NSLC Program—International Diplomacy

International Diplomacy (1 or 3 credits)

Course Description: Diplomacy persists as a prominent feature of international relations in spite of this era of tremendous change. It has been alternatively reviled as facilitating war and misperception and praised as the only useful process for peace. We will explore how scholars and practitioners have viewed diplomacy, offering arguments about its function, limits, and response to change. Special attention will be paid to developments after the end of the Cold War: the increasing breadth of diplomatic issues and intensity of bilateral and multilateral interaction.

Professor: Michael Stanaitis is a PhD candidate in international relations at the School of International Service at American University. His research focuses on the significance of hegemony and determinants of openness in the global political economy. Michael has taught international affairs at the high school level for the past two years as a faculty member at Emerson Preparatory School, where he currently serves as social studies department chair and faculty advisor to Emerson’s Model United Nations team. His teaching specialties include world politics, comparative politics, economics, international human rights, and political geography. Michael received his BA from Miami University of Ohio, where he studied diplomacy and foreign affairs and philosophy as a Benjamin Harrison Scholar. He received his MA from the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky where he specialized in international development and wrote a thesis on the political economy of development NGOs. In his spare time, Michael enjoys hiking, biking, cooking, and photography. He is an unabashed admirer of the Chesapeake Bay and retreats at least annually to the Eastern Shore with his wife Nikki, a social worker in Silver Spring.

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