Contemporary Geopolitics: Navigating Power, Alliances and Global Crises

(3 Credits)

Negotiation and Practice: Can global order survive when power, legitimacy, and justice diverge? This course explores the concepts, institutions, and dilemmas shaping contemporary global politics and treats diplomacy and multilateralism not as an academic abstraction but as a high-stakes political practice. Based in New York and drawing on engagements at the United Nations headquarters, diplomatic missions, and NGOs, students will examine how global power is negotiated and implemented in practice. Through lectures, practitioner-led discussions, and applied analysis, led by a past president of the UN, students will dissect the structural tensions between international justice, geopolitical stability, and the real distribution of power; examine when diplomacy yields to coercion, and practice the art of political translation. They will write and present a policy memo designed to convert complex historical contexts and systemic risk into actionable recommendations for decision-makers. The course’s experiential centerpiece is a rigorous simulation of an emergency UN Security Council session, testing students' empirical research, negotiation tactics, and rapid-fire decision-making.