoretical and policy debates in the field of international security. During the course, we will examine a variety of contemporary security issues to gain an understanding of these threats and their impact on international security in the 21st century.

 

IAFF 6222 Cybersecurity 

This course examines current issues in the realm of cybersecurity, focusing on cybersecurity strategy, threats, conflict, and policy. It begins with an understanding of the power inherent in cyberspace and considers the policy issues facing the civilian, military, intelligence and private business sectors in dealing with offensive and defensive cyber activity. Through case studies, it examines previous and ongoing cyber conflicts to understand their impacts on international relations. Students will analyze the roles of several different types of actors in cyber security including states, non-state actors such as criminal and terror groups, and private sector responses. This course will also analyze cyber deterrence and the unique aspects of offensive and defensive cyber activities by all cyber actors. Technical background is not required and basic aspects of cyber operations will be discussed and demonstrated as part of the introductory class sessions.

 

IAFF 6502 Introduction to R

This course will help you familiarize yourself with the R programming language and RStudio integrated development environment (IDE). R is a free tool primarily used for statistical analysis. R is open source and benefits from several contributions (“packages” or “libraries”) made by independent researchers. Statistical analysis is critical for effective, evidence-based policy making, and R counts itself among the highly sought after skills in the policy realm. In this class you will learn the fundamentals needed to create effective R scripts, run basic analyses, and troubleshoot (or debug) your code. You will also acquire the tools necessary to further develop your R skills to attain advanced-level programming knowledge. 

 

IAFF 6503 Political Risk Analysis

Political risk – broadly understood as the possibility of politically related uncertainty affecting an objective – has the potential to shape outcomes along a spectrum of domains. This specific type of risk emanates from various sources and is increasingly becoming recognized as an essential consideration for entities with interests (commercial or otherwise) in the international sphere. Political risk is often an ambiguous subject that can be analyzed using various methods. 

As such, this course takes a multi-disciplinary approach drawing from international relations theory, economics, risk management, intelligence, and strategic communications and applies it to relevant, real-world problems. Emphasis is placed on strategies that measure and mitigate political risk in a range of environments at the macro and micro levels. This course connects theory, research, practice, and empirical evidence in order to address the complexities of political risk analysis and it draws on academic literature while also focusing on the development of practical knowledge and skills that are applicable to both the public and private sector.