Must be at least 2 pages (double-spaced, Times New Roman 12-point font, 1-inch margins), and must be accompanied by a functioning link to the news article, or a PDF image of the news article, or a scanned copy if you are using a paper news source.
Select a news article (from a source that meets the standards set out in the syllabus) to summarize and analyze using a concept or set of concepts from the class. The news article needs to relate to global politics – either between multiple countries, or between a country and an actor or set of actors outside of its borders. For the concept to apply, you may choose a theoretical approach (or compare multiple approaches) such as realism and liberalism, or apply an analytical concept such as relative gains, economic interdependence, the prisoner’s dilemma, coordination games, or concepts from the bargaining model of war that we will be covering in the next few weeks.
As a reminder, the standards for news sources set out in the syllabus are: “A major daily newspaper with detailed coverage of world events. (The websites of television networks, weekly magazines, local newspapers without their own international reporting, or web-only publications will not be sufficient.)”
Your current events report should clearly incorporate the following:
Briefly summarize the events covered in the news article and why they are important.
Define the concepts from the class you are applying.
Discuss how the concept or concepts are relevant, and help us to understand the events covered in the article, the reasons they happened, and what to expect in the future.
Reports will be graded on how well they demonstrate understanding of key concepts, and familiarity with current events. The concepts you choose do not need to perfectly explain the events in your article, and you are free to discuss ways in which they both do, and do not, apply. But you need to be able to make a strong case why they are relevant and helpful to the events in the article you choose. I would like to get the source that the writer will choose.
