Computational International Politics

Undergraduate / Graduate

Just as the rise of data collection and analysis changed the shape of research on international politics in the second half of the twentieth century, modern computational tools allow scholars to ask new questions and rethink old ones. This course will provide a survey of research substantively spanning international politics using modern computational methods. Substantively, we will cover topics including international security, cooperation, conflict, political history, and interpretive research. Methodologically, we will cover applications of agent-based modeling, network analysis, and text analysis, among others. The goal throughout is to show how new sets of methods can help us not only to test our theories more satisfyingly, but to theorize better in the first place. The class will include both discussions of relevant research and hands-on data analysis tasks. Students will be expected to perform original computational research on a subject related to international politics broadly.