International Affairs Minor

About

A minor in international affairs is a great asset for anyone seeking to understand their discipline from a global perspective. In the minor, you’ll learn valuable skills that can be used in many career fields, becoming a more well-informed global citizen.

Students in the international affairs minor study global public policy, learn the basics of international politics and are introduced to major geopolitical issues.

With this minor, you’ll learn how to:

  • Analyze global public policy
  • Conduct your own international policy research
  • Explain how socio-economics and political diversity play a role around the world

Curriculum & Requirements

 

What You'll Learn

The following information comes from the official EWU catalog, which outlines all degree requirements and serves as the guide to earning a degree. Courses are designed to provide a well-rounded and versatile degree, covering a wide range of subject areas.

International Affairs Minor

Core–no substitutions for core courses
Required Disciplinary Foundation Courses
POLI 203INTRODUCTION TO COMPARATIVE POLITICS5
POLI 204INTRODUCTION TO INTERNATIONAL POLITICS5
Required Disciplinary Core Courses (Depending on your interest, take two courses from this category)10
INTERNATIONAL SYSTEMS
INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY
U.S. FOREIGN POLICY
Required Area Studies in Security and Economic Policies, Practices, and Norms (Depending on your regional interest, take one course from this category)5
EUROPEAN POLITICS
POLITICS OF DEVELOPMENT AND SUSTAINABILITY
POLITICS OF THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA
POLITICS OF SOUTH ASIA
GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS
POLITICS OF THE MIDDLE EAST
Total Credits25

Sample Courses

POLI 203. INTRODUCTION TO COMPARATIVE POLITICS. 5 Credits.

Satisfies: a university graduation requirement–global studies.
This course provides an introduction to concepts such as state, power, ideology, and to political phenomena, emphasizing similarities and differences in selected political systems.

Catalog Listing

POLI 321. INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS. 5 Credits.

Pre-requisites: POLI 203 or POLI 204 or permission of instructor.
Satisfies: a university graduation requirement–global studies.
The course engages students in a study of the history, structures and processes of international organizations within the world community. Focusing primarily on the United Nations system and its role in shaping global, national, group and state-society relations, the course also addresses other organizations such as the European Union and the World Trade Organization, as well as non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

Catalog Listing

POLI 327. POLITICS OF DEVELOPMENT AND SUSTAINABILITY. 5 Credits.

Pre-requisites: POLI 203 or POLI 204.
This course explores major theories and practices of unsustainable economic growth models, which have created various forms of ecological, political, social, economic, and security crises. These crises have affected both the rich and poor nations, though in different ways. They have also produced a series of destabilizing resource, knowledge, technology, and capital gaps between and within the global north and south. This course examines these ecological crises and the varied responses to them.

Catalog Listing

POLI 425. POLITICS OF THE MIDDLE EAST. 5 Credits.

Pre-requisites: POLI 203 or POLI 204.
The course examines the trends and transformation of the Middle East as a region full of unfulfilled national aspirations for independence, democracy, economic development, social justice, and human dignity. To these ends, the course beings with a history of the modern Middle East by briefly tracing the rise, the weakening, and the fall of the Ottoman and Persian Empires, which led to rise of modern states like Turkey, Iran, Egypt, Iraq, Syria, and the Persian Gulf states.

Catalog Listing