What This Site Is
This is a living record of the content I teach in the International Relations module at Leiden University’s BA International Studies program. I co-teach this course with Prof. Sarah Wolff; the six modules documented here are the ones I design and deliver.
Each module page walks through the substantive content, the pedagogical choices behind it, and the classroom innovations I bring — including in-class framing experiments that let students experience how narrative shapes perception in real time. The modules correspond to specific weeks in the AY 2025–2026 syllabus, noted on each page.
What Makes This Course Different
Theory in Practice
Every theoretical framework — realism, liberalism, constructivism, non-Western IR — gets immediately applied to a live geopolitical case. Students don't just read about how theory works; they use it to explain events unfolding in real time.
Classroom Experiments
Each of the first three modules includes a randomized framing experiment run live during class. Students are randomly assigned different narrative framings and then answer the same questions — then we analyze the results together. It's constructivism experienced, not just described.
Beyond the Western Canon
A dedicated module on non-Western IR theory, plus sustained attention throughout the course to whose perspectives dominate the discipline, why that matters, and what alternatives exist — from the Chinese tributary system to ASEAN's institutional strategy.
Modules
Module 1
Traditional IR Theories
Realism, liberalism, and constructivism — taught through live case applications and a framing experiment on U.S.–China cooperation.
Module 2
Security Dilemmas & Nuclear Proliferation
Why states pursue nuclear weapons, the Waltz–Sagan debate, and a framing experiment on nuclear safety perception.
Module 3
Non-Western IR Theory
Challenging the Western-centric canon — Global IR, historical alternatives, and a framing experiment on how cultural context shapes strategic thinking.
Module 4
Nation, Race, and Gender
How nationalism constructs belonging — and who gets excluded. Race, ethnicity, and gender as constitutive forces in the nation-state.
Module 5
Society in a Global Age
Globalization, populism, risk society, and the "globalization of rage" — how economic integration reshapes identity and belonging.
Module 6
Global Politics & the Anthropocene
The concluding module — technology, ecology, AI, and whose futures IR theory enables us to imagine.