The academic content of this program is designed to cover elements of three principal areas: the political relationships between nation-states, economic relationships across borders, and the legal and ethical considerations of globalization.

Geopolitical topics will include how the world is changing in light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and evolving attitudes and ambitions within the ruling Chinese Communist Party. We will examine how the intelligence community informs military decisions and diplomatic strategy. And we will discuss multilateral treaties to coordinate efforts to combat terrorism, to regulate carbon emissions, and to manage disease control. In order to think constructively about these questions we will compare and contrast the strengths and shortcomings of the three major theoretical frameworks of International Relations: realism, liberalism, and constructivism.

Economic topics will be chiefly concerned with immigration policy, refugees, and the debate around Free Trade and Protectionism.

Legal analysis will weigh competing opinions on what exactly international law is, and the extent to which sovereign states are bound by bilateral and multilateral treaties, in theory and in practice. Ethical analysis will begin with the question of whether we hold political communities morally responsible in the way we usually do with individual people. Then we will look at the ethical considerations attached to democratic decision-making, the use of force to control or prohibit the movement across borders of capital, goods and services, and people.