Post Archives

This case study examines the international negotiations to release two Israeli passengers after the Palestinian hijacking of TWA flight 840 to Damascus, Syria. The hijacking placed the Nixon administration in a complex situation. Though the United States was responsible for the safety of the passengers according to international law and custom, State Department officials had neither the access nor the leverage to compel Syrian authorities to release the Israeli passengers. The case study analyzes the options available to U.S. diplomats in crises where agency is not straightforward or clear-cut. The case study begins with a short context section about the…

This case examines the Clinton Administration’s decision to deny Boutros Boutros-Ghali a second term as Secretary-General of the United Nations. Vincent A. Auger, an international relations scholar of U.S. foreign policy, international organizations, and counterterrorism, presents the important players involved, the competing interests of the administration domestically and internationally, as well as the inner workings of the United Nations and the Security Council. He also explains how the United States government used its position in the United Nations to eventually get its way.  This case study exposes the complexities of the U.S. policy process during a decade of post-Cold War global dominance…

This case study documents and analyzes the utility of basketball as a tool of soft power diplomacy, focusing on interactions between France and China since The Cold War and beginning with the Sino-French rapprochement in 1964 and the French basketball team’s trip to China in 1966. The case offers students an alternative look at methods of soft power, interspersing players’ personal accounts with broader geopolitical machinations. This case is ideal for any class in which diplomatic soft power is featured as one aspect of interstate relations. Students will gain an appreciation of the powerful symbolism within culture and sport, and…

This case examines women’s involvement in the peace process to end the Civil War in Guatemala. Mayesha Alam and Génesis Torres-Alcántara provide background on the civil war and how it specifically impacted women, and analyze how women’s groups organized to achieve their goals in the peace process. This case study is meant to be instructive and informative but it does not capture every detail about women’s participation in peacemaking in Guatemala. Rather, the case study serves as a comprehensive introduction that can and should be paired with additional resources about Guatemala in particular, and literature, more generally, on relevant topics.…

This case study explores the twists and turns in India’s relations with Iran between 2005 and 2012. It is designed to illustrate the material and ideational factors that drove a rising middle power like India to make policy choices with a backdrop of a major shift in its grand strategy. A secondary focus is how the U.S. deployed diplomacy to help achieve largely favorable outcomes in a key region of the world. Negotiations for the India-Pakistan-Iran (IPI) pipeline and a proposed Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) deal form the fulcrum for process-tracing the narrative. The simultaneous narrative of the India-U.S. negotiations…

This case examines the creation of the Basketball Africa League and its impact on sports diplomacy. Based on the author’s experience as a historian, writer, and consultant working at the intersection of global sports, communications, and diplomacy, this case provides a framework through which students can learn about the NBA’S different basketball diplomacy efforts in Africa over time and how those efforts contribute to addressing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Sport’s ability to cut across the different SDGs makes it a uniquely valuable tool to promote stronger, more resilient communities worldwide. For example, developing a sport—increasing the number of people…

This case examines Ecuador and El Salvador’s decision to “dollarize,” that is, to make the U.S. dollar their official currency. Britta Crandall, a visiting professor of Latin American Studies at Davidson College, explores the very different conditions and motivators that led to the decision to dollarize in each country, and how those decisions played out. The study of these two countries’ experiences lends unique insights into the factors that drove dollarization, and the limitations of this policy. Macroeconomic crisis, ideology, and specific economic interests contributed to the decisions. These cases also reveal that the decision to adopt a foreign currency—a…