Assignments

This is an engagement seminar. Three sustained engagement projects — a practitioner interview series, a substantive Wikipedia expansion, and a public submission (op-ed or rulemaking comment) — replace the traditional research-paper sequence and account for 65% of the grade. Smaller components (participation, reading responses, debate) round out the remainder.

The pedagogy is built on three premises: (1) political science is improved by direct contact with practice; (2) Global South perspectives are under-represented in public knowledge infrastructure and students can do something about that; (3) writing for real institutions and real audiences develops political acumen that academic writing does not.

Practitioner interview series + synthesis (25%)

You will conduct three recorded interviews with distinct stakeholder types relevant to one non-Annex-I country chosen in Week 2:

• Type A. A government or international official involved in climate policy for or about that country — a delegate, a ministry staffer, an embassy person, a UN/UNFCCC secretariat person, a multilateral lender or donor official. Past or present.
• Type B. A civil-society advocate working on climate or environmental justice in or for that country (NGO, movement, faith institution, professional association).
• Type C. A practitioner, journalist, scholar, or affected-community member with direct experience of climate impacts, transitions, or organizing in that country.

Each interview is 30–60 minutes, recorded with explicit verbal consent. Zoom is fine and encouraged for cross-border interviews. The final deliverable is a 6-page analytical synthesis paper that triangulates the three perspectives — especially the tensions between them — and connects what you heard to course concepts.

Milestones.

• Week 2 — country chosen (with country brief sign-up)
• Week 3.A — qualitative-method mini-workshop in class
• Week 4 — interview plan submitted (target informants + protocol)
• Weeks 6, 8, 10 — interview memos with consent confirmation and transcript excerpts (rolling)
• End of Week 12 — final synthesis paper

Ethics. IRB exempt-status will be filed for the class as a whole. Informants may request quote-only attribution or full anonymity. No interviews that would put informants at risk.

Rubric. Interview preparation 20% · Depth of engagement with what informants actually said 25% · Triangulation across perspectives 25% · Connection to course concepts 20% · Writing and citation 10%.

Substantive Wikipedia expansion (20%)

You will identify a Wikipedia article on a Global South climate topic — a negotiator, lawsuit, movement, organization, treaty negotiation moment, climate-affected community, domestic policy instrument — that is either missing, a stub, or has substantial gaps. You will expand the article with at least 1,500 sourced words of new content, published live to Wikipedia, surviving editorial review.

Why. Wikipedia is the single most-read English-language reference work, and its coverage of Global South climate politics is thin. This is a public-scholarship intervention.

Milestones.

• Week 5.A — Wikipedia editing workshop in class; article topic approved
• Week 7 — pre-edit draft of additions submitted to instructor
• Week 9 — live edits published; revision history shared
• Week 13 — 4-page reflection memo

Reflection memo prompts. What was added; what could not be added and why; how Wikipedia's "neutral point of view" norm interacted with the political nature of climate; what counted as a "reliable source" and what was rejected; any pushback from other editors and how it was negotiated.

Rubric. Substance and accuracy of added content 30% · Citation discipline 20% · Engagement with Wikipedia's editorial norms 20% · Reflection memo 25% · Meeting word target 5%.

Public submission: op-ed or rulemaking comment (20%)

You will choose one of two tracks and submit the artifact to a real institution.

Track A — Public rulemaking comment. Identify a currently-open consultation with climate implications (US EPA, EU Commission, JETP implementation guidance, World Bank ESF revisions, IFC standards review, national consultations in your assigned country, etc.). Write a 5–7 page formal comment that engages the proposal section-by-section, analyzes its political and distributive implications with particular attention to Global South or climate-justice effects, and recommends specific changes with reasoned support. Submit to the actual docket through the appropriate portal.

Track B — Op-ed. Write a 900–1,200 word op-ed on a current climate-political controversy in the voice of a specific publication, then pitch to the publication. Suitable outlets: Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, Boston Review, The Conversation, Project Syndicate, Down To Earth (CSE), The Nation, Jacobin, Climate Home News, regional outlets, and your university paper. If accepted and published, you receive an automatic A — the bar is publication. If not accepted, the artifact + pitch correspondence is evaluated on the original criteria.

Milestones.

• Week 7.B — public-writing workshop in class
• Week 8 — track choice + topic + target docket/outlet
• Week 11 — draft to instructor
• Week 13 — pitched/submitted; confirmation shared
• Week 15 — 1-page reflection memo on the submission experience

Rubric. Argument and evidence 30% · Voice appropriate to audience 25% · Engagement with course concepts (without academic register) 20% · Strategic understanding of the venue 15% · Follow-through on submission 10%.

Discussion-lead with rotating roles

Each student leads two sessions: one Anchor session and one Application session. Sign-up is in Week 1. Within each session, the rest of the class rotates through five reading-group roles (adapted from Sam Rowan's Concordia seminar):

• Discussion leader — frames the conversation.
• Theory master — traces conceptual lineages.
• Evidence supporter — assesses claims against data.
• Devil's advocate — steel-mans the position no one in the room holds.
• Creative connector — links to readings, current events, or course concepts outside this week.

Each student rotates through every role across the term.

Three-Futures Debate (10%)

In Week 15, three coalitions — Carbon Continuity, Green-Growth Decarbonization, and Decolonial Just Transition — debate the future of global climate governance. A 2-page position memo is due 24 hours before the caucus session.