The Clash of Demands between Great Power Competition and Transnational Challenges
Discipline: Political Science
Type of service: Essay
Spacing: Double spacing
Paper format: APA
Number of pages: 6 pages
Number of sources: 0 source
Paper details:
Project 2 addresses course outcomes 1, 3, 4 and 6. For Project 2, you will consider a contrast between two major themes in the course:
- The post-Cold War world has been marked by a global context of expanding transnational threats demanding increased cooperation among nation-states; and
- The years since the end of the Cold War are characterized by a diffusion of power and, especially in the past few years, increased rivalry and tension between the United States and competing powers China and Russia.
You are asked in this assignment to address whether cooperation on the transnational challenges we have covered thus far threaten national power, interests and sovereignty. You have reviewed transnational challenges from economic globalization, terrorism, renewed great power rivalry, and now, infectious diseases and climate change. In this essay you will address yourself to a central policy conundrum – can the leading states cooperate on matters vital to all of humanity at acceptable costs to themselves and everyone else?
Before beginning this assignment, be sure to read the Module Notes and the required readings and viewings for all of the modules, especially Module 2 and Modules 4–7. Your assignment is to evaluate the tension between the cooperation required to deal effectively with transnational challenges and the competition among the great powers that sometimes impedes such cooperation. Pay special attention to the extra set of questions and essay length required of POL351 Students will write a 6 page essay.
Required Essay Questions for POL 351 Students Students:
- Choose any two of the global policy challenges coming from terrorism, economic globalization, infectious diseases or climate change, and evaluate how national security and global security are interdependent.
- Why are terrorism, globalization, diseases, or climate change multifaceted in terms of how they are defined as policy problems? Specifically, how are they viewed as economic, political, and/or environmental policy problems, and also security ones? Explain these dimensions for your set of two challenging policy problems.
- Do you find a clash between the interests of sovereign states and the demands of fully addressing your two policy problems (i.e., terrorism, globalization, diseases, or climate change)? How might these tradeoffs be resolved to find effective global solutions to your policy problems, and what, in your opinion, is the likelihood of effective cooperation on your two policy problems?
To successfully complete Project 2, you will need to organize your responses to these specific questions and then craft formatted essays. Your essays will be evaluated in terms of how thoroughly you: answer the questions; use resources to document your main points; and properly cite referenced work. Your essays should address all of the questions assigned.
POL 351 Student essays should consist of at least 1,500 words of text (at least 6 pages of double-spaced and 12-point font of text).
Citations and a bibliography will likely make up an additional 1–2 pages. Each essay should include each of the following attributes:
- A title page;
- Well-developed introductory paragraph explaining the purpose of the essay and briefly referencing some of the main points/contentions offered in the essay;
- The body of the essay should consist of your effort to best answer the primary questions from the assignment prompt and should consist of the required length of words of text (at least 6 pages of double-spaced and 12 point font of text for POL 351 students, and 10 pages of double-spaced and 12 point font of text for MLS 551 students). MLS 551 student papers should also reflect a broader range of readings and depth of analysis. Though the method by which the paper is written is largely up to you, it is essential that the responses to the questions in the prompt be based upon scholarly readings and should remain at all times defensible (in an academic sense). You have a great deal of information to draw from in creating your essay, including the assigned readings and hyperlinked sources in the module notes. As is the case with every assignment in POL 351/MLS 551, presenting any unsubstantiated, illogical, or indefensible position will have an adverse effect on the final grade. Please direct any questions regarding these expectations to the instructor;
- A concise concluding paragraph that briefly restates both the purpose of the essay as well as some of the primary argument offered by you, the essay’s author. Be sure the concluding paragraph does not introduce new information;
- A list of all sources consulted the preparation of the essay. The essay should be formatted according to APA-style documentation(Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.. This includes the format of the list of references.
Possible Sources
- Module Notes: Challenges from Global Health and Climate Dilemmas
- Jones, B.D., Pascual, C., and Stedman, S.J. (2009). Power and Responsibility: Building International Order in an Era of Transnational Threats(Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution. Chapter 1 (Sovereignty’s last best chance), pp. 3–20, 75–90.
- Patrick, S. (2011). Weak Links: Fragile States, Global Threats, and International Security(Links to an external site.)Links to an external site..Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chapter 6 (Infectious disease), pp. 207–241.
- Garrett, L. (2015). Ebola’s lessons(Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.. Foreign Affairs, 94(5), 80–107.
- US National Climate Assessment (NCA). (2014). Report, sectors, human health(Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.. Washington, DC: US Global Change Research Program.
- Rattani, V. (2013). Climate change as a security issue: China’s role in the global climate regime(Links to an external site.)Links to an external site., in Landovsky, J. and Riegl, M. Strategic and Geopolitical Issues in the Contemporary World. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 300–318.
- Website Reviews:
- United Nations sites with background, treaty, and news information on climate change(Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.: http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/climate-change-2/
http://newsroom.unfccc.int/ - UN Milestones for climate change work(Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/resourcelibrary
- Executive summary. In: Climate Science Special Report: Fourth National Climate Assessment(Links to an external site.)Links to an external site., Volume I, Wuebbles et al. (eds.). U.S. Global Change Research Program, Washington, DC, USA, pp. 12-34.
- US National Climate Assessment (NCA). (2014). Overview, Climate Trends, Sections 10–12(Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. (other parts optional). NW, Washington DC: U.S. Global Change Research Program.
- United Nations central website on health issues (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.(with links about specific diseases, etc.): https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/18300406tstissueshealth.pdf
- Data on HIV/AIDS epidemic(Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.: http://aidsinfo.unaids.org/
- Breaking the wall of tropical diseases: How the tropical laboratory initiative is increasing access to health care in low-resource countries(Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. [Video file, 14:46 mins]. (2012). In Films On Demand.
- National Geographic[Video, 3:03 minutes]. (2013). Global Warming 101 (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site..
- London Telegraph[Video, 1:40 mins]. (2015). Watch: Climate change explained in 60 second animation (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site..
- Roston, E. (2015). What’s Really Warming the World(Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.? Bloomberg News.
- Global Climate News [Video, 12 mins]. (2012, January 2). The truth about global warming–science & distortion—Stephen Schneider(Links to an external site.)Links to an external site..
- PBS Frontline. (2006). The Age of AIDS, part 1.(Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. Online video (120 minutes). Note especially these segments: 1, 3, 6, and 8.
- PBS Frontline. (2006). The Age of AIDS, part 2.(Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. Online video (120 minutes). Note especially these segments: 1, and 3–7.
- United Nations sites with background, treaty, and news information on climate change(Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.: http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/climate-change-2/