Allison Wilson

When enrolling in my courses for this fall I admittedly tried to register for as many Political Science courses that I could as I needed the credits for my major. However, when going through all the Political Science courses offered at UBC I knew Poli 367B was one that I had to take not for the credits but because it sounded like my ideal subject matter. I am completing my degree at UBC with a double major in Political Science and English Literature. I chose to do this because I went into my degree thinking I would major in English but discovering (not shockingly) that I loved Political Science and especially where these two disciplines intersect.

In my first year at UBC, I took arts one and I found myself loving Plato and Hobbes and Foucault and all their big ideas and theories and how it could relate to the political climate and power relations. I also adored both Poli 240 and Poli 260 and knew that I wanted to place my focus on the political theory that 240 touched on but I also liked the slightly more current and practical angle that 260 offered when examining global politics. It thus seemed obvious that a course like Poli 367B would be ideal for me as it relates to both the practical and applicable sense of IR and the theories that make it up. The big theories and theorists are what most interest me so the fact that the class focuses on things like Realism, Liberalism and Marxism is what drew me in and greatly interests me.

So far I am really enjoying the course and the way that it examines the multiplicity of schools of thought and ways of examining IR. I also like the use of real-life events to understand the political stage of international relations. I think this course will be very helpful to me in mapping out schools of thought and thinkers.

When I think of the subject matter of IR I do come into it still of the belief of studying the relationship between states however the amount of additional actors in today’s world complicates and potentially makes for far more interesting subject matter. Going into this course I am most fascinated with where the schools of thought are going, and what will be the dominant ideology or ideologies going forward. Learning the histories and foundations of these ways of thinking is thus paramount in understanding this trajectory as well as today’s current world of politics and political thought.