Foreign Policy Analysis Course

Course Philosophy

Three core principles guide this entire curriculum:

1. Multi-Causality – No foreign policy outcome has a single, isolated cause.  

2. Analytical Pluralism – Every explanatory framework reveals certain dynamics while concealing others.  

3. Epistemological Reflexivity – Every analytical model emerges from a specific historical, cultural, and intellectual context.

Foreign policy outcomes are typically multi-causal; different analytical frameworks illuminate different aspects of political reality; and analysts should remain aware that both theories and researchers are shaped by particular intellectual and historical contexts. As an analyst, you must constantly ask: What explains this policy? and simultaneously, Why do I find this explanation convincing?

This course offers a rigorous, multi-causal framework for explaining, reading, and critiquing global statecraft without privileging any single theoretical or geographical tradition. By seamlessly integrating actor-specific psychology, concrete methodological toolkits, and macro-structural analyses, students are trained to deconstruct primary policy documents and look beyond standard Western-centric paradigms.

Through a weekly cycle of hands-on analytical labs and deep epistemological reflexivity, the curriculum explores how individual leaders, domestic institutions, digital innovations, and postcolonial realities intersect to drive foreign policy. Ultimately, students will master the practical tools of comparative analysis, guided by a strict five-rule framework of empirical clarity, agential mapping, and critical critique to produce sophisticated, policy-relevant assessments of complex international events.

Module I: Foundations of Foreign Policy Analysis

Week 1: What Is Foreign Policy Analysis?  

Week 2: How Do We Know? Methods, Evidence, and Explanation

Module II: The Actor – Individuals, Groups, and Domestic Politics

Week 3: Leaders, Cognition, and Perception  

Week 4: Bureaucratic Politics and Organisational Decision-Making  

Week 5: Domestic Politics, Regimes, and Public Opinion  

Module III: Ideas, Identity, and Digital Statecraft

Week 6: Constructivism, Strategic Culture, and National Role Conceptions  

Week 7: Postcolonial, Decolonial, and Global South Perspectives

Week 8: Foreign Policy in the Digital Age – Cyber, Algorithms, and AI  

Module IV: Structures, Systems, and International Context

Week 9: Systemic Pressures and International Structures  

Week 10: Small States, Middle Powers, and Hedging

Module V: Reading and Evaluating Foreign Policy

Week 11: How to Read Foreign Policy

Week 12: Competing Explanations and Analytical Triangulation  

Every week of this 12-week course is structured around four distinct learning pillars to ensure you build theoretical knowledge, practical skills, and critical awareness:

• Lecture: Core concepts, theoretical frameworks, and key debates.  

• Workshop: Application to real-world empirical cases.  

• Analytical Lab: Hands-on methodological training.  

• Reflexive Question: A challenge to unpack hidden assumptions.

Deep Thinking

• What was the foreign policy decision, and what are the verifiable empirical facts (the timeline, the actors involved, and the material or diplomatic outcomes) that can be established before any interpretation begins? (Empirical baseline)

• At which level of analysis was the decision made (individual leader, bureaucratic institution, domestic political coalition, or systemic pressure) and which specific actors, organisations, or processes were causally responsible? (Agential mapping)

• Which analytical framework (psychological, bureaucratic, domestic political, constructivist, systemic, or postcolonial) best accounts for the decision, and what does that framework assume about how foreign policy is actually made? (Theoretical application)

• What does your chosen explanation fail to account for — which actors, pressures, or dynamics remain outside its analytical range, and what would a different level of analysis reveal that your framework conceals? (Analytical limitation)

• How would this decision appear from the perspective of a non-Western state, a postcolonial actor, or a Global South analyst, and what does that perspective recover that the dominant account leaves unspoken? (Reflexive critique)

Learning Outcomes

• Apply multi-level, multi-causal analysis: Dissect any foreign policy decision by integrating individual psychology, bureaucratic dynamics, domestic politics, strategic culture, systemic pressures, and postcolonial perspectives within a single, coherent analytical account that evaluates competing theoretical lenses and clearly articulates what each reveals and what it conceals.

• Deconstruct primary sources and deploy the methodological toolkit: Critically evaluate official documents (speeches, national security strategies, diplomatic cables, and defence budgets) to expose hidden intentions, institutional frictions, and rhetorical gaps, drawing on process tracing, discourse analysis, operational code analysis, and OSINT-based tracking as the appropriate instrument demands.

• Practise epistemological reflexivity: Explicitly identify the historical, cultural, and geographical biases embedded in analytical frameworks, including Western-centric assumptions, and apply the same critical scrutiny to non-Western and decolonial perspectives without treating either as the default reference point.

• Produce policy-relevant, critically aware analysis: Formulate professional-grade foreign policy assessments structured around the five-rule framework (empirical clarity, agential mapping, theoretical application, limitation acknowledgement, and reflexive critique) while remaining alert to the analyst's own positionality throughout.

Assessment

Assessment 1: Foreign Policy Document Analysis (35% | 2,500 words)
Students select one official primary document (a major foreign policy address, a national security strategy, a government white paper, or a strategic bilateral communiqué) and subject it to a sustained textual, ideological, and contextual critique. The analysis must apply the course's deconstruction framework to expose the hidden assumptions, institutional frictions, rhetorical gaps, and deliberate omissions embedded within the text, and must systematically contrast the document's stated commitments against the state's observable material allocations. Students are required to identify who produced the text, for which audience, and under what institutional constraints; to specify which theoretical framework best accounts for the document's construction and why; and to name explicitly what the document omits and why those omissions are analytically significant. At least one methodological instrument introduced in the Analytical Labs must be applied to support the argument. Submission Deadline: End of Week 7.

Assessment 2: Capstone Research Paper (55% | 5,000–6,000 words)
The primary summative assessment for this course is a comprehensive, multi-layered research paper examining a single major foreign policy decision selected from the approved case list. The paper requires sustained analytical triangulation: students must deploy at least three distinct theoretical frameworks drawn from psychological, bureaucratic, domestic political, constructivist, systemic, and postcolonial traditions; apply two separate methodological instruments; and include a dedicated section critiquing Western-centric assumptions through a postcolonial, decolonial, or Global South analytical perspective. The argument must be structured around the five-rule framework throughout and must reach a defended analytical conclusion that does not juxtapose competing explanations but explicitly adjudicates between them using evidence and logical reasoning. Submission Deadline: Sunday of Week 14 (Formal Assessment Period, following the conclusion of Week 12 teaching).

Assessment 3: Seminar Participation and Analytical Engagement (10% | Ongoing)
Participation is assessed continuously throughout the semester. Marks reflect the quality and consistency of engagement across three interconnected dimensions: contribution to seminar and workshop discussions, demonstrating the ability to apply theoretical concepts to empirical cases and to challenge competing interpretations with reasoned argument; performance in the weekly Analytical Labs, showing growing proficiency in applying course methodologies to live data and case material; and conduct in simulation and debate exercises, including the willingness to defend positions under adversarial questioning, respond to new evidence, and revise conclusions accordingly. Attendance is a prerequisite for participation credit, but marks are awarded for the quality and intellectual rigour of engagement rather than for the volume of contribution.

Submission, Formatting Requirements and Academic Integrity

• All written work must be submitted as a PDF file, regardless of the word processor used.

• Use font at 12 points Aptos or Arial. Pages must be numbered. Include your name, student number, course name, assignment title, and word count on the first page; a separate cover page is not required.

• The word count stated in the assignment brief is a guide to scope and depth, not a rigid threshold. Work within 10% of the stated count in either direction. The word count covers the main body of the text, including in-text citations, but excludes the reference list, any tables or figures, and any appendices.

• All written work must follow APA 7th edition throughout. In-text citations use the author-date format: (Yergin, 2020) or Yergin (2020) argues that… For direct quotations, include the page number: (Yergin, 2020, p. 47). The reference list appears at the end of the document, ordered alphabetically by surname. Do not use footnotes for references; footnotes may be used sparingly for substantive clarifications that would otherwise interrupt the argument.

• Formal policies on academic integrity and the use of AI tools vary by institution and will be communicated where applicable. The question beneath those policies does not change: Is the goal to understand, or simply to appear to have understood? A qualification obtained without the knowledge it is meant to represent is a transaction, not an education, and it shortchanges the holder as much as anyone else. I invest genuine effort in connecting students to scholarship, practitioners, and professional networks that extend well beyond any syllabus. Whether that investment meets a reciprocal commitment is, in the end, a question of character rather than compliance.

Literature

• Hudson, V. M., & Day, B. S. (2025). Foreign policy analysis: Classic and contemporary theory (4th ed.). Bloomsbury Publishing.

• Morin, J.-F., & Paquin, J. (2018). Foreign policy analysis: A toolbox. Palgrave Macmillan.

• Smith, S., Hadfield, A., Dunne, T., & Kitchen, N. (Eds). (2024). Foreign Policy: Theories, actors, cases (4th ed.). Oxford University Press.

• Varouxakis, G. (2025). The West: The history of an idea. Princeton University Press. 

Research articles do not appear in the bibliography above. This is intentional. Each week, students are expected to identify a peer-reviewed article relevant to that week’s topic, bring it to the seminar, and share it with the group. The lecturer contributes selections alongside the class. This practice develops independent literature-searching habits, exposes the seminar to a wider range of scholarly perspectives than any fixed reading list could provide, and keeps the course in sustained contact with current debates in the field.

Course Structure and Content

Module I: Foundations of Foreign Policy Analysis

Week 1: What Is Foreign Policy Analysis?  

Core Question: Why do states facing similar systemic conditions behave differently?  

Topics: FPA vs. macro IR theory; agency-structure debate; the state as contested actor; historical evolution of FPA.  

Analytical Lab: Compare structural IR vs. actor-specific FPA explanations of the 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal.  

Reflexive Question: Why do analysts so often treat foreign states as unified, single-minded actors?  

Additional Literature 

• George, A. L. (2005). Bridging the gap: Theory and practice in foreign policy. United States Institute of Peace Press.

• Hassan, O. (2024). Why the European Union failed in Afghanistan: Transatlantic relations and the return of the Taliban. Bristol University Press.

• Nincic, M., & Lepgold, J. (Eds.). (2000). Being useful: Policy relevance and international relations theory. University of Michigan Press.

• Smith, S., Hadfield, A., Dunne, T., & Kitchen, N. (Eds.). (2024). Foreign policy: Theories, actors, cases (4th ed.). Oxford University Press.

Week 2: How Do We Know? Methods, Evidence, and Explanation

Core Question: What counts as valid evidence in foreign policy explanation?  

Topics: FPA toolbox; positivist vs. interpretivist approaches; process tracing; comparative methods; content/discourse analysis.  

Analytical Lab: Build a causal timeline from a raw packet of diplomatic cables, news, and intelligence fragments.  

Reflexive Question: Whose actions and voices are archived and validated as "evidence" in foreign policy databases, and whose perspectives are systematically excluded?

Additional Literature 

• Bardach, E., & Patashnik, E. M. (2024). A practical guide for policy analysis: The eightfold path to more effective problem solving (7th ed.). CQ Press.

• Beach, D., & Pedersen, R. B. (2019). Process-tracing methods: Foundations and guidelines (2nd ed.). University of Michigan Press.

• Bennett, A., & Checkel, J. T. (Eds.). (2015). Process tracing: From metaphor to analytic tool. Cambridge University Press.

• Weimer, D. L., & Vining, A. R. (2025). Policy analysis: Concepts and practice (7th ed.). Taylor & Francis.

Module II: The Actor – Individuals, Groups, and Domestic Politics

Week 3: Leaders, Cognition, and Perception  

Core Question: How do leaders’ psychological profiles and biases shape outcomes?  

Topics: Operational codes, Leadership Trait Analysis, prospect theory, misperception.  

Cases: Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Narendra Modi, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva

Analytical Lab: Operational code analysis of recent public addresses.  

Reflexive Question: Are Western psychological models universally applicable across cultural traditions?  

Additional Literature 

• Allison, G. T. (2017). Destined for war: Can America and China escape Thucydides's trap? Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

• He, K., & Feng, H. (2012). Prospect theory and foreign policy analysis in the Asia Pacific: Rational leaders and risky behavior. Routledge.

• Özdamar, Ö., & Canbolat, S. (2025). Leaders in the Middle East and North Africa: How ideology shapes foreign policy. Cambridge University Press.

• Post, J. M. (2004). Leaders and their followers in a dangerous world: The psychology of political behavior. Cornell University Press.

• Rodman, P. W. (2015). Presidential command: Power, leadership, and the making of foreign policy from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush. Knopf.

Week 4: Bureaucratic Politics and Organisational Decision-Making  

Core Question: How do institutions, rivalries, and routines distort policy?  

Topics: Groupthink, Bureaucratic Politics Model, Organizational Process Model; intelligence and secrecy dynamics.  

Cases: 2003 Iraq invasion; South China Sea deployments.  

Reflexive Question: What perspectives are structurally excluded from high-level decision-making?  

Additional Literature 

• ʿAllāwī, ʿA. A. (2007). The occupation of Iraq: Winning the war, losing the peace. Yale University Press.

• Allison, G. T., Blackwill, R. D., & Wyne, A. (Eds.). (2013). Lee Kuan Yew: The grand master’s insights on China, the United States, and the world. MIT Press.

• Elleman, B. A., & Pratt, W. V. (2025). China’s naval operations in the South China Sea: Evaluating legal, strategic, and military factors. Routledge.

• Halperin, M. H., Kanter, A., & Clapp, P. (2006). Bureaucratic politics and foreign policy (2nd ed.). Brookings Institution Press.

• Jost, T. (2024). Bureaucracies at war: The institutional origins of miscalculation. Cambridge University Press.

• Vogel, E. F., & Deng, X. (2013). Deng Xiaoping and the transformation of China. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Week 5: Domestic Politics, Regimes, and Public Opinion  

Core Question: How do domestic societal pressures, media environments, and electoral designs constrain or compel foreign policy choices?  

Topics: Two-level games, media framing, regime survival, electoral vs. authoritarian incentives; economic statecraft and domestic coalitions.  

Cases: India, Türkiye, Brazil, United States.  

Analytical Lab: Cross-regional media content analysis of one trade dispute.  

Reflexive Question: Do Western analysts systematically overestimate the unique influence of democratic elections while underestimating the complex mechanisms of regime legitimacy in non-Western systems?

Additional Literature 

• Bernays, E. (2004). Propaganda. Ig Publishing.

• Evans, P. B., Jacobson, H. K., & Putnam, R. D. (Eds.). (1993). Double-edged diplomacy: International bargaining and domestic politics. University of California Press.

• Herman, E. S., & Chomsky, N. (2002). Manufacturing consent: The political economy of the mass media. Knopf Doubleday.

• Le Bon, G. (2002). The crowd: A study of the popular mind. Dover Publications.

• Risse, T., Ropp, S. C., & Sikkink, K. (Eds.). (2013). The persistent power of human rights: From commitment to compliance. Cambridge University Press.

Module III: Ideas, Identity, and Digital Statecraft

Week 6: Constructivism, Strategic Culture, and National Role Conceptions  

Core Question: How do social identities, historical memory, and a state's self-perceived "global role" define its national interests? 

Topics: Social constructivism, strategic culture, National Role Conception (NRC).  

Cases: China's "Century of Humiliation" narrative; India's strategic autonomy tradition; Japan's evolving pacifist identity; Russia's "Near Abroad" doctrine.

Analytical Lab: Strategic culture mapping via defense white papers.  

Reflexive Question: How do states actively narrate themselves into world politics, and who is authorized to write that dominant national script?

Additional Literature 

• Johnston, A. I. (1998). Cultural realism: Strategic culture and grand strategy in Chinese history. Princeton University Press.

• Kartchner, K. M., Bowen, B. D., & Johnson, J. L. (2024). Routledge handbook of strategic culture. Routledge.

• Katzenstein, P. J., & Social Science Research Council (Eds.). (1996). The culture of national security: Norms and identity in world politics. Columbia University Press.

• McCourt, D. M. (2022). The new constructivism in international relations theory. Bristol University Press.

• Strycharz, D. (2022). Role theory and Russian foreign policy: Rolling changes in national role conceptions. Routledge.

Week 7: Postcolonial, Decolonial, and Global South Perspectives

Core Question: How do colonial legacies, systemic dependencies, and alternative worldviews challenge mainstream Western foreign policy theories?

Topics: Subaltern realism; Global IR; coloniality of power; dependency theory versus sovereign autonomy.

Cases for Analysis: African Union climate coalition diplomacy; the expansion of the BRICS bloc; South–South development cooperation networks.

Analytical Lab: Decolonising the Policy Brief: Taking a standard, Western-authored security assessment of a regional conflict and completely rewriting its variables from a subaltern, Global South perspective.

Reflexive Question: What Eurocentric assumptions about "modernity," "rationality," and "progress" underpin mainstream FPA theories?

Additional Literature 

• Acharya, A., & Buzan, B. (2019). The making of global international relations: Origins and evolution of IR at its centenary. Cambridge University Press.

• Beah, I. (2008). A long way gone: Memoirs of a boy soldier. Sarah Crichton Books.

• Braveboy-Wagner, J. A. (2003). The foreign policies of the Global South: Rethinking conceptual frameworks. Lynne Rienner Publishers.

• Green, D., & Luehrmann, L. (2022). Comparative politics of the Global South: Linking concepts and cases (5th ed.). Lynne Rienner Publishers.

• Williams, H. L., & Death, C. (2017). Global justice: The basics. Routledge.

Week 8: Foreign Policy in the Digital Age – Cyber, Algorithms, and AI  

Core Question: How does digital technology reshape power and decision-making?  

Topics: Cyber statecraft, algorithmic influence, data sovereignty, geoeconomics of technology; framed as new instruments and a cross-cutting level.  

Cases: US-China tech competition, state-sponsored disinformation.  

Analytical Lab: OSINT-based tracking of a digital influence campaign.  

Reflexive Question: Does digital statecraft empower smaller states or reinforce new dependencies?  

Additional Literature 

• Dunn Cavelty, M. (2024). The politics of cyber-security. Routledge.

• Greenberg, A. (2019). Sandworm: A new era of cyberwar and the hunt for the Kremlin’s most dangerous hackers. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

• Kaplan, F. M. (2016). Dark territory: The secret history of cyber war. Simon & Schuster.

• Lindsay, J. R. (2025). Age of deception: Cybersecurity as secret statecraft. Cornell University Press.

• Maschmeyer, L. (2024). Subversion: From covert operations to cyber conflict. Oxford University Press.

• Radvanovsky, R., & McDougall, A. (2024). Critical infrastructure: Homeland security and emergency preparedness. Routledge.

• Smeets, M. (2022). No shortcuts: Why states struggle to develop a military cyber-force. Oxford University Press.

• Zetter, K. (2014). Countdown to zero day: Stuxnet and the launch of the world's first digital weapon. Crown Publishers.

Module IV: Structures, Systems, and International Context

Week 9: Systemic Pressures and International Structures  

Core Question: To what extent do the international distribution of material power and global institutions dictate state actions?  

Topics: Structural realism, neoliberal institutionalism, multilateral regimes; geoeconomic instruments.  

Cases: NATO enlargement, Indo-Pacific strategies, climate treaties.  

Analytical Lab: Construct contradictory explanations using strict realist vs. liberal lenses.  

Reflexive Question: Do international material structures, global financial bodies, and legal institutions constrain all states equally across the globe?

Additional Literature 

• Acharya, A. (2025). From Southeast Asia to Indo-Pacific: Culture, identity, and the return to geopolitics. Penguin Books.

• Apps, P. (2024). Deterring Armageddon: A biography of NATO. Wildfire.

• Keohane, R. O. (2005). After hegemony: Cooperation and discord in the world political economy. Princeton University Press.

• Mearsheimer, J. J. (2014). The tragedy of great power politics. W. W. Norton.

Week 10: Small States, Middle Powers, and Hedging

Core Question: How do states that are not global superpowers successfully navigate systemic pressures and maximize their strategic choices?

Topics: Strategic autonomy; hedging frameworks; bandwagoning vs. balancing behaviors; niche diplomacy.

Cases for Analysis: Singapore’s balancing architecture; Qatar’s niche mediation diplomacy; Kazakhstan’s multi-vector foreign policy; Rwanda’s regional security projections.

Analytical Lab: Hedging Strategy Assessment: Evaluating a mid-tier state’s military acquisitions, voting patterns, and trade treaties to measure its level of exposure between competing great powers.

Reflexive Question: Why are small states and middle powers so frequently treated as passive objects of theory rather than active, creative subjects of foreign policy analysis?

Additional Literature 

• Aggarwal, V. K., & Kenney, M. A. T. (Eds.). (2023). Great power competition and middle power strategies: Economic statecraft in the Asia-Pacific region. Springer Nature.

• Baldacchino, G., & Wivel, A. (2020). Handbook on the politics of small states. Edward Elgar Publishing.

• Naṣr, W. R. (2025). Iran’s grand strategy: A political history. Princeton University Press.

• Short, J. R. (2025). Hedging and conflict in the South China Sea. Routledge.

• Wivel, A., & Paul, T. V. (Eds.). (2019). International institutions and power politics: Bridging the divide. Georgetown University Press.

Module V: Reading and Evaluating Foreign Policy

Week 11: How to Read Foreign Policy

Core Question: How do we systematically deconstruct official foreign policy texts to extract hidden strategic intents and ideological biases?

Source Materials Evaluated: Diplomatic speeches, National Security Strategy white papers, United Nations voting registries, defense procurement budgets, official diplomatic communiqués.

The Deconstruction Framework: Students will interrogate every document through a mandatory five-part lens:

1. Who produced this text, and what internal institutional friction shaped it?

2. Who is the primary intended audience, and who are the secondary/hidden audiences?

3. What foundational, unstated assumptions about global order are embedded within the text?

4. What explicit events, historical alternate paths, or ethical concerns are deliberately omitted?

5. Which competing FPA theories best account for the gap between the document's rhetoric and the state's material budget allocations?

Analytical Lab: Foreign Policy Document Autopsy: A rigorous, line-by-line textual, financial, and discourse dissection of an active state's newly released National Security Strategy.

Reflexive Question: Where does political rhetoric end and genuine structural policy begin, and how can an analyst reliably tell the difference?

Additional Literature 

• Balzac, H. de. (2014). The human comedy: Selected stories (P. Brooks, Ed.; L. Asher, C. Cosman, & J. Stump, Trans.). New York Review Books.

• Hopf, T. (2002). Social construction of international politics: Identities & foreign policies, Moscow, 1955 and 1999. Cornell University Press.

• Krebs, R. R. (2015). Narrative and the making of US national security. Cambridge University Press.

• Lüdemann, S. (2014). Politics of deconstruction: A new introduction to Jacques Derrida. Stanford University Press.

• Willaschek, M. (2025). Kant: A revolution in thinking. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

• Žižek, S. (2002). Looking awry: An introduction to Jacques Lacan through popular culture. MIT Press.

Week 12: Competing Explanations and Analytical Triangulation  

Core Question: How do we determine which analytical explanation is the most valid, convincing, and rigorous when evaluating a major international event?

Master Framework: Triangulate every case through the six dimensions.  

1. Individual Cognition & Biases

2. Bureaucratic Politics

3. Domestic Politics & Regime Survival

4. Identity, Culture, & Roles

5. Systemic &Structural Pressures 

6. Postcolonial & Global South Perspectives 

Comparative Capstone Cases: Students select one major contemporary decision executed by either: China, India, Brazil, Nigeria, Türkiye, Indonesia, or South Africa.

Final Exercise: Collaboratively mapping out an integrated, multi-layered causal flowchart that traces a major foreign policy choice from individual psychology through domestic institutional survival to global systemic constraints.

Additional Literature 

• Allison, G. T., & Zelikow, P. (1999). Essence of decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (2nd ed.). Longman.

• Bush, G. W. (2010). Decision points. Crown Publishers.

• Freedman, L. (2013). Strategy: A history. Oxford University Press.

• Gaddis, J. L. (2018). On grand strategy. Penguin Press.

• Gvosdev, N. K., Blankshain, J. D., & Cooper, D. A. (2019). Decision-making in American foreign policy: Translating theory into practice. Cambridge University Press. 

• Seurat, L. (2022). The foreign policy of Hamas: Ideology, decision making and political supremacy. I.B. Tauris.

• Smith, H. J. (2021). Realism and idealism in foreign policy decision making. Lexington Books.

• Walzer, M. (2007). Just and unjust wars: A moral argument with historical illustrations (4th ed.). Basic Books.

*** This course is designed to be adaptable. The weekly structure, assessment components, and reading load can be adjusted to suit the requirements of a particular higher education institution or the context of individual tutoring, and can be scaled to meet the demands of bachelor’s and master’s degree students alike. The analytical framework and intellectual ambitions of the course remain constant; the format is a starting point, not a constraint.

Updated – June 2026

I have done my utmost to ensure everything is correct, but if you spot any mistakes, please let me know, as I am only human after all. Additionally, if you have a recommendation for another excellent book that could enhance this course, please do share your suggestions.

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