International Politics, BSFS

The International Politics (IPOL) major examines how state and non-state actors cooperate and compete on political issues. In contemporary geopolitics, there is no longer the stable hierarchy of issues that dominated policy makers’ and scholars’ attention during the Cold War period of 1945 through the late 1980s. Now, numerous non-security issues compete with security for the attention of policy makers, outside analysts, scholars, and citizens.

Goals of the Major

The International Politics major is designed to provide students with the substantive expertise and analytical skills necessary to understand, and become leaders in, the study and practice of world politics. The major provides all students with in-depth knowledge of the issues and actors that constitute three central arenas in international politics:

• International Law, Institutions, and Ethics
• International Security
• Foreign Policy and Policy Processes

Students build their substantive expertise in these areas through in-depth foundational courses. Within each area, they are also expected to gain expertise on matters of particular interest to them by taking supporting courses in a wide range of specialized topics. In addition, all students are expected to master the analytical methods and statistical skills necessary to be productive consumers and producers of research in international politics.

Objectives

The international political arena is dynamic. The ability to recognize the potential for cooperation and conflict among a diversity of state and non-state actors and then to choose and implement an appropriate policy response to the issue at hand requires a sophisticated and informed understanding of international politics as well as the skills to respond to unforeseen threats and opportunities. To be prepared to do so, students will be educated to do the following:

• Understand, evaluate and apply the key concepts and scholarly research in international politics regarding the behavior of state and non-state actors in the international system.
• Identify key institutions and dynamics in the development of the contemporary international system as well as their historical foundations and precedents.
• Explicate and critique international and domestic political issues, dynamics, and events in clear and concise writing.
• Analyze world political phenomena systematically using statistical methodologies to evaluate global trends and relationships.
• Develop substantive and theoretical expertise necessary to understand, interpret, and explain complex current events and historical case studies.
• Recognize important moral dimensions of world politics and apply ethical frameworks to the multifaceted challenges faced today.
• Develop the substantive, analytical, and ethical skills necessary to anticipate emerging threats, challenges, and opportunities in the global arena and respond effectively.

Requirements for the Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service in International Politics

Courses in the SFS Core requirement serve as foundational requisites of this major.

There are four areas in which International Politics majors may concentrate:  

1. International Law, Institutions, and Ethics
2. International Security
3. Foreign Policy and Policy Processes; or
4. Self-Defined

Please note that although the majority of courses in the major are taught by political scientists, there are significant contributions from the departments of History, Philosophy, Sociology, and Theology and Religious Studies, and from regional studies programs.

For the International Law, Institutions, and Ethics; International Security; and Foreign Policy and Policy Processes major, the nine courses in the major are divided between a five-course concentration in one of the concentrations (1–3) listed above, three additional courses drawn from at least two of the other named concentrations, and a quantitative methodology course.

The self-defined concentration also includes nine total courses, including a quantitative methodology course.

The requirements are summarized as follows. See the schedule of classes for detailed course listings.

Course List

Code	Title	Credits
BSFS 3200	Quant Methods:Intrnl Affairs	3
Select five courses listed under the student’s major field concentration. Of these courses, students must take one thematic concentration course:		15
Students pursuing a concentration in International Security must take at least one of the following courses:
GOVT 2600	International Security
IPOL 3365	Mil Security in World Politics
Students pursuing a concentration in International Law, Institutions, and Ethics must take at least one of the following courses:
GOVT 2603	International Law
GOVT 2602	International Organization
GOVT 4660	Ethical Iss Intrnl Reltns
Students pursuing a concentration in Foreign Policy and Policy Processes must take at least one of the following courses:
GOVT 2604	Contemp US Foreign Policy
HIST 2806	The US in the World to 1945
HIST 2807	The US in the World Since 1945
Three major elective courses, including the distributional requirement of at least one course each from the two other non-concentration fields and one course from the supporting electives list towards the completion of this requirement.		9
Total Credits		27

Students pursuing a Self-Defined concentration must take at least one course in all three of the other concentrations (International Law, Institutions, and Ethics; International Security; and Foreign Policy and Policy Processes). The remaining courses can be distributed in any way the student chooses within the IPOL curriculum.

Writing in the Major

Students majoring in IPOL fulfill the University’s integrated writing requirement through their coursework in the Writing Department and fulfill the Quantitative Reasoning and Data Literacy through the required BSFS 3200. The writing seminar requires students to conduct original research, formulate logical arguments, and present their arguments with supporting evidence in both short and long papers.

Georgetown Core Curriculum

The Georgetown Core Curriculum (Georgetown Core) is a distinctive expression of Georgetown University’s identity as a student-centered research university rooted in the Jesuit and Catholic tradition. The Georgetown Core is a two-tiered program. The first tier – the “shared core” – has been created and approved by the Main Campus Core Curriculum Committee and is shared by all undergraduates as a common core experience. The second tier of the requirement – the “school-specific core” – is designed and determined by each of the undergraduate schools, embodying the shared learning goals of the university Core while furthering the specific mission and tradition of each school. Both the shared and school-specific cores change over time, balancing the traditional ethos of a liberal arts education with the changing needs of our students in a changing world. Ultimately, it is the hope that the entirety of a Georgetown education – the cores, majors and minors, and electives – will lead students to embody as life-long habits the goals described in the Georgetown Core Curriculum Learning Goals.

More information about the Georgetown Core Curriculum can be found on the Provost’s Core Curriculum website.

Georgetown Shared Core Requirements

The core requirements that form the first tier, the common experience across the University, are outlined below. Georgetown courses fulfilling each of these requirements are designated “Core: [specific requirement]” in the Attributes in the Schedule of Classes.  

Philosophy – 2 Courses

Through the Core, the Philosophy Department is committed to providing courses that promote students’ personal growth as human beings in search of meaningful lives, foster their development as responsible citizens, and offer effective introductions to the discipline of philosophy. The learning goals shared by courses in the Philosophy Core are:

• Understand what philosophy is, how it differs from other academic disciplines, and what its primary areas of inquiry are.
• Understand and construct arguments. 
• Describe and analyze complex problems.
• Read, write and speak effectively. 
• Engage critically and constructively with moral problems and decisions.
• Apply philosophical analysis, argumentation, and critical reflection to the study of other disciplines.

Please refer to each school/college curriculum for specific courses that will fulfill this requirement.

Theology and Religious Studies – 2 Courses

Through the Core, the Theology and Religious Studies Department is committed to fostering in students a critically appreciative awareness of the religious dimension of human existence, and to assisting students in reflecting upon their own experience and understanding in that enlarged context. The first course provides this foundation while the second course allows students to develop their critical awareness by applying it to a particular area of interest in religion or theology. 

The learning goals shared by courses in the Theology and Religious Studies Core are:

• To consider reflectively your relationship to the world, your fellow humans, and God.
• To foster a critically appreciative awareness of the religious dimension of human existence.
• To assist you in reflecting upon your own experience and understanding in that enlarged context. 
• To develop your critical awareness by applying it to a particular area of interest in religion or theology.

Problem of God¹ (THEO 1000) and one Theology and Religious Studies elective fulfill the Theology and Religious Studies requirement. Introduction to Biblical Literature (THEO 1100) may be substituted for Problem of God or may be used as an intermediate level elective.

¹

Transfer students are exempt from the Problem of God requirement and may select any two intermediate level courses, including Introduction to Biblical Literature, to fulfill the core requirement in Theology & Religious Studies.

Writing – 2 Courses

The writing requirement provides students with opportunities to connect their writing with critical reading and thinking, inquiry, and analysis.  The Writing and Culture Seminar, WRIT 1150, approaches writing through three interrelated frameworks: writing as a tool for inquiry, writing as a process, and practice writing in different rhetorical situations. Each section focuses on a cultural theme, with readings and assignments that engage students with compelling questions and problems.  Seminar readings provide texts for analysis as well as models and motives for student writing. Students are encouraged to complete this course during their first year at Georgetown. The learning goals shared by different sections in the Writing and Culture Seminar are:

• Experiment with diverse strategies for planning, drafting, and revising writing.
• Adapt writing to respond to, engage, and persuade audiences.
• Employ rhetorical strategies for analyzing, designing, and communicating in writing and other forms of media.
• Engage in writing as a form of thinking, inquiry, and learning.

The second half of the Writing Core is an intensive writing experience located within the student’s chosen major, embedded within the requirements as determined by that program. Each major’s Integrated Writing requirement is established by the department or program in order to express the unique conventions and practices of the discipline. The learning goals shared by courses in the Integrated Writing Core are:

• To prepare students to use the relevant forms, styles, and conventions of writing within their chosen major(s). 
• To employ writing as a method to enhance students’ learning of concepts, materials, and methods in their major.

Courses fulfilling this requirement are identified within each major.

Humanities: Art, Literature, Music, and Media (HALM) – 1 Course

(Formerly Humanities: Art, Literature and Culture (HALC))

The Humanities: Art, Literature, Music, and Media (HALM) requirement serves to deepen students’ understanding and experience of a range of creative media representing cultural expressions from various historical periods and world regions, from the local to the global.

Through reading, listening, viewing, analyzing, writing, and/or creative practice, students acquire the intellectual and practical tools to interpret human experiences portrayed in the arts, literature, music, and media.

HALM Learning Goals:

• Understand how art, literature, music and/or media have historically shaped and been shaped by cultures.

• Develop generative habits of mind and exercise critical thinking skills for a world in flux: openness, resilience, curiosity, creativity, imagination.

• Activate knowledge through creative, analytical, and/or critical approaches in individual, collaborative, and/or public-facing projects.

​HALM courses must be Georgetown University courses and cannot be fulfilled by transfer credits; they must be 3-credit courses. Courses that can fulfill other Core requirements (such as HIST, PHIL, THEO) are ineligible.

In 2026-27, the older “HALC” designation (Humanities: Arts, Literature, and Culture) will be replaced with HALM (Humanities: Arts, Literature, Music and Media). For this academic year, courses with the designation will be tagged with both HALC and HALM. In Fall 2027, the tag HALC will be retired in favor of HALM.

Science For All – 1 Course

The natural sciences, and the technologies that they enable, are woven deeply into the fabric of our lives and are central to many of the important political and social challenges that we face.  They are also pinnacles of intellectual accomplishment in humanity’s ancient and ongoing quest to understand the world in which we live. Thus we believe that to function as liberally educated, ethically responsible citizens, as stewards of the planet, and as effective leaders, all Georgetown students should understand scientific modes of thought and concepts, both in the abstract and as they are exemplified in at least one major area of scientific inquiry.  The Science For All (SFA) Core requirement is grounded in these beliefs. The learning goals shared by courses in the Science for All Core are:

• To understand the basic principles and some current research challenges of one or more areas of science.
• To understand science as a set of methods of inquiry that involve forming and testing hypotheses through the analysis of quantitative and qualitative data.
• To consume and interpret scientific information with critical understanding of the balance of certainty and uncertainty that research findings inevitably reflect.

Quantitative Reasoning and Data Literacy – 1 Course

This requirement applies only to students in the class of 2028 and later.

The Quantitative Reasoning and Data Literacy (QRDL) requirement will help students learn to understand how real-world interpretation of data progresses from a set of numbers, frequently incomplete and with measurement errors, to a visual distillation that clearly conveys meaning. While mathematics and statistics provide a necessary foundation for quantitative reasoning and data literacy, the power of pure mathematics lies in its abstraction. In contrast, QRDL emphasizes a distinctive variety of concrete contexts and applications. The learning goals shared by courses in the Quantitative Reasoning and Data Literacy Core are:

• To build a quantitative toolbox that allows students to become comfortable performing and/or evaluating quantitative analyses.
• To translate and make meaning of data and quantitative analyses as they apply to complex problems.
• To effectively communicate statistical methods and results both visually and textually to a diversity of audiences with considerations to contextual, social, or ethical issues.

Engaging Diversity/Pathways to Social Justice

For students in the class of 2025, 2026, or 2027

Engaging Diversity (2 courses)

All Georgetown students are required to take two Engaging Diversity courses as overlays, meaning that the courses may count toward another degree requirement (Core, major, or minor). One of these courses must be labeled with a “Core: Diversity Domestic” attribute and one must be labeled with a “Core: Diversity Global” attribute.

In courses designated as fulfilling a diversity requirement, students will engage with different cultures, beliefs, and ideas. These courses will explore conditions that contribute to unequal access and influence. Finally, these courses should enable students to reflect on their own identities as they also deepen their understanding of the experience of others. The learning goals shared by courses in the Engaging Diversity Core are:

• To prepare students to be responsible, reflective, self-aware and respectful global citizens through recognizing the plurality of human experience and engaging with different cultures, beliefs, and ideas.
• To be better able to appreciate and reflect upon how human diversity and human identities shape our experience and understanding of the world.

For students in the class of 2028 and later

Pathways to Social Justice (3 courses)

Georgetown’s Pathways to Social Justice (PSJ) curriculum prepares students to critically analyze historical and contemporary power differentials. By fulfilling the Pathways to Social Justice requirement, students will gain a better understanding of how social, political, geographic, economic, and other cultural factors shape experiences of the world, as well as how these factors contribute to marginalization and inequality. PSJ courses will also explore how communities have resisted marginalization, and will focus on axes of identity that have formed the basis for historical and contemporary marginalization and oppression, including race, gender, class, caste, disability, religion, sexual orientation, and gender identity.

A cornerstone of this requirement is the one-credit University Seminar in Race, Power, and Justice which is designed to ensure that every student at Georgetown develops a baseline vocabulary for discussing racial difference and marginalization. This seminar will provide the foundation for each student’s engagement with other PSJ-attributed “overlay” courses offered across Georgetown’s Main Campus and should be taken in the first year. 

In addition to the required one-credit University Seminar in Race, Power, and Justice, the requirement also requires students to take two overlay courses (meaning that these courses may count toward another degree requirement, whether core, major, or minor). Eligible courses have the “Core: PSJ” attribute.

Each course in the Pathways to Social Justice Core works toward at least three of these shared priorities:

• Inclusive Scholarship
• Intersectional Approaches to Identity
• Historical Legacies of Inequality and Their Contemporary Impacts
• National, Regional, and Global Comparisons
• Imagining Justice

Student Eligibility:

• Must apply one semester before Senior Year

• Must be an active undergraduate student and will continue to be in their Fall AND Spring of Senior year.

• Must be in Good Standing

• Must have a cumulative GPA of at least 3.5

• Must have a major GPA of at least 3.67

• Students must have a full time faculty member who has agreed to be their thesis advisor. The advisor must provide an email that confirms their full time status and plans to be on campus both fall AND Spring of the students’ senior year.

Timeline:

Fall or Spring of Junior Year

It is not required but strongly encouraged that students attend an info session about the IPOL Honors In The Major. There will be one in the Fall and one in the Spring each academic year. Dates for these info sessions will be posted in the Globe.

Friday of Spring Break Junior Year

Students submit a 5 page thesis proposal via a GoogleForm