POLS170 Group 2

  Over the course of the semester, we have looked at international politics from various angles where we aimed to understand why actors behave in the way they do and how this affects other actors, sometimes without us even knowing. At the very beginning of the course we looked at “Of the Culture of White Folk” by W. E. Burghardt Du Bois and the way states behave through exploiting others. It highlighted how international relations studies tend to provide a Eurocentric view with White Christian men in power. In the final discussion, we talked about Tzetan Todorov’s book, The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other . This touched Christopher Columbus’ journey to the Americas and the impact of his discovery. As we take a closer look at history, there are evident differences such as moments being turning points in human history. Moments like Columbus being the first European to discover the Americas or the various political regimes that have taken place have a world that may not hav

While reading the potential prompts for our final essay, I began thinking back to all of our readings and class discussions on these topics. One of the questions that really stuck out to me was the question asking, "What is terrorism? Why does it matter?" This is such a deep question that can unravel so many different thoughts, perspectives, opinions, and international laws and concepts.  Terrorism occurs when unlawful groups are in the pursuit of personal political goals by acts of violence and criminal activity. Terrorism is not an empirical event, and is not a term used to chastise particular political events.  A terrorist can be an individual or group whom inflicts violence against civilians of a certain culture, group, etc., motivated by political gains or hate. Terrorists use violence, intimidation, and threats through the use of destruction or violent acts in pursuit of political gain. These acts of violence directly harm people for a hateful reason to pursue individua

 For my final blog post, I am choosing to talk about the article from Nhina Le on the topic of human rights. While everyone is familiar with human rights as a general concept, Le loosely defines them early on in her passage saying "By definition “human rights” are based on the universal dignity of all human beings by virtue of their humanity." However, this concept is up for much debate across cultures in different countries.  I would personally argue that human rights are essential to the formation of structure within a government or state system. In order to create a trusted system, you must provide the people with basic rights to feel like they can support a system. However, one could argue the situation I just layed out only applies to certain forms of government, such as a democracy. Whenever citizens have a direct impact on their politics, they need securities. One interesting portion of Le's article highlights how corrupted these systems just might be when it comes

  Harrison Gold POLS170 Blog 5   Discussing the Rise in Domestic Terrorism   During the week of November 8th, we covered, “What Is Terrorism and Why Does it Matter??”.  Most memorably for me, were the heinous acts of Dylan Roof in the Emmanuel African Methodist Church in Charleston, SC and, of course, the assault of January 6th of our nation’s capital. Just a few years ago, when an American spoke of terrorism, most would’ve thought of an unthinkable act that took place in the Middle East - in places like Afghanistan, Iran or Pakistan.  But today, Americans are seeing these acts frequently play out in our own communities.  Whether it be school shootings, bombings at places like the Boston marathon or violent protests (BLM or White Supremacists) – it is huge and worsening problem. Most certainly, acts of domestic terrorism have taken place over the years, it has sadly become a far more frequent problem over the past few years – I think it is important to understand why this is happening

After the recent discussion and threats of the new variant of COVID-19 and our class discussions, I have decided to write my blog post on World Health. There has recently been a lot of discussion and debate over another round of lockdowns and closing borders, versus vaccinations and booster shots being able to protect against this new variant. To inform myself more on the new strain, named Omicron, I read the New York Times Article Omicron: What is Known - and Still Unknown .  This article put forth a discussion on the intense research of the new covid variant first identified in southern Africa. The World Health Organization, or WHO, has deemed Omicron a "variant of concern" which has caused scientists and public health officials to urge all to get vaccinated. Health officials see getting vaccinated as the strongest possibility for protection against this strain with, "unusually high number of mutations that have the potential to make the virus more transmissible and le

The current global pandemic has sparked more conversation around the importance of global health and how to both support and maintain it. Global health is a broad and daunting issue that cannot be solved simply. Despite it being “global,” global health is not global with much of its representation coming from the North. This flaw does not allow for developing states in the South to get representation in different policies and procedures that will benefit its people. The article “Silenced Voices in Global Health” from Think Global Health, bring up the importance of representing diverse groups of marginalized populations in global health. One point mentioned, which I am aware is obvious, is that “A person can belong to an underrepresented population but still be highly privileged,” but I have rarely ever thought about it in terms of representation. They highlighted this by comparing a “a woman from the global South from civil society may have been raised in New York, networked with the g