POL 130: INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
FINAL EXAM
Your final exam is cumulative. The set-up will be much like the midterm –
but longer. There will likely be two
long essay questions, approximately ten identification questions, and a handful
of short answer questions. You will have
some degree of choice on the essay questions.
As with the midterm please keep in mind:
I. GENERAL RULES OF THUMB
A. Time
Essay tests such as this one put a high premium
on time. You have to be more than just familiar with the material. You will need to thoroughly understand it. Of
course, you will not have enough time to commit everything you know about a topic
to paper. Concentrate on the most important
aspects (with some specific examples that illustrate your point) and how they
relate to each other. Doing all of this
successfully requires that you BUDGET YOUR TIME.
B. Organization
Even though you are pressed for time you still
need to be organized in your writing. I
suggest you take a minute or two to outline your answer before you even begin
writing it. This also provides a check
against completely omitting any one part of the answer.
C. Writing Style
Remember that you will be graded on your ability
to express your ideas clearly as well as on the content of your ideas. This is, after all, a politics course where
communication (or lack thereof) is essential to determining the outcome. Subject content is emphasized first and
foremost in evaluating your answers, but the clarity of your writing determines
how successfully you get that message across.
In simple terms, this means you need to write legibly, use proper grammar,
and avoid awkward sentence structure.
II. SPECIFIC QUESTION TYPES
A. Identification (IDs/Short Essay)
There will be about ten identification questions
that are best treated as mini-essays. A
complete answer here will be approximately six to ten sentences in
length. You must include a definition,
historical origin or reason for existence, examples, and relevant theoretical
analysis. In many cases it is also
helpful to refer to competing perspectives.
B. Essay
There will be two or three long essays on the
final. A complete answer should contain:
1) an introduction with
your thesis
2) body w/approximately
three to four main points (it may be helpful to approach these as IDs)
3) conclusion which
summarizes thesis and supporting points and offers suggestions, solutions
C. Short Answer
There will be a handful of short answer
questions that ask you to identify a major theory, point out the weaknesses in
an argument, or simply identify a key contributor to international politics.
III. RELEVANT MATERIAL
This final covers all readings and class
discussions since the beginning of the semester. As you prepare, think about both the
intricacies of the concepts themselves and the larger picture of how they
relate to one another. Use your syllabus
as a guide here.
General fields
of note:
Realism & Power Liberalism
Interdependence Imperialism
& Nationalism
Colonialism & Development Foreign
Policy Decision-making
Balance of Power Collective
Security
Causes of War Cold
War & Security Dilemma
Nuclear Strategy Deterrence
Proliferation & Arms Control International
Political Economy
Globalization Bretton Woods
International Organizations European
Union
United Nations NGOs
International Law Weapons
of Mass Destruction
Peacekeeping Terrorism
Global Commons Environmental
Security
IV. REVIEW ASSGINMENT
In preparation for class next time, you must
submit one question and its answer from each of the following seven categories
by midnight before our last class. Email
these to me at: mgunter@rollins.edu.
This will count as your final quiz grade in the course and make you eligible
for extra credit on the final exam. Of
course it will also encourage you to start thinking about preparing for the
final itself. The categories to address
include:
1.
War and Peace (BOP/collective security)
2.
ISMs (Nationalism, Imperialism, Colonialism)
3.
Decision-making
4.
Nuclear Strategy
5.
IPE
6.
International Organization (UN, NGOs, Intl Law)
7. Eco-politics