Expanding Conceptual Toolkits

This 300-level course has three main sections. First, we cover the most important conceptual frameworks: social class, economic geography, business sector, varieties of capitalism, and the welfare state. The middle section examines trade politics. The final section looks at the politics around international finance.

For varieties of capitalism, I pair two chapters from Hall and Soskice's seminal book with this Freakonomics podcast on the German Economy. In trade and the environment, I combine scholarly readings with this debate on climate border adjustments. I use this handout to explain the 2008 Financial Crisis and this chart to explain geography and populism.

The has three major assignments in addition to participation: a paper, a podcast, and a verbal final exam. The paper assignment covers the conceptual frameworks section of the course. That paper assignment has even been complimented for its clarity and sharpness by the Chief Economist at the World Trade Organization. The second assignment covers the trade part of the course and has students in groups of 2-3 make a short podcast. Many students seem to really enjoy this process. The third assignment is a verbal final exam that has students go through this simulation of how they would navigate the Greek Debt Crisis.

The student evaluations for the two most recent iterations of this course can be found here. Students say "it provided a great foundational basis for understanding international political economic frameworks and gave a lot of concrete examples" and that I was "very approachable and likeable when interacting with students. Students were not afraid to ask questions or participate in class, so we always had very lively discussions" and I was energized, engaging, and made the concepts come to life in a way that was very accessible to understand despite the density of the readings at times, and made the classroom environment a lot of fun to learn in." 

In this 400-level senior seminar, we start with an examination of the social construction of money and finance and then moves into discussing the tradeoffs between hedging risks and building wealth, using insurance and housing as clarifying examples. The rest of the course covers international monetary systems, balancing fighting recessions with controlling inflation, financial crises, geopolitics, and inequality. Throughout the course, we take an intentional internationalist approach and also pay particular attention to the political, cultural, and historical contexts that financial institutions and policymakers find themselves in.

When we cover European countries' decision to create the euro, we pair two scholarly readings (this and this), with a chapter from Jacob Goldstein's more approachable book. When we cover housing and hedging risk, in addition to scholar articles and book chapters, I also have them watch The Big Short and do a film review on that. In this course, students also create and present 'fact sheets' to the group. Some samples of those are here. 

Because this is a senior level course, the main assignment is a substantial individualized capstone project that I craft for each student. One of my students was going into food marketing, so I assigned her a project in which she had to come up with a marketing campaign for cottage cheese (and she did an amazing job with that project!). Another student who is going into private wealth management was given an assignment that closely mirrors the kind of family business transition she would be working on at her new job. Other students have written reports on central bank digital currencies, Puerto Rico's financial problems, and a comparison of the leveraged buy-outs of Hilton and Toys R' Us. Those capstone assignments can be found here. 

The student evaluations are here. One student said "Prof. Winslett is the best professor I've had in the political science department, bar none. He has a knack for guiding stimulating, thoughtful, and genuine conversation among his students. He is infinitely encouraging of participation, which makes people feel welcome sharing and enhances understanding of the material. He has a clear, deep knowledge of the subjects at hand (and those not immediately at hand), and he shares it in a manner that is neither patronizing nor condescending." Another said they "Love the in-class discussions, and how Prof Winslett prepares questions to ask us instead of lecturing rote. Makes us find answers on our own and guides us there instead of handing information to us -- style is so compelling and charismatic, and discussions are well-laid out and well-thought out."  

In this 300-level course, after an initial conceptual section, each week in this course is dedicated to a different kind of tax and the politics around it (income, land/wealth, corporate profits, consumption, etc.) In each of those weeks, the first course day examines those tax politics in the United States and the second day looks at it somewhere else in the world and so each week functions as comparative political analysis.

In addition to scholarly articles and book chapters, I have students go through this Brookings Institution simulation on taxes and deficits. We read T.R. Reid's book A Fine Mess, and listen to podcasts like this one from Planet Money on tax collection efforts in the Philippines, Italy, and the United Kingdom. I went a little easy on student on the reading load this semester (fall 2020). It was a pandemic. Sometimes you have to know when to take your foot off the gas a little.

Because this course is one of the courses that is designated as a College Writing course at Middlebury College, the assignments in this course are a four part assignment in which students 1) choose a question and defend its importance, 2) conduct a literature review, 3) attempt to answer the question in a new way, and 4) put it all together as a completed research paper. Students get feedback and revision opportunities at each stage. 

The student evaluations are here. One student said "Prof. Winslett is great. He's so knowledgeable and understands how to make a topic like "politics of taxes" absolutely fascinating. Everybody paid full attention every class and they were fun to sit through. I really feel like the real-world applications will stick with me for a long time, and it's already changed the way I think about news stories regarding tax policy around the world."

    Political actors (states, businesses, activists NGOs, individuals) do not relate to one another in a vacuum at the international level. They are assisted and constrained by rules promulgated to advance a variety of norms. This set of rules and the process by which they are created, interpreted, and applied is what we mean by the term ‘international law.’ This course is divided in modules on human rights, trade/investment, use of force, and international environmental law. Each week presents key concepts on the first class day and examines cases on the second day.

This course is designed to mimic and preview a law school course in order to help students get a sense if law school is something they really want to do. As one student put it, this course "is not for the faint of heart." Therefore, in addition Supreme Court Justice Breyer's book on international law, we also use a casebook. You can see a sample of case here. 

The assignments for this course are meant to preview some of the legal thinking and the exam style that students may see in law school. The two writing assignments ask students to analyze cases in the IRAC format (Issues, Rules, Analysis, Conclusion) and in Breyer's recommended HLPPC format (History, Language, Purpose, Precedent, Consequences). Those assignments and the final exam can be found here.

The student evaluations for this course are here. One student said that my teaching was "impressively concise and cogent in even the most difficult concepts. He listened attentively to any and all questions I asked and provided satisfying responses while also challenging my thinking and making me work hard." 

In this 100-level introductory course, we first review the main international relations paradigms, pairing each paradigm with real-world cases and use all three paradigms to examine the outbreak of World War I. After that, we look at the Liberal International Order and some of the challenges to it. Finally, we investigate why states have so much difficulty in cooperating even in areas lime climate change and COVID where all states have at least some interest in addressing the problem.

As in some of my other courses, I like to pair scholarly readings with more accessible and I find this particularly useful for this introductory course. So, for example, in the part of the course on social construction and identity, I have them watch these two commercials in class (here and here) and we discuss what they say about American national identity. In this course, we also do a lot of skill building so I show students how to make an effective paper outline and how to take effective notes on readings. 

As it is an introductory course, I find it useful to keep the assignments in formats that students are familiar with and so the three main assignments apart from participation are an in-class midterm, a research paper, and a take-home final.

The evaluations for the most recent iteration of the course are here. One student said my teaching "was extremely effective. He conveyed information in a clear manner that I was able to follow very easily. He asked many engaging questions and pushed us to further critically think. During his office hours, he helped me specifically on developing my paper- writing skills and analytical thinking."