International Politics

Think Theoretically

Kamil Zwolski, PhD

In this course, you will learn how to understand and explain international politics at a much deeper and more rewarding level than most people do.

You will also learn how to win arguments about international politics issues when you speak to other people.

"In order to achieve these objectives, you need to learn how to think and speak theoretically."

It may sound difficult, but actually, it is not. You just need someone with expert knowledge to explain it clearly using lots of real-life examples.

And that’s what this course is about.

If you read this, I assume you have at least some interest in what’s going on in world politics.

Whether you study for a degree at a university, or you are just generally interested in politics at the international level, there are very good reasons to follow the world news.

Brexit, Donald Trump, Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, wars, conflicts, cooperation, agreements, disagreements.

There is always so much happening. I assume you have at least some interest in some of those issues.

I also assume that you hope to learn something valuable about international politics.

You hope to educate yourself in order to take your understanding of international politics to the next level so that your interest or your passion can be more fulfilling and more rewarding.

If that’s the case, this course is for you.

"You are going to learn how to understand and explain international politics with more insight and more expertise. You are also going to learn how to build more convincing arguments when speaking about international politics with others."

Why I Created This Course

If you are still unconvinced about the importance of thinking theoretically about international politics, I am going to suggest that, actually, most of us already think and speak theoretically.

The only problem is we don’t know we do it. We do it unconsciously.

We say things like:

This political leader is irrational.
We say that something is in the national interest, or not in the national interest of our state.
We say that organisations such as the European Union or United Nations are ineffective.

All these statements contain theoretical concepts. If you don’t know that, you are going to be disadvantaged in any discussion with someone who does know that.

I have created this course to help you recognise whenever yourself or someone else uses theory so that you can use that theory to support your own argument.

I have also created this course because we are overwhelmed with facts about international politics, and it is the purpose of theory to make sense of those facts.

We live in the times when we are really overwhelmed with facts. Our problem is not seeking and finding information about what’s happening in the world.

Our actual problem is scrutinising and managing the information we receive.

We actually live in times where information is being pushed at us from all sides, and we must sometimes actively resist new information.

Now, don’t get me wrong: we need to know the facts about problems to begin thinking theoretically about them.

What You Will Get in This Course

In this course, you are going to learn the exact formula to think and speak theoretically about international politics.

Yes, there is a simple formula to follow. I will explain it in detail and I will also show you lots of examples of how to use it to make your own arguments.

I will use some every-day examples to make the formula more understandable, and then I will properly apply it to a number of international security problems, so you get the full picture.

Inside you will learn:

How to understand and explain international politics at a much deeper and more rewarding level than simply by consuming the news headlines as they arrive on your smartphone
The exact formula for developing powerful arguments about most problems of international politics
One question which you should always ask about any problem of international politics in order to begin thinking theoretically
Why thinking theoretically is 100 times more interesting and exciting than just knowing facts about international politics
The exact 3 steps to take any problem of international politics and explain it at a more fundamental, theoretical level
How to build your argument with the help of the most important and powerful theoretical concepts of international politics, including anarchy, balance of power, security dilemma, international norms and international integration.
How most people misunderstand the complexity of international politics
How we all use theory when we speak about problems of world politics, but we just don’t realize it - and why it's a problem
How we can educate others to be more critical, more insightful and simply more accurate in how they perceive international politics
Why using 'common sense' to understand international politics can be deceptive and is inferior to applying theoretical thinking
Why it's untrue to assume that facts is all you need to understand what’s happening in world politics
Why exactly facts don't speak for themselves
How to apply powerful theories of international relations to understand problems such as the North Korean nuclear crisis and the financial crisis of 2007/2008
What the ladder of abstraction is and why you should aim to climb as high as possible on that ladder

From a student: "This course is well-suited to anyone who wants to be able to speak about international politics with greater clarity and authority, or otherwise have a sturdy foundation and a solid starting point for diving deeper into the subject. As a prospective Political Science PhD student, I was already fairly familiar with most of the concepts introduced throughout the course, however, the course added to my familiarity with those concepts and provided me with a much more robust framework in which to organize my existing knowledge and marshal better arguments about the topics covered in it, such as the security dilemma. Moreover, I also gained new, valuable knowledge that will serve me well in my academic life. Learning about the ladder of abstraction, for instance, furnished me with a new tool with which to conceptualize and think about political problems on the world stage more effectively than before. No matter your background and your prior knowledge of world politics, you are bound to learn something new, build upon your knowledge and benefit from taking this course. For those reasons, I highly recommend this course and give it a well-deserved 5-star rating. "

My Promise to You

I promise that the tuition in this course is of the highest quality, based on genuine university-level teaching and research. It is presented in a highly-accessible and engaging way, designed specifically for those who do not have prior university degree in Politics or International Relations.

I invite you to send me a message if you have any questions about the content of this course.

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What's inside

Learning objectives

Speak about most problems of international politics with confidence and more profound understanding even if you have never studied politics or ir.
Use the exact formula for developing powerful arguments about most problems of international politics.
Know which question to always ask about any problem of international politics in order to begin thinking theoretically.
Understand and explain international politics at a much deeper and more rewarding level than by consuming the news headlines as they arrive on your smartphone.

Educate others about how to properly understand and analyse issues like the north korean nuclear crisis, financial crisis or russian foreign policy.
Use the exact 3 steps to take any problem of international politics and explain it at a more fundamental, theoretical level.
Build arguments with the help of the most important and powerful theoretical concepts of international politics including anarchy, balance of power and more.

Speak about most problems of international politics with confidence and more profound understanding even if you have never studied politics or ir.
Use the exact formula for developing powerful arguments about most problems of international politics.
Know which question to always ask about any problem of international politics in order to begin thinking theoretically.
Understand and explain international politics at a much deeper and more rewarding level than by consuming the news headlines as they arrive on your smartphone.
Educate others about how to properly understand and analyse issues like the north korean nuclear crisis, financial crisis or russian foreign policy.
Use the exact 3 steps to take any problem of international politics and explain it at a more fundamental, theoretical level.
Build arguments with the help of the most important and powerful theoretical concepts of international politics including anarchy, balance of power and more.

Syllabus

Introduction

In this video, you will learn why I’ve created this valuable course, what exactly you will learn by completing it, and I will also tell you a little bit about myself.

In this video, you will learn how this course is structured and how you can get the most out of it.

Students will understand the importance of thinking theoretically about the problems of international politics. They will know why just knowing the facts is limiting and unfulfilling.

In this video, we are going to discuss why it is actually important to think theoretically when you talk about international politics. We are going to discuss the benefits of thinking in more abstract terms, instead of simply consuming the news headlines as they arrive on your smartphone.

In this video, we are going to discuss the value of thinking theoretically as opposed to the so-called common sense. Cambridge dictionary defines common sense as ‘the basic level of practical knowledge and judgment that we all need to help us live in a reasonable and safe way’. I would like to note two particular characteristics of the common sense here. First, it entails a basic level of reasoning. And second, it is about practical knowledge. Practical here means confined to our own experience of living everyday life, watching television and surfing the Internet. In that sense, we all have some common sense knowledge of international politics. The precise nature of this knowledge will differ according to our values and what we perceive to be good and desirable.

In this video, we are going to discuss the problem with the so-called facts about what’s happening in the world. When you watch the news, or you read articles on the Internet, you are mostly learning about the facts. What are the facts? The facts are descriptions, or narratives about what happened, when it happened, where it happened and who was involved.

In this video, we are going to examine this common-sense claim that facts speak for themselves. We have already discussed the problem with the facts, but I think it is important that we address this issue in a separate video, because of how widely-spread this view is.

This is a quiz for Why You Must Begin Thinking Theoretically

Students will be able to speak confidently and win arguments by constructing their own advanced theoretical arguments about international politics.

In this video, I am going to show you how you can begin to think theoretically about any problem of international politics. And it all revolves around one question. Once you learn this question and what it means, I then want you to ask this question about every problem of international politics. The moment you ask this question, you will immediately enter another level of thinking. You will switch to a more analytical mindset, a kind of thinking that most people don’t engage in when they think and speak about problems of international politics.

In this video, we are going to apply the question we learned in the previous lesson to the crisis surrounding the North Korean nuclear program. So we are going to look at the actual problem of international politics in order to theorize this problem to get some more profound and interesting insights.

In this video, we are going to apply our master question to the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008. This is to show you that you can not only theorize international security problems, but also other types of issues. The financial crisis was obviously an international economic problem, but it also had a strong political dimension, and it is certainly relevant to the study of international politics and international relations.

In this video, we are going to discuss why you should always seek the highest level of abstraction when you theorize problems of international politics.

This is a quiz for How To Think Theoretically.

Students will be able to construct winning theoretical arguments with the help of the most important and powerful theoretical concepts of international politics.

In this video, I am going to explain how you can begin constructing your own winning theoretical arguments. You can do this by linking what we have discussed so far in this course, with the theoretical models and paradigms discussed in this section. When you do this, you will have all the ingredients to generate some really insightful and exciting theoretical arguments.

In this video, we are going to discuss one of the oldest and most important theoretical concepts in international relations – the concept of anarchy. Anarchy in the study of international relations is not exactly what you think it may be – it does not necessarily mean chaos or disorder. Sure, those conditions are always present in international politics, but this is not what anarchy is really about. So in this video, we are going to see what anarchy means specifically in international politics, and how you can adopt this concept in your theoretical arguments.

In this video, we are going to discuss one of the most popular theoretical concepts in international relations, the notion of the balance of power. You cannot have a solid understanding of international politics without understanding what balance of power is, what the different kinds of the balance of power are, and what the balance of power is supposed to achieve in international politics.

In this video, we are going to discuss the theoretical concept called security dilemma. We already mentioned this concept when speaking about the North Korean nuclear crisis. We said that the crisis could be considered an instance of the security dilemma which the North Korea, but also the United States, experience. So let’s have a closer look at what the concept means.

In this video, we are going to discuss the theoretical concept called international integration. You will notice that we are going to change the tone in this video a bit. In the previous three examples, those of anarchy, balance of power and security dilemma, the view of international politics was rather pessimistic. It appeared that international politics is filled with tension, mistrust and conflict. And indeed, this may often be the case. But there is also a lot of positive things happening in international politics, such as states working together in many different areas.

In this video, we are going to discuss a theoretical concept which has become widely popular in the last few decades – the concept of international norms. If you are unsure what international norms are, think about every time a political leader speaks about human rights or democratic standards. What exactly are human rights and democratic standards? They are examples of certain norms, which have become generally accepted by most countries as positive.

In this video, I am going to bring all the knowledge and skills you’ve learned together. You now have all the information necessary to understand and explain international politics at a much deeper and more rewarding level than most people, and also to win arguments about international politics with the help of theory.

This is a quiz for Construct Winning Theoretical Arguments

Think and speak about COVID-19 global pandemic in theoretical terms as well as integrate the discussion of COVID-19 to their essays and dissertations.

This video helps you find interesting International Politics dimensions of this crisis. We talk about health security, securitisation, militarisation, human security, globalisation, sovereignty, geopolitics, China, USA, and more. I also explain how you can include the discussion of COVID-19 in your essays and dissertations, if this is relevant to you.

Bonus Lecture

Good to know

Know what's good

, what to watch for

, and possible dealbreakers

Taught by Kamil Zwolski, PhD, who is recognized for their work in international politics

Develops higher-order thinking skills and critical evaluation skills which are core skills for professionals

Teaches foundational and intermediate level concepts of international politics

Provides techniques for building winning arguments

Exploits theoretical frameworks in international politics that are highly relevant to current events

Requires learners to come in with some background knowledge

Requires learners to engage with course content on a regular basis throughout the course

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Activities

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