Beginning with the class of 2012, the Trans-State Actors in World Politics concentration will no longer be offered to International Politics majors in the School of Foreign Service, Dean Bryan Kasper announced last week.
Professor George Shambaugh, the International Politics Field Chair, said that the decision was made with faculty-wide consultations. According to Shambaugh, there was no significant opposition to the decision.
In Kasper’s e-mail, sent out to International Politics majors, he explained the decision saying that the TSA concentration had become outdated.
“All of the research questions of the concentration are now commonly, and more appropriately, studied under the other three concentration fields,” Kasper said. “In the twenty years since the end of the Cold War, trans-state/trans-national actors have become as common and as important as nation-states.”
Some students agreed with the International Politics Field Committee that the concentration was outdated. Sarah Sealock (SFS ’12), an international politics major, said she believes that the trans-state actor concentration is not as relevant in a post-9/11 world. She said the new world order requires that all SFS graduates focus on third party actors like Al Qaeda.
“This is an improvement rather than any huge change,” Shabaugh said.
Other students, however, were frustrated by the decision.
“The fact that TSAs are becoming increasingly pervasive in international politics today should make it more logical to have a concentration devoted to its study,” Emma Rekart (SFS ’12) said.
Juniors and seniors concentrating in TSA will not be affected, but this decision has come as a shock to some sophomores who were planning on concentrating in the subject, and found out about the change two weeks into the semester.
“I put significant thought into what I wanted to choose for a concentration and am disappointed that I can’t take it anymore,” Emily Cabanatuan (SFS ’12) said. Cabanatuan officially declared herself a TSA major one week before the concentration was cancelled.
Rekart questioned the timing of the decision, since she must declare a new concentration within the week in order to study abroad.
“I was planning on declaring TSA, but because of the change I feel like I am being rushed into choosing another major,” Rekart said. “The other IPOL concentrations are not particularly relevant to what I want to do.”
