Methodology of Political Research. The purpose of the course is to provide students with an authoritative reference sources that will serve their research needs. Political science methodology course will briefly cover the history of the discipline (e.g., the behavioral revolution, the rise of neoinstitutionalism, and the postbehavioral critique), as well as several general approaches in political science (such as rational choice, political psychology, and principal– agent theory). Then the philosophy of science will be covered (including empirical approaches, positivism and its critique, and constructivism), followed by commonly used quantitative and qualitative techniques and then game theory and formal modeling approaches in political science. Finally the course will deal with the essential approaches in international relations, including realism and neorealism, liberalism, world-systems analysis, and foreign policy analysis. Special emphasis will be made on topics dealing with international conflict and war (e.g., on the balance of power, rivalry and interstate war, and the democratic peace), international political economy (e.g., complex interdependence, trade, and resource scarcity and rentierism), and global governance (international organizations and regimes and international law).

Globalization and its challenges. The course will examine the nature of globalization, its waves, indicators and indexes and its different impact on public opinion, both supportive and critical. The course will deal with the challenges of globalization in four main spheres: political, economic, social and cultural.
The course will be structured around these wide topics:
• Theoretical approaches to globalization, indexes of globalization. Discourse on globalization. Globalization, localization and “glocalization”.
• Political globalization and its challenges. The future of the nation-State and democracy. Institutions and international alliances. United Nations system.
• Economic globalization and its challenges. Global development and growing inequalities
• Cultural globalization and its challenges. Globalization vs. localization. Jihad vs. McWorld perspective. Cultural universalism.
• Social globalization and its challenges: mobility and migration, global civil society.