Section Information, Announcements, and Office Hours

This page includes section announcements, information about office hours, practice questions from section, and miscellaneous  notes and articles of interest. The articles are not required for the exams or essay.

Announcements

Here are some reminders about upcoming deadlines (this list is not a substitute for the syllabus!):

  • If you are in my section, please complete this anonymous survey.1 If you've already completed it but want to provide an update or give additional comments, you can take it again if you'd like.
     
  • Final exam: held on Wednesday December 16 at 2pm EST. You will have three hours to complete the exam, which will cover material from Unit C (Hegemony and the Liberal International Order) onward. The format is similar to that of previous exams, but since you will have more time, there with multiple essays and more short answer questions.

1 The full link is https://harvard.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_7TCey1KdMFRPTcp. While I can't guarantee that I will incorporate every response, I can guarantee that I'll read each one carefully.

Office hours

I hold office hours by appointment on Tuesdays at 9am and 8pm. Please follow this link to schedule an appointment. The Zoom information to attend will be included in the invite, but if it is not visible, please find the information below:

Morning office hours (Tuesday, 9am)

Join Zoom meeting: https://harvard.zoom.us/j/8334308317?pwd=OGpjZENTcGpQK0VWejNQSjdXdmd5dz09

Password: 600561

Join by telephone (use any number to dial in)
        +1 929 436 2866
        +1 301 715 8592
        +1 312 626 6799
        +1 669 900 6833
        +1 253 215 8782
        +1 346 248 7799

International numbers available: https://harvard.zoom.us/u/ardhM64YJ

One tap mobile: +19294362866,,8334308317# US (New York)

Join by SIP conference room system
Meeting ID: 833 430 8317
8334308317@zoomcrc.com

Evening office hours (Tuesday, 8pm)

Join Zoom meeting
https://harvard.zoom.us/j/8334308317?pwd=OGpjZENTcGpQK0VWejNQSjdXdmd5dz09

Password: 600561

Join by telephone (use any number to dial in)
        +1 929 436 2866
        +1 301 715 8592
        +1 312 626 6799
        +1 669 900 6833
        +1 253 215 8782
        +1 346 248 7799

International numbers available: https://harvard.zoom.us/u/ardhM64YJ

One tap mobile: +19294362866,,8334308317# 

US (New York)

Join by SIP conference room system
Meeting ID: 833 430 8317
8334308317@zoomcrc.com

Practice questions

The practice questions discussed at the beginning of section are available below. Because the answers to all of them can be found in the course materials and Professor Kertzer's lectures, I will not be posting the answers (except for the week of 10/6).

Miscellaneous

These readings may be of interest to you, though they are not required (unless they appear on the course syllabus, of course!)

Bureaucratic politics

  • Allison (1969) summarizes the three models and introduces Model 3. For those of you who are curious about what Allison was referring to when he discussed Model 2, see page 11. Other pieces describing it include Welch (1992) and Jones (2010).
     
  • Bendor & Hammond (1992) formalize Allison's models and point out some logical flaws. Bendor has done some seminal work in formal theory on delegation and norms, and while much of his work can seem intimidating to someone who is not familiar with game theory, this piece does a nice job of sharply formalizing many assumptions/implications in Allison in a manner that doesn't require many prerequisites.
     
  • Interesting piece by Barnett & Finnemore (1999), who describe a number of "institutional pathologies" produced by bureaucratic norms and culture. Their constructivist approach differs from those taken in many of our course readings.

Public opinion

  • Owen & Johnston (2015) draw links between the characteristics of one's occupation and protectionist sentiment. Can this provide an explanation for Mansfield et al (2015)'s findings?
     
  • Blonigen & McGrew (2014) develop a theory about the "task routineness" of one's job and the formation of trade preferences. More relevant to our discussion, they also find that occupational effects on policy views are lower for women than men; they argue that this suggests average differences in the formation of preferences (based on economic factors, personal factors, ideological views, etc.).
     
  • The publication of Mansfield & Mutz (2009) led many trade scholars to discuss the role of sociotropic preferences2. Some interesting recent work on this includes Mutz & Lee (2020), Bearce & Moya (2020), Bechtel & Liesch (2020)

2 These describe the extent to which individuals' preferences take into account the well-being of their community.

The Media

  • In section, we discussed media effects such as priming, framing, and agenda-setting. This article by Scheufele and Tewksbury (2006) does a nice job at distinguishing the three and explaining how the ideas behind them developed and applied in communications and political science.

Interest groups

  • In this handout, I've tried to summarize relevant parts of Olson's model. It also includes an excerpt from Chapter 1 of The Logic of Collective Action. If you're confused about Olson's model of Collective Action or are curious to learn more about it, I hope you find it useful.

Anti-Americanism & Hegemony/LIO

  • Since we weren't able to cover all the material I wanted in the 3pm section following the exam, I've outlined some questions/observations on the readings that I found interesting to think about.
  • Here is the Pew Global Attitudes Survey I used for the practice questions. The specific figures on public opinion toward Trump and the US are available on this page. Take a look, there's a lot of neat information here.
  • Katzenstein and Keohane have a great book that may be of interest to some of you, Anti-Americanism in World Politics, which is available to download on Hollis.
  • If you want to learn more about the hub rim-and-spoke model, this article by Nexon may be useful. 

NATO and Allies

  • In Tuesday's section, I mentioned political science research studying whether and how a country's historical ownership of territory affected their willingness to fight over it today. I was thinking Carter & Goemans (2010), which I've included, along with a more recent piece (Fang & Li, 2020).
  • I've probably mentioned Fearon (1995) a few times over the semester, given its lasting importance on explaining the causes of war. He asks the deceptively simple question: why do countries go to war to reach an agreement when they could just skip all the casualties/bloodshed/costs and just sign the agreement before anything occurs? I'd highly recommend it, especially if you're concentrating in Government and plan to take classes discussing IR/conflict in the future.

Terrorism