Exam Overview:

Read whole exam first. Closed book, all work must be your own.

Three parts: 15 multiple choice questions (15% of grade); 2 medium answer questions (15% each for a total of 30% of grade); essay (55% of grade)

Medium answer: answer BOTH of the medium answer questions in a single exam book separate from the essay book.

Essay criteria: content, structure, and quality of argument. PLEASE write legibly. Make sure you write about ONLY ONE PAIR of TWO issue areas (from the pairs allowed in the question).

Use as many exam books as needed. On each put:

We will pick up all exams at 10:00 am sharp.

If you have questions, you can ask a GTF or the professor for clarification.

How well do realism, institutionalism, and feminist theories do at explaining the patterns of international relations we observe in ONE pair (and ONLY one pair!) of the issue area pairs provided below.

a) security and human rights,
b) security and environmental affairs,
c) economic affairs and human rights,
d) economic affairs and environmental affairs.

You can NOT write on issue area pairs not listed above (that is, you can NOT write on the pair of "security and economics" or the pair of "environmental affairs and human rights".

Your essay should make comparisons both across the three theories and across the two issue areas, that is, you should compare 1) what parts of a given issue area are best explained by one theory and which parts are better explained by another theory and 2) for each theory, whether it does better, worse, or equally well at explaining international relations in one issue area compared to the other issue area you have chosen.

Clarification of essay question:

Overall: Make sure to valuate the major tenets/principles of realism, institutionalism, and feminist theories. Compare and contrast the extent to which conflict or cooperation best characterizes international relations in both of the issue areas you choose.

We will use essentially the same criteria we used in evaluating the midterm essay to evaluate the final essay. The criteria for the midterm are posted on the course website.

You should be able to examine the patterns of international relations in both issue areas in terms of how states actually behave, not how they should behave (i.e., the way things ARE, not the way they SHOULD BE), and you must provide examples from both the issue areas to illustrate your argument. The best essays will cover most of the theoretical material without simply regurgitating the basic tenets, will discuss concepts such as power, interests, norms, types of cooperation, and security, and will link the argument to issues from some of the readings. They will provide good theoretical reasoning in a coherent essay that illustrates the theoretical points with examples, either real-life examples (best option) or well-chosen hypothetical examples that involve international relations (not as good, but better than nothing). Rather than structuring the essay by theory (i.e., first realism, next institutionalism, next feminist theory), a careful and nuanced analysis might well be structured by tenets, i.e., first, what is the focus of each theoretical perspective; second, what are differences among theories with respect to who are considered important actors are in a given issue area; third, what are the goals of actors in different issue areas, and do those goals fit more closely with a realist, institutionalist, or feminist perspective; etc.

You should expect to lose points for comments such as "we need cooperation to protect human rights, so the focus is institutionalism" or "realist countries don't protect human rights while institutionalist countries do" or "if we adopt realism, then everyone will only look out for themselves, so we should adopt institutionalist views instead" or "Paraguay has pursued a realist policy while the leaders of Bhutan have adopted a more feminist policy approach." Remember, political scientists use theory to explain the behavior of states; states do not generally use theory to guide their own behavior.