Lucky has long felt that the core course International Political Analysis is a travesty. It could be so good, it should be taught... and yet it utterly fails to deliver value to global managers. The course provides an overview of current schools of international relations, covering the views of Mearsheimer, Fukuyama, and Huntington, among others. Realist, liberalist, and institutionalist theories are expounded and discussed.
This would all be well and good, except for two things: 1) all the theories say completely different things, and 2) there is no agreement on which is more useful. In other words, lots of talk, and all useless. Lucky can understand why you would study these topics in an International Relations graduate program, but as it is taught here, it is of little use to managers. It is the height of irresponsibility to present four views of international relations, but refuse to say which is more effective. It is intellectual laziness and has no place at an academic institution.
Lucky has thought about this since this period began, but the hoopla surrounding the release and accessibility of the answers to past years' exams pushed him to the breaking point. The professor put one copy of the answers in a central location, ostensibly to be used by the 200 students taking the course - had he thought for 30 seconds, he would have realized that this is not an acceptable solution. Make electronic copies of the documents? Apparently not possible. Make multiple paper copies and distribute to students? C'est pas possible. Instead, let's see what he did ex post facto:
Dear Participants,
The issue of the availability of a collection of best answers to earlier IPA exams has given rise to a hitherto unprecedented discussion among participants, administrative staff and me.
Because the collection is very large, it is out of the question to make all of it available on the course website.
I will make a much more restricted choice of best answers from the most recent exam for which such answers are available within the next few days. My assistant will then insert this collection on the IPA website.
To do this and also to ensure that no-one is meanwhile tempted to 'tamper' with the evidence, I have withdrawn the original collection from the library. I will return it there as early as possible next week for those who want to inspect a more comprehensive collection of best answers.
I should add that, according to my first impression, the collection is regrettably rather outdated and that its utility as a means of preparing for your upcoming exam is not as great as it might have been otherwise.
Unless the respective academic representatives want to comment further on this issue, I suggest that we now let it rest.
Best wishes
Douglas Webber
Eloquent, yes. Effective? No. Is this really what should be happening at a top-tier institution?
3:41:09 PM 
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