POLI 363
US Foreign Policy
Research Paper and Role-playing Simulation
This is big and has very important information in it. For that reason, I’ve created a Table of Contents (linked to sections below) for you to use to find information you’re looking for. You should read this entire assignment, however. I guarantee you will wind up with a better grade if you do.
The Paper Topic and Role Assignments
Numbering Endnotes or Footnotes (in this paper, only endnotes)
Nitpicks and Style Issue (or Helpful hints)
Over two class periods at the end of the term the class will simulate the national security decision making process. Each of you will be assigned the role of a US governmental official with responsibilities for some aspect of US national security (officials in the Defense Department or National Security Council Staff or Intelligence Community, for example). You will be given a national security problem to solve and guidance about what perspective you should focus upon. The problem to consider this semester: US intelligence believes that China is preparing for some sort of coercive action against Taiwan. It’s unclear if the action will be economic or military; it might be anything from increased tariffs on Taiwanese exports to China or bans on Taiwanese investments in China to a blockade of shipping in the Taiwan Strait or even direct military action. The “president” wants options for these possibilities. Your job is to prepare them.
You will write a 1–2-page executive summary presenting options for how to deal with the issue (from the perspective of the role you have been assigned; for example, if you are the Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations, you will focus on multilateral options for solving the problem; if you are the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff you will look at China’s military options.
You
will be required to hand in a rough
draft of the summary (at a date indicated on the syllabus) and a final version
(at a date indicated on the syllabus).
The rough draft is intended to give me an opportunity to help you out
with the style of an executive summary and give you an opportunity to rewrite
the executive summary based on my comments.
The paper is your work alone, but the role-playing simulation is a group exercise. Once the research is done and I have made comments on both drafts of your paper, we’ll begin the role-playing simulation: a two day in-class exercise where you will develop a draft Presidential Directive spelling out the options for US policy in case of Chinese aggression against Taiwan. I will prepare a detailed agenda for these sessions. The simulation session will have a rigid structure: First, you will meet with the other members of your department or agency. Following this, you will meet within the interagency committee to which you’ve been assigned (assignments are below). In these interagency committees you’ll negotiate to come up with a draft Presidential Directive that includes all your perspectives, evaluates the pros and cons of various US options, develops a government-wide consensus, or spells out where consensus could not be achieved and why. You’ll repeat this meeting schedule a few times in the two sessions (agency/department meetings then interagency meetings). In the final session, the entire class will meet as the full national Security Council to finish its work. Class lectures and readings will make you very familiar with this style of interagency decision making. By the time the simulation begins, you’ll know how to proceed.
Every aspect of this exercise (your research and the role-playing simulation) will be guided by a draft Presidential Review Directive where I will spell out what questions I want answered in the Presidential Directive (and in your papers). Each role has an assigned research question: the perspective of the role and the research question of the person assigned the role. For samples of actual Presidential Directives, follow this link. The PRD for this class is linked here and to the syllabus.
We’ll assign roles quickly. Take a look at the PRD and decide which roles you like best. We’ll have a map quiz the second week of class. On the reverse side of the quiz will be the list of roles for this class. Tell me you first, second, and third choices (by writing 1, 2, 3 beside those choices) and I’ll try to get everyone into their first or second choices when I assign the roles.
“Hey! But I don’t know anything about China and Taiwan!” By the time we get to the simulation, you will. Also, here’s a quick guide to some of the issues on China and Taiwan.
After
you graduate, you will take a job, maybe in the government, maybe in the private
sector. Either way, you will probably
not be the CEO. You will be working for
someone else and your job will probably be based on your ability to help your
boss do a good job. There will be two
key elements to that: information and communication. Your ability to provide your boss with high
quality and high reliability information will be one key challenge. Your ability to communicate that information
to your boss in an easy to digest form will be the other key. Think of it this way: Assume that I am the
Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs. I have to report to the Undersecretary of
Defense for Political Affairs on threats to US national security (everything
from Chinese cruise missile development to the impact of Pakistani public
education on radicalization among urban youth in Karachi). I can’t read a book
on each one of these subjects. Also, I
have eight zillion other responsibilities.
I can devote about five minutes to any specific issue, so I need for you
(my chief deputy) to give me the information I need in a very short report that
will tell me everything I need to know about the issue in under five
minutes. That’s the life of a busy
public or private sector executive. You,
as the deputy, have to provide your boss with what they need: one to two pages
that tell them what they need to know.
You’re the expert and you need to provide that expertise in a format
that is succinct, clear, and informative.
The Elements of an Executive
Summary
There
are many ways to think about an executive summary, but here is what I think is
the best way. How you break this down into paragraphs is up to you, but
suggestions are made below.
·
Title
Page: Here you’ll include your name, your assigned role, and the research
question from the PRD (see below)
·
Section
One: Introduction: What is the answer to
that question? What is/are the one or
two most important aspects of the answer to question? You’re not asking the
question here, but providing the answer. (One paragraph)
·
Section
Two: What are the two or three key issues?
What are your conclusions about those issues? (Two to three paragraphs;
one for each issue)
·
Section
Three: What are your overall conclusions regarding the issue? What are the uncertainties? What are the keys
to the future development/evolution of the issue? (One paragraph)
One way
to think about an executive summary is to see it as an introduction for a
larger document. You won’t be writing that larger document, but you could.
You’ll be doing enough research to write a 15-page paper, but you’ll only
actually write the 1-2-page summary. There a few ways to do this:
·
Write
the paper as small as you can. The first time you do this, it might be 3-4
pages. Then start taking out information that is secondary, really making an
effort to prioritize what’s most important. That’s an important analytical
task. Any secondary information can be moved into the endnotes. The endnotes
can be as long as you like. Some people write a 1-2-page executive summary with
10 pages of endnotes which provide a huge amount of information.
·
Write
the 10-15 -page paper, then systematically move information to the endnotes,
prioritizing the key information and analysis, until you get down to 2 pages.
The
following are links to examples from Rand Corporation documents. These are on line executive summaries of
larger documents, which are also on line.
If you go to Rand’s main web site (www.rand.org)
and look under publications, you will find summaries of almost all their
documents included with the documents themselves (and great sources on East
Asia and China). Rand is funded mostly
by the US government, so most of what they publish is available on line for
free to the good taxpayers of the US. Most of these summaries are longer than
yours has to be, but the papers they are summarizing are also longer than your
hypothetical paper. These links will
take you to the document where you can click in the full document or the
summary.
·
Biden
Administration. US
National Security Strategy, October 2022. Read the first two pages of the
document. They serve as an executive summary. Check out the table of contents
and notice how the intro/executive summary hits all the key issues in the
entire document.
·
Stephanie Pezard, Stephen
J. Flanagan, Scott W. Harold, Irina A. Chindea, Benjamin
J. Sacks, Abbie Tingstad, Tristan Finazzo, Soo
Kim. China's
Strategy and Activities in the Arctic (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation,
2022).
·
Jonathan P. Wong, Michael
J. Mazarr, Nathan Beauchamp-Mustafaga, Michael Bohnert, Scott
Boston, Christian Curriden, Derek Eaton, Gregory
Weider Fauerbach, Joslyn Fleming, Katheryn Giglio, et al. New Directions
for Projecting Land Power in the Indo-Pacific (Santa Monica: RAND
Corporation, 2022).
·
Stephen Watts, Scott
Boston, Pauline Moore, Cristina L. Garafola. Implications of
a Global People's Liberation Army (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 2022).
·
Jennifer
D. P. Moroney and Joe Hogler, with Benjamin Bahney, Kim Cragin, David R.
Howell, Charlotte Lynch, S. Rebecca Zimmerman, Building Partner Capacity to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction
(Santa Monica: Rand Corporation, 2009), Available at http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG783/
I will be adding a sample executive summary that
will be linked to this assignment here. Here
is a link to the bibliography for the sample executive summary. This is an executive summary based on a role
that is not assigned in the class (Chairman of the State Department Policy
Planning Council) and a research question that is different from the ones you
are being asked to research. When you
see the endnotes and bibliography, don’t worry. Your paper doesn’t need to have
that many sources or endnotes. You are
required to have 10 sources and at least 10 endnotes. I have a huge number of sources and my
endnotes are all contain multiple sources.
That is not required of you. This
executive summary is based in part on a larger article I wrote several years
ago. You can access that larger article
through the link below or through scholar.google.com (because US government
links often change). This is the citation: Newmann, William W. "Hegemonic
disruption: the asymmetric challenge to US leadership." Strategic
Studies Quarterly 5, no. 3 (2011): 67-102. You’ll get an idea of how something over 30 pages becomes only two pages.
Each of
you will be assigned a role for the role-playing simulation. This role will also define your paper
topic. For example, as mentioned above,
if you are the Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations,
you will focus on multilateral options for solving the problem; if you are the
Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff you will look at China’s military
options.
You
will be given a chance to state a preference for your role in the first few
weeks of class. We’ll be having a map
quiz and on the back of the map quiz will be the list of roles for the
role-playing simulation. You will
identify your first, second, and third choices and I’ll do my best to get
everyone a role they are interested in.
Each role has a bit of a perspective and I will give a brief summary of
that perspective for each role. More
detail will be provided in the Presidential Review Directive that I will
provide during the first few weeks of the semester. This PRD will assign tasks for each specific
role and provide the questions the President needs answered by you, the
experts. The PRD will also identify the
interagency committee assignments for everyone.
Read the PRD before you decide what role you’d like to play. Since the PRD
will spell out the research assignment for each role, you’ll be able to decide
what research assignment you want, within limits. The limits are that we have
30-35 people in the class. On the day of
the map quiz, you will have a chance to tell me what are your first, second,
and third choices for your role? I’ll try to give everyone one of their top
three choices, but that doesn’t always work out. Also, consider the simulation
days. Everyone will participate, but if you’re a little bit shy in large
groups, you may not want to be Secretary of State or National Security Advisor,
assignments that require you to play one of the larger roles.
The PRD
is here.
The
possible simulation roles assignments are in the PRD, but also listed here:
(some of this may change when assignments are given out (depending on how many
people are enrolled in the class).
You’ll also note that these roles are listed by hierarchy in the
department/agency, but that will not mean that you’ll have less to do or a less
important role if you are an Assistant Secretary rather than a Deputy
Secretary. Your role will be equally
important to the outcome of the role-playing simulation.
The
importance of the specific roles is to illustrate that different people in
different departments/agencies have different perspectives and even the
perspectives of people from different bureaus in the same agency may
differ. You research should not be an
examination of what the official does, but an analysis of a specific problem
related to our role-playing simulation that comes from the perspective of a
specific governmental office.
Below
I’ve given a brief description of the office and its main mission. This will give you a starting point in
helping you decide which official you’d like to play in the role-playing
simulation. The PRD will give a bigger
picture.
The list
of roles is linked to the actual office if possible; sometimes this will
provide useful information and sometimes it won’t. For some White House-based assistants, such
as the National Security Council staff links are not available. For other roles
where there are no links, use the links for the main Department page for any
info you might want. The links to the official websites are not necessary for
your research. If they exist, I provide
them just because I can.
Department
of State The State
Department is the primary arm of US diplomacy.
It contains all US Embassies and a large bureaucracy which analyzes
nations and international events to provide expertise for the Secretary and the
President.
Secretary of State This is the
senior US diplomat and President’s chief foreign policy advisor (in
theory). The Secretary’s job is to see
the big picture of US foreign affairs.
The Secretary is typically a major political figure in his/her own right
and may have been a presidential contender.
Because of this the secretary will have a keen eye for the domestic
political impact of any foreign policy choices.
·
Deputy Secretary of State The Deputy
Secretary is an alter ego to the Secretary.
The Secretary is often out of the country and in these cases the deputy
takes the Secretary’s place at interagency meetings. The Secretary and the deputy often negotiate
a division of labor (where the Deputy manages the Department or the deputy has
responsibility over certain areas of the world that need less of the
Secretary’s attention). Again, the focus
in this role is the big picture of US foreign policy.
§ Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs
Number three in the department. This
official supervises all the functional and regional bureaus. The analytical tasks of the department are
supervised here. Again, the focus is on
the big political picture. How will
events and the US response to those events influence the global balance of
power, the regional balance of power, the US relationship with its allies, and
its rivals, and its “frenemies?”
§ US Ambassador to the United Nations
This official continues to have a growing role.
The Ambassador represents the US at the United Nations and negotiates
with other nations to work out multilateral stances on many issues that appear
before the UN. For example, if the US
wants a UN Security Council resolution to condemn ran or Syria, this official
does the negotiating with other nations UN Ambassadors. Often this official is made a non-statutory
member of the US National Security Council.
§
Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and
International Security This official supervises the more political-military
side of the department’s analytical offices.
In some ways, this person supervises the State Department’s “defense
department” that looks at the interplay of political and military factors that
influence international diplomacy.
§
Counselor
of the Department of State This official is an undersecretary level advisor
to the Secretary of State. The Counselor
will focus on special problems, critical issues, and the key priorities that
arise for US foreign relations. The Counselor may act as an advisor to the
secretary, an international negotiator for the US, or a general trouble
shooter.
§
Assistant Secretary of State for
International Organization Affairs (IO) The bureau that focuses
specifically on US diplomacy within international organizations, everything
from the UN, to the Arab league, to the Organization of the Islamic Conference
(in the context of this scenario). This
bureau examines how events and US response to those events will play out in
these international organizations.
§ Assistant
Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs (EAP): The bureau
that focuses on the political-military-economic aspects of US relations with
nation in the East Asian and Pacific region. Geographically, your area of
responsibility is China, Northeast Asia (both Koreas, Japan, Taiwan), Southeast
Asia, Pacific Islands, Australia, and New Zealand. The region is often combined with South Asia
and the Indian Ocean and called the Indo-Pacific.
§ Principal
Deputy Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs (EAP): You
are the number two official in the bureau.
A strong number two here is important because the area is so big and so
critical to US foreign policy. The bureau that focuses on the political-military-economic
aspects of US relations with nation in the East Asian and Pacific region.
Geographically, your area of responsibility is China, Northeast Asia (both
Koreas, Japan, Taiwan), Southeast Asia, Pacific Islands, Australia, and New
Zealand. The region is often combined
with South Asia and the Indian Ocean and called the Indo-Pacific.
Department
of Defense This department
has the role of organizing the nation’s defense capability, both planning and
execution. It is run by civilians, but
it includes the uniformed military officers who actually engage in military
operations.
Secretary
of Defense This is the President’s chief advisor on defense matters. Sometimes the SecDef will lean more toward a
management role, focusing on the task of making sure the US has the weaponry
and manpower it needs to fight wars.
Other SecDefs have become important policy advisors, rivaling the secretary
of State as the chief foreign and national security policy confidante of the
President. The focus here is the big
picture – perhaps the military balance and its implications or perhaps even
broader than that.
·
Deputy
Secretary of Defense The Deputy Secretary is an alter ego to the
Secretary. The Secretary and the deputy
often negotiate a division of labor (where the Deputy manages the Department or
the deputy has responsibility over certain areas of the world that need less of
the Secretary’s attention). Again, the
focus in this role is the big picture of US political-military preparedness.
§ Under Secretary of Defense for Policy
This official supervises all the functional bureaus in the Office of the
Secretary of Defense. The analytical
tasks of the department are supervised here.
Again, the focus is on the big political-military picture. How will global and regional political-military
trends and the US response to those trends influence the global balance of
power and regional balance of power?
§ Assistant
Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs This office has
sometimes been called the Department of Defense’s own State Department. It looks at the political aspects of changes
in the global and regional balance of power, keeping a focus on alliances and
rivalries region-by-region, nation-by-nation.
§ Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs This office is
interesting. The DoD has only one office that focuses on eh specific
political-military issues of a single region: Indo-Pacific Affairs. You’ll note that the office has deputies for
China, East Asia as a region, South and Southeast Asia, and Afghanistan,
Pakistan, and Central Asia.
·
JCS Chair (for all offices below, use the
Chairman’s page) The Chairman of the JCS is the principal military advisor to
the President and the Secretary of Defense.
He is not in the chain of command for military operations, but has the
task of advising the NSC on military capabilities and strategy of the US, its
allies, and enemies. This official is a
uniformed military officer. The Joint
Staff, large bureaucracy of military officers (typically with Master’s degrees
and PhDs in public policy, international affairs, or technical areas), works
directly for the Chair of the JCS.
§ Vice Chair The Vice Chair is an alter ego to the
Chair and helps supervise the Joint Staff.
The Vice Chair is essentially the deputy to the chair. The two may create a division of labor in
supervising the Joint Staff and in working for the secretary of defense.
§ Commander-in-Chief Indo-Pacific Command (CINC
INDOPACOM) The US Unified Command Plan divides the world up into combatant commands
for actual military operations. Some are regional (like Indo-Pacific Command)
and some are functional (like Strategic Command (nuclear weapons). In the case of a war in the region, the
regional commander (in this case CINC INDOPACOM is the operational commander of
US forces. During peacetime, this official works with the militaries of other
nations on military-to-military contacts, exercises with allies, military
planning, as well as diplomacy.
Department of
Energy The DoE is an important
element of national security. It runs
the US nuclear weapons infrastructure (they make them; the DoD would use
them.) The Secretary of Energy is a
member of the NSC (since 2007). Generally, DoE looks at energy policy (oil and
renewable resources) and might be more worried about war in the Middle East
than in East Asia. But China that much
of its oil through the Strait of Malacca (in between Singapore and Indonesia)
and through the South China Sea. Any possible conflict becomes an issue for
global energy supplies. In addition, your department will also be concerned
with the semiconductors. Most of the
world’s high-end semiconductors are made in Taiwan.
Secretary of Energy The head of the agency. The Secretary would have his/her eye on the
big picture related to the above issues and perhaps greater attention to the
domestic aspects of all these issues than the lower levels of the DoE.
·
Deputy Secretary of Energy The Deputy Secretary
is an alter ego to the Secretary. The
Secretary and the deputy often negotiate a division of labor. The big picture aspects are the crucial ones
for the Deputy.
Department of the Treasury
The Treasury Department is in charge of economic issues for the US
government, everything from thinking about the future of the US economy to the
deficit to the budget to trade to the impact of world events on the global and
regional economy.
Secretary
of the Treasury:
The Secretary manages the department and is the chief economic advisor to the
President and typically is included in the NSC process to make sure the
economic impact of national security issues is considered when decisions are
made. This official will often be
focused on the impact of foreign events on the US economy.
·
Deputy Secretary of the Treasury: The Deputy
Secretary is an alter ego to the Secretary.
The Secretary and the deputy often negotiate a division of labor. The
big picture aspects are the crucial ones for the Deputy.
Department
of Justice This is the
department that deals with all the legal issues of the functioning of US
government and US government policies.
Congress may pass laws, but it is the department of Justice (along with
the White House Counsel’s Office) that interprets the meaning of the laws and
the methods of making law into policy into a legal manner. (Ultimately the US Supreme Court may rule on
the initial law and whether that law has been “faithfully executive” by the
executive branch.)
Attorney General the head of the Justice
department and typically asked to be a non-statutory member of the NSC. Their job is to consider the international
and domestic implications of US national security policy.
·
Deputy Attorney General The Deputy
Secretary is an alter ego to the Secretary.
The Secretary and the deputy often negotiate a division of labor. The
big picture aspects are the crucial ones for the Deputy.
Office
of the US Trade Representative (USTR)
The
USTR is an office that is part of the Executive Office of the President. While
the Treasury and Commerce Departments deal with numerous trade issues as part
of their departmental functions, the USTR is the president’s advisor on trade
and the key official who negotiates over trade issues with other nations
bilaterally and multilaterally.
·
US Trade Representative The USTR is one of the president’s chief
advisors on trade issues. The Treasury
and Commerce Departments are big sprawling bureaucracies with multiple
responsibilities and congressional oversight. Your office is smaller and more
directly under presidential control. The USTR was created essentially to give
the president some freedom from congressional micromanagement and oversight of trade
policy. You are often invited to NSC meetings to give a trade perspective on
key issues. Treasury and Commerce have multiple perspectives they have to deal
with, but you focus only on trade.
·
Assistant USTR
for China Affairs Your office
focuses on US trade with China,
Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and Mongolia.
That means the positive (how US-China trade is the biggest economic
relationship in the world) and the negative (what the disruption of that trade
might mean). Also, you are an expert in the trading relationships among the
nations you oversee (particularly China-Taiwan trade)
National Security Council Staff (NSC staff) The Obama administration
merged the NSC staff with the Homeland Security Council’s staff (the Office of
Homeland Security) and the new staff was dubbed the National Security Staff,
but it has since been renamed the National Security Council Staff. We’ll spend a lot of time talking about
this. The short version is that this
staff has evolved into the President’s personal foreign and national security
policy bureaucracy. It replicates all the
functions of the rest of the executive branch agencies that deal with national
security affairs, but it is smaller, faster, loyal to the President, and
appointed by the President, but no confirmed by the Senate (nor do staff
members have to appear before Congress).
The President can also organize anyway he wishes without any statutory
complications. It focuses on whatever
the President wants it to focus on.
Assistant
to the President for National Security Affairs (National Security Advisor): The
National Security Advisor manages the NSC Staff and has become and has become
the President’s most important national security advisor and alter ego for the
President on national security affairs.
His/her office is just down the hall from the President’s in the West
Wing of the White House. This official
generally runs the NSC process on behalf of the President, chairing the NSC/PC
and often even the NSC. The focus of
this official is the big picture,
everything from the day-to-day politics of every event and policy all the way
to the implications for the next fifty years.
·
Deputy Assistant to the President for National
Security Affairs
(Deputy National Security Advisor): This is the deputy to the National Security
Advisor and chair of the NSC/DC. The
Deputy is often next in line for National Security Advisor position. This official’s interests are the same as the
National Security Advisors. Often this
official takes on the management of the entire NSC process (from the NSC/DC
down to the NSC/PCCs and other working groups that may be formed).
o
Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director
for Strategic Planning: The NSC
Staff is divided up into small offices with Senior Directors for specific
issues. This is the senior director for global strategic issues, such as the
global and regional balances of power, US alliances, US global and regional
reputation, and long-term strategic issues.
o
Special
Assistant to the President and Senior Director for East Asia and Oceania: The NSC Staff is
divided up into small offices with Senior Directors for specific issues. This
official is the manager of the NSC Staff officials who work on East Asian
affairs.
o
Special
Assistant to the President and Senior Director for China: The NSC Staff is
divided up into small offices with Senior Directors for specific issues. This
official is the manager for the NSC Staff officials who work on China.
White House Staff:
·
White House Chief of Staff: The WH Chief of
Staff is the person who runs the WH on behalf of the president. Essentially, this official manages the
government and the decision-making process.
When the president makes a decision, it is this official’s job to see
that the government actually does what the president wants. This official
usually focuses on domestic policy and political strategy, leaving national
security issues to the National Security Advisor. In most case, however, this official sits in
on the NSC. The official’s main concern
here is the political aspect of national security: public opinion and Congress.
·
Director WH
Office of Legislative Affairs: The Director is concerned with how
events and the US response to those events will play with Congress. Will the president be supported or opposed.
This official will know if there is any legislation or pending legislation that
bears on the policies that president might contemplate. One way of tracking this is through Congressional Research Service reports,
which track issues and legislation for the members of Congress.
Intelligence
Community This is the name
for the 17 agencies/offices/bureaus that do the intelligence work of the US
government.
Director of National Intelligence
Since the 2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act the DNI has run
the intelligence community. This
official’s job is to put all the intelligence from the entire IC together into
an analysis that President and his advisors can use to make decisions. It’s important for this official to explain
to the President what the IC is sure about, what it isn’t sure about, and what
it simply does not know. This is the big
picture of events that are happening in the world. The President gets the President’s Daily
Brief (a morning briefing on what’s going on in the world from this official or
someone designated by this official).
·
Deputy Director of National Intelligence (use the
Director’s web page for info): Again, the Deputy will help manage the IC for
the Director.
·
Director of Central Intelligence CIA
used to do the job of gathering intelligence of its own and also putting
together all the intelligence of the IC.
However, the 2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorist Prevention Act
reduced CIA’s role by giving the big picture job to the DNI. However, CIA still has huge intelligence
assets and since 9/11 it has developed its own paramilitary forces for
counterterrorism, its own prison system, and its own drone fleet. The DCI is still a big picture-focused
intelligence position, with a lot of clout.
o
Director
of CIA China Mission Center: This official
directs the analysis of all the CIA-gathered information on China. There are teams of CIA intelligence analysis
for every part of the world. Their
information comes from open sources (books, magazines, newspapers) and from the
information gathered in the field by the clandestine services. This official is likely to have a PhD in some
area studies.
Interagency Groups
National Security Council
Principals Committee (NSC/PC)
1.
Chair:
National Security Advisor
2.
Secretary
of State
3.
Secretary
of Defense
4.
Secretary
of Energy
5.
Secretary
of Treasury
6.
Attorney
General
7.
Director
of National Intelligence
8.
Chair
Joint Chiefs of Staff
9.
US
Ambassador to the United Nations (State Dept.)
10.
CINC
INDOPACOM
11. White House Chief of Staff
National Security Council
Deputies Committee NSC/DC
1.
Chair:
Principal Deputy National Security Advisor
2.
Deputy
Secretary of State
3.
Deputy
Secretary of Defense
4.
Deputy
Secretary of Energy
5.
Deputy
Secretary of Treasury
6.
Deputy
Attorney General
7.
Deputy
Director of National Intelligence
8.
Vice
Chair JCS
9.
Director
of Central Intelligence
10. Director of WH Office of Legislative Affairs
11. Counselor of the State Department
National Security Council Policy
Coordinating Committees (NSC/PCCs)
China PCC
1. Chair, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for China
2. Assistant
Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs
3. Director of CIA China Mission Center
4. Assistant USTR for China Affairs
5. Principal Deputy Assistant
Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs
East Asia PCC
1. Chair, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for East
Asia and Oceania
2. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs
3. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs
4. Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs (IO)
Strategic Affairs PCC
1. Chair, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for
Strategic Planning
2. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs
3. Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security
4. Under Secretary of Defense for Policy
The
role-playing simulation will take place over the last two class periods. We are simulating the interagency
process. Each department /agency has
been assigned various tasks to study by the PRD. Each individual has researched and written
about his/her own part of the national security issue (your papers). During the role-playing simulation you’ll be
attempting to draft a Presidential Directive that will put all this information
and analysis together in a way that answers the questions asked by the PRD and
provides the President with a recommendation of policy options. For examples of actual Presidential
Directives follow this link.
We
probably won’t get very far with writing an actual PRD, maybe just some general
principles. That’s fine. The point of this is to simulate the complexity of
both the issue were dealing with and governmental decision making.
The
role-playing simulation will include two types of meetings:
1.
Department
or Agency Meetings: Everyone is a member of some department or agency. You will meet with this agency at the
beginning of the role-playing simulation to consider your departmental
perspective.
2.
Interagency
Meetings in the assigned committees (above).
There are three levels of committees as shown above. Each of the Policy Coordinating Committees
(NSC/PCCs) will have a specific task to address (see the PRD). The Deputies Committee (NSC/DC) has a
broader mandate, and the NSC/PC has the big picture.
The
schedule will look something like this (it may be modified depending on how the
role-playing simulation proceeds):
Session One
§ Department/Agency meetings
to prepare agency priorities and policy recommendations
§ Interagency
meetings: NSC/PC, NSC/DC, to work on ironing out interagency differences to
build consensus and policy recommendations for committees above them in
hierarchy
§ NSC/PC to decide
any directions it has for NSC/DC
Session Two
§ Agencies meet
again if necessary, at the beginning of class
§ NSC Meets to put
together draft. The NSC means everyone.
The
paper will include:
·
The
bibliography and end notes can be as long as you like. The bibliography and end notes do not count
as part of the 1-2 pages of the executive summary. You can have a 2-page paper that has five
pages of endnotes. One of the strategies for meeting the 2-page limit is to
write the paper, see that it is over two pages and then move the less important
information or some of the details to the endnotes.
·
None
of the assigned readings for the class count as a source. Use them, but they do not count as part of
the ten sources required.
·
Wikipedia
cannot be used as one of the ten sources.
It is an encyclopedia and encyclopedias were off limits as research
sources when you were in High School. In
other words: don’t use Wikipedia as a source. Do not use other web-based
encyclopedias either. Oh, and don’t use Wikipedia as a source. Or web-based
encyclopedias. Sorry for being so
wishy-washy on this.
·
The
paper should be turned in by hard copy at the beginning of class on the day it
is due or it is late.
·
If
you have questions, talk to me sooner rather than later.
Ask
me! If you have a question on where to
find sources or if you need a specific source and you can’t find it, ask
me. This is what I do for a living. I have everything! Some of what I have below
is repetitive. There’s a reason for that. I do it hopes that if you skim, you
will stop in a place that has important information. And I hope that if you see something twice,
you might say: “Hey, this is important.”
This link
takes you to a list of useful sources that might get you started. Feel free to use these for your paper, but
they do not count as part of the ten required sources.
Library: Big building, lots
of books. And people who will help you find information. The librarian who will help POLI and INTL
folks is Nia Rodgers, slrodgers@vcu.edu. She’s fantastic
and knows everything!
Peer Review Articles from
Scholarly Journals: These are the best sources. They are written by
scholars like myself and your other HSEP/POLI professors, then reviewed by
other professors before they are accepted for publication (a horrible process
similar to an intellectual colonoscopy).
But in spite of that, the result is an article that will be very helpful
to you. Most of the time they take a
broad look at the issues which is helpful to you because it gives you the pros
and cons for any issue the article examines. These articles also contain
bibliographies and citations which you can use to find other articles on the
subject.
How do you know what the scholarly articles are?
Use scholar.google.com.
That is a specific search engine that only gets scholarly work. It eliminates
websites and newspaper articles and magazines. Remember that the web is
very good for several things: information on what happened yesterday; instant
opinion on what happened yesterday; instant disinformation (propaganda and
outright lies about what happened yesterday); and databases on obscure things.
How else would I know that in 1943 Washington quarterback Sammy Baugh led the
NFL in touchdown passes, interceptions, and punting? On November 14, against
the Lions, he threw four touchdown passes and intercepted four passes. I
know this from ProFootballreference.com. That’s fun. That’s the Internet. But
scholarly research should start with scholar.google.com.
How do you find a good journal at the VCU Library? The VCU library web site is a good
place to start if you want to find specific journals. Let’s say you’re
interested in Asia or China. You might go to the VCU Library website. Near the
top of the page, you’ll see a link for “Academics.” That will take you to a
drop-down menu. Click on “Libraries.” Then you’ll see a search box. Don’t
search yet. Below that click on “journal finder” and you’ll get another search
box. Type in “Asia” or “China” or the “Middle East” or whatever. You’ll
get a list of the journals that have that keyword in the title.
How do you find a good article at the VCU Library? This aspect is similar to what I
described above, but a more specific search. You might go to the VCU Library
website. Near the top of the page, you’ll see a link for “Academics.” That will
take you to a drop-down menu. Click on Libraries. Then you’ll see a search box.
Don’t search yet. Below that click on “Advanced.” You’ll get a set of
search boxes where you can specify what you’re looking for. So, let’s say I’m
looking for information on India’s relationship with China or Taiwan. I can set
the search for a subject in one field and type in “India.” Then set the search
for a subject in another field and type in “China.” Then hit search. See
what you get. Then do it again with “India” and “Taiwan” as keywords. On the
left you’ll see “filter options.” You can filter it in many ways.
Searching for only peer-reviewed articles is one of the options.
Some places or ways to look for sources
1.
Many journals are
available through the VCU system and you can search through the VCU library,
but you may also try Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com/).
Use this instead of a regular search on any search engine. It will get you
scholarly work, think tanks reports and journals rather than the Wikipedia
entry.
2. Keywords: For any kind
of search keywords are important. You may have to do a few searches before you
find the right keywords that get you all the good sources. Always try a few
combinations to see what you get. If you were looking for books or
scholarly articles on Indian’s policy on Taiwan and China, you might use
several combinations of these:
a. “India”
b. “China”
c. “Taiwan”
3.
Citation Tracing: Don’t forget one
of the best ways to find good sources. Say you found a great article on exactly
the issue you’re researching. That
article will have footnotes, endnotes, parenthetical references, and a
bibliography. Find those articles and
books. Use them. They are almost guaranteed to be useful
because the author of the great article you just read must have found them
useful.
Journals/Websites/Blogs: There is a ton of stuff out there. Here is a list of sources you might use. Again, the keyword search on scholar.google.com is he way to start. But the list below will give you an idea of what are the best places to find information because even scholar.google.com won’t necessarily tell you what sources are the most useful.
The
Best Journals on East Asia
·
Asia Policy
·
Asian Survey
·
The China Quarterly
·
Contemporary Southeast Asia
·
International Relations of the Asia-Pacific
·
Issues and Studies (China and Taiwan)
·
Pacific Affairs
The best on Foreign Policy (that will have plenty
on Asia)
·
CSIS Asia Program (Center for
Strategic and International Studies)
· The Diplomat (Journal on Asian Politics and Foreign Policy – Outstanding)
·
Every
Congressional Research Service Report: Asia (US Government)
·
Foreign Affairs (the
journal of the Council on Foreign Relations; the preeminent policy journal on
US foreign affairs; policy-oriented)
·
Foreign Policy
(journal; policy-oriented)
·
International Security
(journal; MIT/Harvard one of the best on political-military issues)
·
RAND Corporation (US government-sponsored think
tank; the best of the best)
·
RAND
Corporation: Center for Asia Pacific Policy (CAPP)
·
RAND
Corporation, Tang
Institute for US-China Relations
·
Survival (journal of
the International Institute for Strategic Studies; the best British think tank)
·
The Washington
Quarterly (the best policy-oriented journal)
·
War on the Rocks (online; shorter academic
and policy articles; outstanding; mostly practitioners, occasionally academics)
Bigger Lists of Journals and Sources
A bigger list: The best are indicated with an asterisk
·
******Asian
Survey (Best in the world; start here)
·
ASEAN Economic Bulletin
·
Asian Affairs
·
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African
Studies
·
China: An International Journal
·
China Economic Journal
·
*The China Quarterly
·
The China Journal
·
*Chinese Journal of International Relations
(Chinese perspectives)
·
Contemporary Japan
·
*Contemporary Southeast Asia
·
The Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies
·
Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies
·
European Journal of East Asian Studies
·
The
Journal of Asian Studies
·
India Journal of Asian Affairs
·
India Review
·
Indian Journal of Political Science
·
Indonesia
·
*International Relations of the Asia-Pacific
·
*Issues and Studies (China and Taiwan)
·
Journal of Asian History
·
The Journal of Asian Studies
·
Journal of Chinese Political Science
·
Journal of Contemporary China
·
Journal of Current Chinese
Affairs
·
Journal of East Asian Studies
·
The
Journal of Korean Studies
·
Journal of the Oriental Society of Australia
·
Journal
of Southeast Asian Studies
·
*Japan
Review
·
Modern Asian Studies
·
Modern China
·
*Pacific Affairs
·
Political Economy Journal of India
·
Sino-Japanese Studies
·
Social Science Journal Japan
·
Southeast
Asian Affairs
·
Southeast Review of Asian Studies
·
Stanford Journal of East Asian Affairs
US
Foreign Policy
·
*Foreign Affairs
(policy-oriented)
·
*Foreign Policy
(policy-oriented)
·
Foreign Policy Analysis (academic)
·
The National Interest
(policy-oriented)
·
**The Washington Quarterly
(policy-oriented)
·
*Survival
(policy-oriented)
·
Journal of
Intelligence and Counterintelligence (policy-oriented)
·
The American Interest
(policy-oriented)
·
Orbis (half policy;
half academic)
·
Journal of Strategic
Studies (half academic; half policy)
·
**International
Security (academic)
·
Security Studies
(academic)
·
International Affairs
(London-based academic)
·
World Politics
(academic)
·
Journal of Conflict
Resolution (academic)
·
Armed Forces and
Society (academic on civil-military relations)
·
Journal of National
Security Law and Policy (legal)
·
National Security Law
Journal (legal)
·
Harvard Law School
National Security Journal (legal)
·
International
Organization (academic)
·
*Texas
National Security Review (policy)
·
*Arms
Control Today (arms proliferation and nuclear weapons)
·
Bulletin
of the Atomic Scientists (same as Arms Control Today)
·
Georgetown
Journal of International Affairs (academic)
·
Journal
of Democracy (academic, focused on human rights issues)
· Millennium (academic)
US
Government
·
**Every
Congressional Research Service Report: Asia
·
US Department of Defense, 2022 Report on Military and Security
Developments Involving the People's Republic of China
·
US Military Services Journals (academic;
all excellent)
§ Parameters (journal of the US Army Strategic Studies
Institute)
§ Military Review (US Army Combined Arms Center)
§ Joint Force Quarterly (journal of the Chairman of the JCS)
§ Strategic Studies Quarterly (journal of the US Air Force
Air University)
§ The Naval War College Review (journal of the US Naval War College)
The Best Academic/Policy Blogs
·
Taiwan-US
Quarterly Analysis (Brookings
Institution)
·
Lawfare
·
**War on the Rocks (Excellent on China-Taiwan issues)
·
Harvard
Law School National Security Journal
·
Institute
for the Study of War
·
Journal of
National Security Law and Policy
·
Texas National
Security Review
Web
Resources on China (Think Tanks and Foundations)
·
Asia Society, Policy Institute, Center
for China Analysis (multinational non-profit think tank)
·
Asia Times (news on Asia)
·
Brookings
Institution Center
for East Asia Policy Studies (US-Based think tank)
·
Brookings Institution: John L.
Thornton China Center
Brookings-Tsinghua Center
·
Brookings
Institution: where
to look for information on China
·
Center for Advanced China Research (think tank, produces analysis on Chinese
politics)
·
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: China Program
·
Council
on Foreign Relations: China
·
Center for Strategic and
International Studies (CSIS) China
Program
·
Center for Strategic and International Studies: Freeman
Chair in China Studies
·
CSIS, Asia
Maritime Transparency Initiative
· **The Diplomat (Journal on Asian Politics and Foreign Policy – Outstanding)
·
East Asia Forum (Australian National University
research center)
·
**Every
Congressional Research Service Report: Asia
·
Indiana
University Links to Southeast
Asian government web sites
·
National Bureau of Asian Research (US-based
think tank)
·
Peterson Institute for International
Economics: China
·
RAND
Corporation: Center for Asia Pacific Policy (CAPP)
·
RAND
Corporation, Tang
Institute for US-China Relations
·
Stanford Center on China’s Economy and
Institutions
·
Stanford University, Walter H.
Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
· Stanford University, Shorenstein Center China Program
·
US-China Policy Foundation links
General
List of Think Tanks:
The
best are:
Excellent Ones are
·
International Crisis Group: https://www.crisisgroup.org:
This is the best thing that exists on current international crises.
·
American Enterprise Institute (AEI): leans conservative, but is not too
ideological
·
Arms Control Association (ACA): Non-profit organization that watches
over world military trends; it has a decidedly pro-arms control attitude
·
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs (BSCIA):
The Kennedy School of Government (Harvard University) does some of the best
analyses of international affairs and national security and publishes the best
journal on international affairs, International Security, which can
be accessed online through the VCU online journal systems.
·
Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs:
Focuses on Human Rights issues.
·
Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace: One of the biggest and best.
It is a non-profit organization, which studies international affairs and has a
huge number of programs. It sponsors scholarly research on
everything from non-proliferation to building civil society. See the
list of "Programs" on the home page.
·
Carter
Center: Former President Carter established this Center to
examine international issues, host conferences, and mediate international
conflicts.
·
Cato
Institute: Right of center think tank that conducts research on
foreign policy, national security, and economic policy, as well as domestic
political issues.
·
Center for American Progress (think
tank with links to the Democratic Party)
·
Center
for National Policy (non-partisan center which does some
national security work)
·
Center for Non-proliferation Studies (CNS) at
the Monterrey Institute of International Studies, which is one of the best
sources on information on the spread of weapons of mass destruction
·
Center for Strategic and International Affairs (CSIS):
attached to Georgetown University. It produces reports on national security,
and is filled with ex-government officials
·
Coalition
to Reduce Nuclear Danger: A center-left organization that
focuses on US and international nuclear weapons policy.
·
Columbia International Affairs Online (CIAO):
Columbia University’s compilation of papers, journals, web sites, and other
resources on international affairs. It’s not a think tank itself, but
collects information from think tanks, government, and other academic circles
on international affairs and national security. You may need to use your VCU
password and login to get into this system. It has a specific link to Working
Papers from various think tanks and scholarly institutes.
·
Council
for a Livable World: Center-left in its ideology and focuses on
ways to reduce the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and reign in US
defense expenditures and deployments.
·
Federation of American Scientists (FAS): Non-profit organization that watches
over world military trends.
·
Global Security.Org (excellent
resources for international diplomatic, military, and political issues)
·
Heritage
Foundation: Right of center think tank that conducts research on
foreign policy, national security, and economic policy, as well as domestic
political issues.
·
Hudson
Institute: Center-right think tank that conducts research on
foreign policy, national security, and economic policy, as well as domestic
political issues.
·
Institute for Defense Analysis (IDA): Non-profit think tank that does a lot
of work for the US government on national security issues. Much of its research
is available online.
·
Institute for Defense Studies and Analysis (IDSA):
A think tank that looks at many international security issues, particularly
east and South Asia. It is an Indian institute based in New Delhi.
·
International
Republican Institute (Republican Party-affiliated organization
that analyzes world affairs and supports programs that help nations make the
transition to democracy)
·
Institute for
Security Studies: (Based in several nations in Africa – Ethiopia, Kenya,
Senegal, and South Africa)
·
National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (Democratic
Party-affiliated organization that analyzes world affairs and supports programs
that help nations make the transition to democracy)
·
National
Endowment for Democracy: A private, non-profit
organization that is funded by the US Congress. Its goal is to foster
democracy around the world through programs and research
·
National
Security Archive: This is a non-profit organization that gets
the US government to declassify documents relating to US foreign affairs
(through Freedom of Information Act requests) then makes those documents
available to the public. Some are available on line. All are available at the
Archive itself (In George Washington University’s library. You can contact the
Archive and make an appointment to go there.) Some are also available to
purchase in sets.
·
Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC):
Non-profit organization that watches over world military trends
·
New
America Foundation (centrist think tank that looks at
domestic and international issues)
·
Nixon Center: Non-Profit organization that
studies foreign and national security policy, leans toward republican ideas
·
Nuclear
Threat Initiative (non-profit, non-partisan group that
analyzes and lobbies on nuclear proliferation issues)
·
Project for a New American Century: New
think tank that espouses and develops neoconservative views.
·
Project on Defense Alternatives (center-left)
·
Henry
L. Stimson Center: Non-profit organization that watches over
world political and military trends, in particular United Nations peace
operations
·
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI):
Non-profit organization that watches over world military trends
·
Western States Legal Foundation: A pro-arms control
group watching over US defense expenditures and deployments and their impact on
the public among other things.
·
Woodrow
Wilson International Center for Scholars: Supports scholarly
research on a number of international topics. In particular, its Cold War International History Project provides
support for scholars using declassified documents to understand what was really
going on in Washington and Moscow during the Cold War.
·
Union of Concerned Scientists: Center-left
in its ideology and focuses on ways to reduce the proliferation of weapons of
mass destruction and reign in US defense expenditures and deployments.
·
United States Institute for Peace (USIP); Funded by the US Congress, it is a
non-partisan organization that sponsors and published research concerning
conflict prevention and conflict resolution
A Note on Good Sources and Bad Sources
The Internet: You cannot do this type of research only from
websites. Do not expect to be able to sit in front of your computer
without using scholar.google or the VCU library system and find all the
information you need. Remember that the primacy purpose of the Internet
is advertising (even what passes for information is often really advertising
its information). The web tells you that everything you need is on the web.
That is not true. It is especially not true when it comes to
scholarship.
A Warning about the Web: I don't
think I need to tell you much about the web. In college I wrote papers on a
manual typewriter and I took my SATs on stone tablets. But if you do have any
questions about it let me know. An important note about Internet sites: what is
crucial about any webpage is that you and I know what the source of the
information is. All information on the web is not equal. Before you trust any
information on the web you must know who runs the websites. Who is the source
of the information? Nazi Parties from various countries have many websites.
Their information is probably not a source you want to use for research on
Israeli foreign policy, for example. If I’m researching Russian foreign
policy, I need to know if the source is from the Russian government or a
scholarly source. Their views might be very different. There is a ton of
propaganda on the web. Many governments in the world are not Democratic. They
don’t have freedom of the press, but they do have a huge presence on the
Internet where they disseminate propaganda that tries to influence the world’s
judgment of their actions. China, Russia, or North Korea are good
examples of nations that use propaganda on the internet as part of their
“influence operations” that try to make their governments look warm and fuzzy
while they imprison government critics.
Even in Democracies you need to be careful of the
sources. The Republican Party and the Democratic Party both have their own web
presence that is designed to make them look good, and make their political
opponents look bad. Media often has a perspective as well (left, right,
center, celebrity, sensationalist, scandal…whatever). In short, always be
mindful of where the information comes from. The web is a smorgasbord of
conspiracy theories. That’s one of the most difficult aspects of our
information environment. There are so many sources of information and
many of them are just garbage. Remember that on the web you can find a lot of
information on these topics, NONE OF THE FOLLOWING ARE TRUE!!!!!
·
How President George W. Bush launched the September 11 attacks so
he could repeal the 2nd Amendment
·
How George W. Bush invaded Iraq in 2003 to steal all Iraq’s oil
and prevent Saddam Hussein from disclosing that the Bush family had been
controlling global oil prices for decades in league with the Saudi Arabian
royal family
·
How Barack Obama was born in Kenya and sneaked into the US at an
early age so he could become President; he was doing this under the orders of
al-Qaeda
·
How the Affordable Care Act (that created near universal health
care in the US) had a section allowing a small government committee to decide
who would live or die when they reached old age (the “death panels”)
·
Again: NONE OF THESE ARE TRUE, but there are sadly way too many
people who believe this stuff because it is on the Internet.
·
Oh, and there was an Italian website about fifteen years ago that
linked me to the Kennedy assassination. I am not kidding. I had just turned two
when Kennedy was killed. If I was involved in the plot, I don’t remember.
How do you tell what is good and what is bad?
That’s difficult, but here are some keys to it:
·
Beware of “news” sites where all the articles are designed to
frighten you about the dangers of this or that
·
Especially be wary of “news” sites which try to frighten you and
tell you the sky is falling, then move to a commercial break and try to sell you
something that will save your life when the sky does fall. These are
essentially infomercials masquerading as news.
·
Beware of “news” sites where everything comes from one extreme
perspective -- all the problems of the world are caused by a specific politician,
or a specific political party, and there is never any middle ground or
alternative perspective. Many legitimate news sites are accused of that by
their competitors; if you actually read those news sites, you find that
the accusation is false.
·
News organizations get things wrong from time to time. That
doesn’t mean bias. That means that journalists are human. The difference
between real news and “fake” news is simple. Fake news is propaganda designed
to push a political agenda by making you believe something that is false.
Real news is an attempt to get to the truth. Sometimes that doesn’t
always happen. Journalists can use a bad source or forget what they learned in
journalism school because they are so excited to get a scoop. Journalists can
make honest mistakes, and there are bad journalists who may make bad mistakes.
The difference is this: when a good newspaper or website gets it wrong, they
fix the mistake and they often fire or demote the reporter. They also
have multiple reporters working on any sensitive story because they want to
make sure they have a lot of eyes on the subject. Bad newspapers or
websites tell a story, and when someone proves that it is wrong, they don’t
care. They continue to push the story because they aren’t interested in getting
it right; they are interested in selling the story to achieve a political
goal. That’s not news; it is propaganda.
Remember
there is a ton of disinformation and misinformation from conspiracy theory
folks and foreign governments trying to influence US politics, and sadly by
politicians and activists in the US who are working hard to spread
propaganda. If you’re not sure ask me or
go to a fact checking site:
·
Fact
Check.Org From the Annenberg
Center at the University of Pennsylvania
·
PolitiFact.com From several newspapers
·
The Fact Checker From
the Washington Post
·
Snopes.com (fact checking and debunking urban legends and
internet hoaxes that are often about politics)
Read this. Pay attention to it
or face everlasting doom! Failure to pay attention to this will likely result
in a grade of D.
The following is not just because I want to annoy you or
because I like to have things done my way.
The following is because this is a class where you will do social
science research and the rules of social science research are different from
the rules of English composition or journalism.
Learning how to write for different audiences and in different styles is
part of the university experience.
You must use an established format for citations and your
bibliography. You need to learn how to
reference information properly, and how to write a bibliography with the
correct and complete information before you leave VCU. This is easy to do, but
more important than you think. Whether you go into academia or business you will
be judged on the quality of your information, and that means people will want
to know where you found your information. They will judge you at first, before
they read your text, on your bibliography and citations. If you do it wrong
while at VCU, you’ll get a deduction from your grade. If you do this in graduate school or
government or the business world, you will be asked to go home and not come
back (as in “you’re fired”).
The format for the assignment is an executive summary, only
endnotes are allowed (see the requirements above). Here are resources that will teach you to do
this:
·
When
in doubt, use this: Chicago Style Citation Format (not Chicago Style Pizza; no deep-dish citations)
·
Or
you can use one of the assigned books in the class as a template for citation
style.
·
Or
use these online resources:
o
Easy
Bib
o
MLA Style (Remember that for this assignment
you need page numbers even f MLA says you don’t).
o
Bibme
o
Purdue OWL (Online Writing Workshop)
·
Or use scholar.google.com: Let’s say you
found an article on this page (or even if you didn’t you can look it up on
scholar.google.com anyway by typing in author and title). Once you get the
article in the list of sources, you’ll see underneath the source a large
quotation mark. Click that and you’ll get a list of different versions of the
correct citation for the source. You can cut and paste. This doesn’t work for
books; the citations they have for books are not quite correct.
The Evils of In-Text Citations
In the social sciences, particularly Political
Science, do not use in-text citations. That may be good for English or journalism,
but not for scholarly social science. What I mean is the following. Let’s
say you used a book by Gabriel Weimann called Terror on the
Internet for your research and you want to cite some information from
it.
·
Never write a sentence like this: Gabriel Weimann,
a Professor of Communications at Haifa University, states in his book Terror
on the Internet that the internet enhances terrorist power to organize
and recruit.
·
Also avoid writing a sentence like this: According
to Weimann, terrorists use the Internet to recruit.
·
Instead write a sentence like this: The
Internet enhances terrorist power to organize and recruit (add endnote
for Weimann there). The citations are there so you don’t have
to include the author’s info in the text. That just takes up space,
clutters up your writing, and is not scholarly.
Since I
have instructed you to pay attention to notation and bibliographic style, and
have provided you with a specific place to look for the proper styles, I will take points off of your paper if you
do not do this in the correct manner. This is simple. If you do not do
it correctly it means one or both of the following: 1) you are not taking the
assignment seriously; and/or 2) you are doing the paper at the last minute.
Both of these are good reasons why you will not get the grade you are able to
earn.
Bibliography:
The bibliography is all the sources you’ve used. List anything you found
useful even if only confirmed information you found other places, even if you
have not cited the source in the paper; you don’t realize how much you learned
from sources even if you don’t reference specific information from them. The bibliography is listed in alphabetical
order by the author’s last name. There may be no author or you may bet info
from a website. See the above resources for the rules on that.
What do I need to cite? That’s a question
students ask all the time. This section describes why and when you cite
information. In doing research there are three basic types of things you must
cite: quotes, specific information, and other people’s ideas.
·
Quotes: This is a tiny paper. Do not quote. Some people
think that you only need to cite quotes. You would need to cite them if
this was a larger paper where quotes might be appropriate, but you absolutely
need to cite much more than quotes in social science.
·
Specific Information: When
I say specific information, what I refer to is any information
which is not general knowledge. For example, you would not need to
use a citation if you state that Henry Kissinger was Richard Nixon’s National
Security Adviser in Nixon’s first term (general knowledge). But you would
have to cite the fact that Kissinger met with Chinese Premier
Zhou Enlai on July 9, 1971 and any details of the meeting.
·
Other People’s Ideas: If
you’re doing research and you’re thinking about the issue you’re researching,
any idea that is not yours absolutely must be cited. Take the issue of Indian
nuclear strategy mentioned above. If one author says that Indian nuclear
doctrine has changed drastically since India’s decision to build a full-fledged
arsenal in 1998, that idea has to be cited.
If you are referring to specific information that you found on a specific page in a source (if the source has page numbers, unlike some web sources), you must include the page number where you found the information. Let’s say you found information in a book that is 450 pages long. Citing the book and not the page number is not very helpful for anyone who thought that the information was interesting and wanted to learn more about it. You’re forcing that person to scan through 450 pages of text to find the info. Instead, cite the page number and then the reader can just turn to that page number. This is the established method of citation. This is true even for parenthetical references. If you are citing the main point of an article or book or something as background information, you don’t need the page number, but if it is specific material, it does need a page number.
This paper only uses endnotes (but these rules are the same for footnotes if you use them for other classes). In the social sciences, endnotes are numbered consecutively. The first note is number 1; the second is number 2, etc. Microsoft Word will do this for you. You can use a source more than once in your paper. There are specific citation formats for the first citation and for the second citation. You can also put more than one source in a specific note. See my article for examples for all of this: Endnotes/Footnotes. A short reference follows:
·
Footnotes
and endnotes are numbered consecutively (1, 2, 3, 4…) (Unless you use the natural
sciences-style that merges the bibliography and citations as explained above)
This is the key to writing a good paper so I am providing
detailed instruction on this. Political Science has a specific style of
writing, especially when it comes to introductory paragraphs. It mirrors the style of government
memoranda. In short, the introductory
paragraph should summarize the paper and that includes giving the reader a summary
of your conclusions. If you don’t do
this, even a great paper, becomes a grade of B.
A good introductory paragraph should include the following:
·
your
topic; or the question you are answering if you set up the issue that way
·
how
you will answer the question
·
what
are the basic answers to the questions regarding your issue -- your conclusions
In other words, the introduction should provide your reader
with a "road map" that explains exactly what you will say during the
paper. This is not as difficult as it sounds. Basically, what you need to do is
write the outline you have for your paper in sentences in the first few
paragraphs of the paper. Your opening paragraph (or couple of opening
paragraphs) should also give the reader some reason to be interested in your
topic and in your argument. Tell the reader why this subject is important. Here
is an example of an opening paragraph: (I’ll use a topic that won’t overlap
with anyone’s potential topic.) This
paragraph is based on a paper that I wrote for a conference in 2022. I’ve added parentheses to indicate what
purpose that sentence serves. These are just for illustration purposes; you
should not do that in your paper.
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