Policy and Nation-Building

Paul Barclay, associate professor of history, has developed a new course tailored for policy studies majors, Nation-Building in Iraq, Japan, and Vietnam. The central issue explored is the relationship between policy-makers, their understanding of the past, and their prescriptions for the future. Specifically, the course probes how political leaders and their advisers extrapolate knowledge of seemingly familiar precedents to make judgments about novel challenges, new enemies, unorthodox tactics, or rapidly changing global conditions.

Nation-Building in Iraq, Japan, and Vietnam analyzes the occupation of Iraq (2003- ) in light of America’s past efforts at nation-building in Japan (1945-1952) and Vietnam (1960-1975). From the viewpoint of cognitive psychology, policy studies, and international affairs, students interrogate the utility of the oft-used “Japan” and “Vietnam” analogies as modes of analysis and justification for the occupation of Iraq. To what extent have the “lessons of history” informed or misinformed U.S. policy in Iraq, both at the level of policy making and political discourse?

The course format lends itself to participation by faculty members from several departments such as economics and business, psychology, government and law, and history, as well as guest experts. The course culminates in a mock-academic conference run by the students, which provides an opportunity for collaboration with the Instructional Technology staff or other constituencies with media expertise.

W. Mark Crain, Simon Professor of Political Economy, developed a new course during the 2005 fall semester, which is one of the courses required for the policy studies major (PSTD300). The objective of Industry, Strategy, and Policy is to promote interest in, and prepare students for, careers in public policy and government affairs.

The course probes the intersection of business and politics by stressing the myriad ways that policies affect business decisions and market outcomes. It provides students a unique opportunity to learn about the major sectors of the global economy.

The course is organized around students teams, each assigned to research a major sector of the global economy including health care, finance, telecommunications, national security, information and media, information technology, manufacturing, transportation, and energy. Each team prepares a written report and a class presentation on their assigned sector. Crain invites guest commentators to provide comments and feedback to students as well as to offer their own perspective on the sector. The students then have the opportunity to debate the topic. Each team revises their report in light of the class discussion and comments.

During the fall 2005 prototype course, guest commentators included Harold Kamine ’78, chairman of KMC Telecom and a Lafayette trustee; Shawn Coughlin ’87, principal and COO of Capitol Health Group; William Rappolt ’67, retired treasurer, M&T Bank; Peter Jacoby ’81, vice president-director for congressional affairs, AT&T; Fred Benson ’59, Benson Capitol Commentary; Susan Fox ’88, vice president of government regulations, the Walt Disney Company; Christopher Caine ’78, vice president of governmental programs, IBM; Roger Heumann ’75, president, Olympia Sports Co.; and Stephen Pryor ’71, president of ExxonMobil.