Globalization after Cold War

The Clash of Demands between Great Power Competition and Transnational Challenges

1. The post-Cold War world has been marked by a global context of expanding transnational threats demanding increased cooperation among nation-states; and
2. 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 MLS 551 Graduate Students. POL351 Students will write a 6 page essay, while MLS 551 Graduate Students will write a 10 page essay. MLS 551 Graduate Students will address the extra questions and are expected to incorporate their additional assigned readings and viewings from the modules in their essays.
   Required Essay Questions for POL 351 Students and MLS 551 Graduate 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 demands of sovereignty and the demands of fully addressing your two policy problems (i.e., terrorism, globalization, diseases, or climate change)? What tradeoffs, if any, to sovereign national interests can you identify for effective global solutions to your policy problems?
   • Jones, Pascual and Stedman (2009) argue that cooperation on transnational policy problems enhances sovereignty. What is their argument?
   • Which side of the debate about sovereignty and the likelihood of cooperation makes the most sense to you? What is the potential for future cooperation on your selected transnational policy problems?
   Required Additional Essay Questions for MLS 551 Graduate Students:
   • Drawing on the readings and other assigned materials for the modules thus far, describe and evaluate some proposed US policies for cooperation on your two selected policy challenges: climate change; infectious diseases; terrorism; or globalization.
   • What are the obstacles, if any, to US leadership on these two policy problems? For example, what, if any, unacceptable tradeoffs to US interests exist? Do these account for US policy choices to date that have not effectively dealt with the transnational problems? If you find limits in US leadership, is ineffective global policy progress due to great power rivalry (or concerns for one’s own relative power and national interests, either by the US or other leading states), or something else (e.g., technological hurdles etc.)?
   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).
   MLS 551 Graduate Student essays should consist of at least 2,500 words of text (at least 10 pages of double-spaced and 12 point font of text). MLS551 essays must also reflect a broader range of readings and depth of analysis.
   Citations and a bibliography will likely make up an additional 1-2 pages. Each essay should include each of the following attributes:
3. A title page;
4. Well-developed introductory paragraph explaining the purpose of the essay and briefly referencing some of the main points/contentions offered in the essay;
5. 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;
6. 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;
7. A list of all sources consulted in 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.