The Department of International Studies prepares you for the increasingly complex and interconnected world of the 21st century. Whether you are passionate about human rights, media, education, the environment, or public health, when you pursue an International Studies degree at IU you will learn how to analyze these global issues through a multidisciplinary context and acquire the skills required of tomorrow’s global leaders. Additionally, you will develop deep knowledge of at least one region outside the US, and fluency in another language. An integral part of the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, the department offers Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science degrees as well as graduate degrees. Our students go on to meaningful careers in government, NGOs, corporations, foundations, media outlets, and policy institutes; but most importantly, emerge from our department as ethical citizens of the world.
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Featured Courses - Spring 2023

INTL-I 426/502 International Healthcare Systems
International Healthcare Systems will provide students with a general overview of basic healthcare systems currently employed around the world. The fi¬rst half of the course will explore the basic types of healthcare systems and structures. Consideration will be given to the history of government control of healthcare. Students will submit a short paper on a speci¬fic country's healthcare system. The second half of the course will employ a country-by-country evaluation of world healthcare systems utilizing guest speakers from the representative country as appropriate. The history, economics, accessibility, and outcomes of each country will be discussed. A group presentation project will address building a healthcare system using comparative models as the basis for creation. The course will end with a look at applying an understanding of world healthcare systems to industry.
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INTL-I 302 Women's Rights and Health
This course reflects on the intersections of women's rights and health. We will be focusing on several aspects of women's health and rights, particularly regarding reproduction. Worldwide, issues related to reproductive rights are some of the most contested, regardless of socioeconomic level, religion, or culture. We will be examining the political, legal, cultural and personal contexts affecting women's reproductive rights. We will also focus on women's maternal and infant health, HIV-Aids, domestic and war violence. Readings will be from different academic disciplines, but also include pieces written by practitioners, philosophers, and the actual texts of the most important treaties in the human rights field.
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INTL-I 325 Women's Rights and Health in Spanish
Practice your Spanish in real-life situations while learning more in-depth about Latin America. This discussion is focused on practicing reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills in Spanish by analyzing the different aspects of a Latin American organization (selected by each student) that focuses on supporting Women's Rights and Health.
This one-credit Spanish discussion session is perfect for reviewing and understanding the concepts associated with INTL-I 302 Women's Rights and Health.
Course taught in Spanish
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INTL-I 304 Women, Gender & Human Rights Movements
How do social movements fighting for human rights for women and LGBTQI individuals accomplish their goals? This course considers the ways groups organizing around gender issues strategize and utilize the tools available to them in their attempts to effect political and social change. In particular, the ways in which these attempts intersect with the media - both traditional media and new media - is given attention. These topics will be examined on a global scale as we consider the specific challenges faced by movements given differences in political, social, and cultural circumstances. In the course, we will begin by learning more about social movements generally, and move to different aspects of these movements. The course will be a mixture of learning about the practical side of social movement organizations and their work, as well as the theoretical side of understanding social movements and how they create change for women and sexual minorities. In addition, how we research social movements will be considered. Throughout the course, students are asked to follow a social movement organization on social media and use this as a way to apply and discuss the different kinds of tactics, frames, and challenges movements face.
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INTL-I 325 Women, Gender & Human Rights Movements in Spanish
Practice your Spanish in real-life situations while learning more in-depth about Latin America. This discussion is focused on practicing reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills in Spanish by analyzing the different aspects of a Latin American organization (selected by each student) that focuses on supporting women, gender and/or human rights.
This one-credit Spanish discussion session is perfect for reviewing and understanding the concepts associated with INTL-I304 Women, Gender and Human Rights Movements.
Course taught in Spanish
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INTL-I 300 The End of the Cold War and the World It Made
This course explores the end of the Cold War and its legacy. As superpower tensions rose in the late 1970s and early 1980s, few predicted that the end of the Cold War was just around the corner. Yet within a decade it ended suddenly and relatively peacefully. The first part of this course will focus on explaining why this happened. We will look at the policies of the key players in Washington and Moscow as well as developments in Europe and the so-called Third World. We will evaluate the agency of individual policymakers such as Mikhail Gorbachev, Ronald Reagan, and Helmut Kohl and the roles of ideology, culture, economics, and social movements. The second section of the course will explore the consequences of the end of the Cold War and how they continue to shape our contemporary world. We will conclude by evaluating the usefulness of the Cold War as an historical analogy for antagonistic U.S.-Russian and U.S.-Chinese relations today.
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INTL-I 423 Empires and the Politics of Post-Imperialism
This course examines the rise, fall, and consequences of empire in world politics. It does so by exploring the justifications and enabling circumstances (e.g. military, political, economic, cultural, ideological, demographic and geographical) behind a range of imperial forms and practices from ancient Egypt, Persia, and China to classical and modern European empires, through to contemporary times. Among the range of topics covered are imperial ideologies, settler colonialism, the relationship between capitalism and imperialism, the processes of decolonization and the emergence of neocolonialism in the 20th and 21st centuries. Analytical emphasis is placed on explaining how imperialism has helped to shape processes of globalization in the contemporary world. Additionally, theoretical and comparative discussions of the technologies and ideologies of empire, modes of resistance to modern imperialism, and imperial legacies in the former colonies and metropolitan societies will form the basis of class discussions and assignments. This course is historical, comparative, and theoretical in equal parts, and as such draws on insights and case studies from across the humanities and the social sciences.
Learn moreRecent Faculty Achievements
Kate Hunt was recently quoted in two articles: 'We will adopt your baby' meme goes viral as debates around Roe reach fever pitch and Essential Politics: On the GOP’s response to the rape of a 10-year-old girl.
Sarah Bauerle Danzman published an analysis in The Monkey Cage: CHIPS+ could change the U.S. semiconductor supply chain, and more.
Huss Banai conducted an in-depth interview on the new government in Iran for Voice of America’s “Press Conference USA” podcast. It can be found here.
Sarah Bauerle Danzman presented her co-authored, NSF-funded work at the American Political Science Association's annual conference: Public-Private Partnerships? The Social Connections between Business and Government in Comparative Context.
She also presented Investment Screening and Supply Chain Security- The U.S. Perspective at Harvard's Program on U.S.-Japan Relations.
On Oct. 23, she presented her co-authored work: The Big Screen: Mapping the Diffusion of Foreign Investment Screening Mechanisms at the Annual International Political Economy Society meeting in Boulder, CO
Andrew Bell was awarded a visiting research fellowship with the University College London (UCL) Centre on U.S. Politics for the 2021-2022 academic year.
He also presented a research talk, titled “Norms, Socialization, and Restraint in War,” to the Folk Bernadette Academy (the Swedish government international aid and development agency) on June 17, 2021 (online). Additionally, he presented his research on “Socialization, Restraint, and the Combatant’s Trilemma,” at the American Political Science Association’s Annual Meeting in September 2021 (online panel).
Purnima Bose gave an invited talk, “Withdrawal Narratives: Afghanistan, the US, and the ‘End’ of the Forever War,” at Purdue University Fort Wayne, as part of the College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Lecturer Series on October 13, 2021. She also guest-lectured in a mass communications and an introduction to news writing classes.
On September 30, she also gave a talk for the Hutton Honors College Series on “September 11, 2001-2021: Reflections Twenty Years After the Attacks.”
On October 21, Nick Cullather moderated a discussion on the Rio Grande in the “Big Rivers in International Politics series sponsored by the Diplomatische Akademie Wien. It can be viewed here.
Hamid Ekbia was a Panelist on “The Crisis of AI” at the 4s Conference (Society of the Social Studies of Science) in Toronto on Oct. 8 (online), a Panelist on “Best Practices of Hybrid Workshops” at the Computing Community Consortium in Washington DC. On Oct. 14-15, and an Invited Speaker on “Paradigm and Possibility” for the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) in Brussels on Oct. 27.
Kate Hunt presented at the American Political Science Association Conference in early October. The presentation was about her forthcoming article on abortion activism on social media during the COVID-19 pandemic and was part of a panel featuring articles that will appear in a special issue on "Pandemic Politics" in the journal Perspectives on Politics.
Shruti Rana was a Moderator for the Comparative Perspectives Panel at the Conference on Extraterritoriality in International Law held by the Maurer School of Law and Utrecht University on September 17, 2021, and a Panelist at the Symposium on the Unequal Profession, Southwestern Law Review, on October 15, 2021.
For Episode 26 of The Philosopher and the News, Bill Scheuerman's presented his podcast, "William Scheuerman & Climate Activism"
He also participated in Episode 16 of The City Politics Podcast, entitled The Climate Emergency and Civil Disobedience.
Publications
Keera Allendorf's paper, “The Rise of Sonless Families in Asia and North Africa,” was recently accepted by Demography. The paper is co-authored with former IU graduate student, Roshan Pandian.
In addition, she wrote a brief essay, “Why We Should Measure Sonless Families,” for WEDGE (Women’s Empowerment: Data for Gender Equality). The essay appears as a blog post on their website and will also be part of their Measurement Memo series.
Andrew Bell published “Combatant Socialization and Norms of Restraint: Examining Officer Training at the U.S. Military Academy and Army ROTC” in the Journal of Peace Research (2021).
Padraic Kenney published an essay, “Missing Pictures: Towards an Alternative Visual History of 1989” in Public History Weekly Vol 9, nr. 5. The English and German versions can be found here.
Justyna Zając published two essays on the EU-Russia relations in light of the September parliamentary elections in Germany and the completion the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Both were published by The National Interest in July and August as part of a symposium on European-Russian relations. She also produced and recorded two video lectures on Poland’s politics and culture for the US armed forces deployed as part of NATO’s Operation Atlantic Resolve and the US rotational presence in Poland.
Recent Publications by Faculty

Bill Scheuerman's book
Civil Disobedience has been published in Japanese translation through Jimbun Shoin.

Clémence Pinaud's book
War and Genocide in South Sudan, is now available through Cornell University Press.

Clémence Pinaud's book
Rebel Economies: Warlords, Insurgents, Humanitarians, co-edited by Clémence Pinaud, has been published by Rowman and Littlefield.

David Bosco's book
The Poseidon Project by David Bosco.

Bill Scheuerman's book
Bill Scheuerman edited The Cambridge Companion to Civil Disobedience, which will be published on July 15th.

Huss Banai's book
Hidden Liberalism, was published by Cambridge University Press.

Sarah Bauerle Danzman's book
Merging Interests by Sarah Bauerle Danzman is now available through Cambridge University Press.

Stephen Macekura's book
The Mismeasure of Progress, is now available through the University of Chicago Press.

Purnima Bose’s book
Intervention Narratives: Afghanistan, the United States, and the Global War on Terror, was published by Rutgers University Press. Her book is also featured on the Page 99 Test.

Bill Scheuerman’s book
The second, revised and expanded edition of Bill Scheuerman’s The End of Law: Carl Schmitt in The Twenty-First Century has been released by Rowman & Littlefield International (London).

Jess Steinberg's book
Mines, Communities, and States: The Local Politics of Natural Resource Extraction in Africa, is now available through Cambridge University Press.

Stephen Macekura’s book
The Development Century: A Global History (co-edited with Erez Manela of Harvard University), has just been published.