Will the world’s nations uphold the commitments made in the Paris Agreement that set ambitious new targets for limiting global warming? What will be the impact whether they do or don’t?  What direction will the price of oil take and, equally important, what might be its effect on the economies and politics of Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the countries in their spheres of influence? Will nation states continue to draw together in communities such as the European Union or be fragmented by the nationalist forces that divide them? These are just a few of the many questions on the minds of policy makers around the world. The decisions they make today require forecasting the trajectory of situations, with and without interventions of various kinds.

This course asks students to put themselves in the position of international policy makers and get directly involved in the process of international political forecasting and analysis. Students will acquire and use a set of analytical tools both for understanding the complexity of current international political situations as well as for forecasting future scenarios. Using these tools, they will survey the main issues facing the international political system in the near future and the key forces that will influence their direction.