Global Master of Arts Program (GMAP) Courses
Modules
Political Analysis—International Politics
This course examines contemporary international politics. We study how different types of states—great powers, regional powers, and small states—attempt to adapt to the changing strategic environment of the twenty-first century. Guiding questions include: How do shifts in the international distribution of power create threats and opportunities for these states? How might domestic political dynamics of these states and the belief systems and perceptions of their leaders shape the types of foreign policies pursued, as well as states’ ability to efficiently adapt to changing international dynamics? Topics include: the new era of great power competition (the United States, China, and Russia), alliance dynamics, the future of international organizations, the intersection of energy and geopolitics, and the emergence of disruptive technologies.
Course faculty: Jeffrey Taliaferro
Credits/Units: 1.5
Global Economy
This course provides an introduction to selected economic issues and to basic economic principles and methods. The economist John Maynard Keynes wrote that "the ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood." Economics is not primarily a set of answers, but rather a method of reasoning. In this class, we apply that reasoning to a variety of global economic topics.
After a review of basic economic tools, we will study market structures and the role of multinational firms, economic growth, the loanable funds market, exchange rate dynamics and the role of monetary policy in domestic and international affairs.
The goal of the course is not to provide a comprehensive or intensive study of the discipline, but rather to highlight several topics of special importance in current international economic affairs.
Course faculty: Bruce Watson
Credits/Units: 1.5
Global Economic Governance: Sustainable Trade and Investment
This course focuses on the relationship between globalization in the form of international flows of trade and investment, and sustainability, including climate change, other environmental policy, development, health, and other areas of non-commercial public policy. It explores the ways in which international law addresses these issues through legislative techniques, including special exceptions as well as integrative rules, through dispute settlement, and through international organizations. It provides an opportunity to examine forms and strategies of leadership in settings with multiple concerns and multiple horizontal and vertical nodes of authority.
Course faculty: Joel Trachtman
Credits/Units: 1.5
The International Legal System
This course provides the basic introduction to international law and the international legal system. It is aimed at developing an understanding of the overall structure and processes of public international law and of the political contexts within which international law operates. It will examine foundational concepts and frameworks, including the nature and structure of the international legal system, sources of international law, the law of state responsibility, the law of treaties, international legal persons (with a focus on states), and methods of dispute settlement. It will conclude with an overview of two substantive areas of international law – the jus ad bellum (the rules regulating recourse to the use of armed force) and the jus in bello (the law of armed conflict, aka international humanitarian law).
Course faculty: John Cerone
Credits/Units: 1.5
Global Security Governance: International Law and Institutions
Global governance is a dynamic and increasingly complex dimension of world politics. This course provides an introduction to the field, focusing on the law and practice of global governance institutions in the security realm (broadly defined). It begins with an introduction into the concept of global governance and then explores alternative theoretical perspectives, drawing on the principal strands of international relations theory. It then provides an overview of the institutions of global governance and leadership within them: formal inter-governmental organizations (such as the United Nations); informal inter-governmental institutions (such as the G-20); non-governmental actors; and public-private partnerships. The bulk of the course is devoted to the substantive work of international organizations in select issue areas: the use of forced, conflict management, human security, and health security. In each issue area, we look at institutions, law, and practice – painting a picture of how global governance functions (or not!). The course concludes with a simulation exercise on the future of global governance in these turbulent times.
Course faculty: Ian Johnstone
Credits/Units: 1.5
Addressing Global Environmental Challenges
The objective of GMA P250: Addressing Global Environmental Challenges is to familiarize students with global environmental problems – and solutions – facing the international community today. Global environmental problems can be considered a problem that has entered the attention of governments, scientific communities, non-governmental organizations, and the public. Often these are complex, multi-faceted issues that are significant enough to be addressed by the global international community. The course is divided into three central units focusing on three pressing environmental challenges: marine plastic pollution, climate change, and transboundary freshwater resources. Within each unit, we will explore the significant aspects of the environmental challenge, some of its dominant solutions and governance strategies, as well as tools and skills that can contribute to solving or managing the challenge. In addition, to these core units, we will center our discussion within complexity theory as a tool to understand and approach environmental challenges.
Course faculty: Kelly Sims Gallagher and Melissa McCracken
Credits/Units: 1.5
Public Policy Formulation and Practice
The objective of this course is to examine how public policies are designed,
implemented, and evaluated. This course explores both the theory and practice of the policy process with the level of analysis being at the national level and including comparative analysis in a global context.
The course provides a conceptual framework for creating public policies and uses real cases of policies from different settings and contexts from the real-world public challenges - such as climate change housing, public health, digital transformation- in order to build skills of framing the values behind policy design decisions, examining the root causes of policy problems, stakeholder engagement, developing policy recommendations based on evidence and analysis, and evaluating policy solutions from diverse stakeholder perspectives.
Course faculty: Carlos Alvarado Quesada
Credits/Units: 1.5
The Role of Force in the 21st Century International Security and Conflict Environment
The course has two broad objectives. The first is to explore the theoretical, historical, and contemporary literature concerning the role of force and the conduct of war in the national security policy and pursuit of power by nation-states, as well as by non-state actors. The impact of the use of force and conduct war on the evolution of international politics will be scrutinized. The second course objective is to examine the contemporary strategic environment, with attention focused on the relationship between policy, strategy, technology, gender, and ethics and morality in foreign and security policy. As an interdisciplinary course, the literature utilized is drawn from the study of diplomacy, history, and contemporary politics. This is consistent with the way the field of international security studies has evolved. To teach the course through a single lens would be inadequate.
Course faculty: Richard Shultz and Michael Sullivan
Credits/Units: 1.5
Cyber Policy Analysis & Risk Management
This class will look at cyber policy, risk management, and compliance challenges facing global leaders today, ranging from data breaches and cyber attacks to issues of online speech, censorship, and intermediary liability. It will cover tools for how organizations manage cyber risk, as well as approaches to crafting both public and private sector cybersecurity policies with a particular focus on dealing with an evolving threat landscape and designing realistic, tech-informed policy.
Course faculty: Josephine Wolff
Credits/Units: 1.5
Policy Memo Development
The Policy Memo Development Course works with students to transform the work they did in the Policy Lab, before and during the residency, into a policy memo. The components of the Policy Lab consisted of Fletcher’s 8-Question Method. Students developed their policy idea by:
- Identifying a problem, developing a problem statement, and diagnosing the causes and effects of the problem.
- Conducting primary and secondary research to provide evidence of the problem area (and later, of the viability of the proposed recommendation).
- Setting policy objectives and stakeholder analysis.
- Turning policy objectives into solution sets and finally a recommendation.
- Transforming the above into a 4-minute policy pitch.
In this course, students take the results of their work above and turn it into a concise, cogent, feasible, actionable, written, policy memo that reflects the student’s policy domain. Students likely will need to do more primary or secondary research.
Course faculty: Kimberley Wilson
Credits/Units: 1.0
Residencies
Global Leadership
Twenty-first century organizations are increasingly operating in a VUCA environment - that is, volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. Globalization is among the contributing factors to this phenomenon, and the resulting challenges require steadfast leadership, equipped with the values, knowledge, skills and abilities to adequately address them. Global leadership is the process of influencing individuals, groups, and organizations representing diverse cultural, political and institutional systems toward achieving a stated goal. This course utilizes a multi-layered systems approach to explore the theories and empirical evidence related to effective leadership in a global context. Integrating concepts from a broad range of social and behavioral science disciplines, this course will enhance students’ capabilities to lead themselves, teams and organizations in preparing to face the world’s most complex challenges.
Course faculty: Diane Ryan
Credits/Units: 1.5
Negotiation Strategy and Skills
This course explores the processes, rather than specific substantive issues, of international negotiation. Using exercises and simulations, it examines the nature of conflict in the international arena; the special characteristics of negotiation in the international setting; pre-negotiation and the problems of inducing parties to negotiate; negotiation dynamics; the roles of culture and power; and the strategy and tactics of international negotiation. International mediation, arbitration, special problems of multilateral negotiation, and the follow-up and implementation of negotiated agreements are also examined.
Course faculty: Diana Chigas and Eileen Babbitt
Credits/Units: 1.5
International Security Simulation (Red Team)
The red team simulation is a scenario driven exercise focused on building better plans through groupthink mitigation, cultural empathy, and alternative future analysis tools and methods. Scenarios come from real world international conflict areas and are developed by subject matter experts in that area.
Course faculty: Richard Shultz and Michael Sullivan
Credits/Units: 1.0
Policy Lab
The Policy Lab will teach students to synthesize their Fletcher knowledge and skills, and apply them to solve real-world problems.
The Policy Lab will cover critical steps in the policy development process including assessment, problem analysis, objectives setting, solutions development, and stakeholder engagement. We will introduce the stages and data requirements of policy design. At each step, students will apply the process to a case study, and, ultimately, to a challenge of their choosing.
The course will culminate in students applying policy development processes to a real-world challenge that they wish to address. Individually, they will conduct primary and secondary research to understand the challenge context and its root causes. They will complete the course with a well-designed solution (public policy proposal, business plan, or project charter), and will present this solution through a policy pitch. In a subsequent module, they will develop a written policy memo.
Course faculty: Kimberley Wilson and Melita Sawyer
Credits/Units: 1.5
Skill Summits
Data Science for Global Leaders
In an era where data permeates every aspect of our world, understanding its potential is more valuable than ever. As a global leader it is important to understand both its capabilities and the potential pitfalls. This course will focus on the full data life-cycle including the generation, collection, processing, analysis, and management of data. Special attention will also be paid to data ethics as it pertains to representativeness and missingness of data. We will also discuss how recent advances in artificial intelligence have impacted the data life-cycle and the opportunities and threats that this poses. The technical aspects of this course will be supplemented by relevant readings and case studies showing data science in action.
Course faculty: Anna Haensch
Credits/Units: 0.5
Arts of Communication
Today's leaders must have the ability not only to analyze thoughtfully but also to communicate clearly and persuasively. This course is intended to help you become a significantly more persuasive and effective public speaker—someone who speaks with the ease, confidence, clarity, and modes of persuasion that are critical in today’s nonprofit, policy, and diplomacy worlds. The course is intended to help you develop your own personal style by deepening your understanding of the persuasive tools, recommendations, refutations, modes of analysis, and variations in audiences that motivate listeners to turn business, policy and diplomacy ideas into action.
Course faculty: Lawrence Quartana
Credits/Units: 0.5
Year Long
Leadership and Negotiation Lab
Building on the foundational frameworks introduced in the GMAP June Residency, the Leadership and Negotiation Lab will explore some of the key challenges that leaders face in practice: how to foster innovation and lead change, how to manage power and status, how to have difficult conversations and make high-stakes decisions, how to mentor and coach others, how to navigate diverse approaches to leadership in a global arena, and how to develop effective processes for engaging and fostering collective action amongst diverse stakeholders. This course will allow deeper explorations into the knowledge, skills and abilities that equip us to prevail over these challenges, as well as guide you in developing a personal roadmap for becoming the leader you aspire to be both professionally and personally.
Course faculty: Eileen Babbitt, Diana Chigas and Diane Ryan
Credits/Units: 3.0