Simulations and World Politics: Preah Vihear Temple

Image via BBC World News

A case that encapsulates all facets of world politics: state sovereignty, interstate war, the peaceful settlement of disputes, international rules, international organizations, and more. The BBC reports that the International Court of Justice will provide a ruling on the long-disputed territory surrounding the Preah Vihear temple which straddles the border of both Cambodia and Thailand. What makes this case so interesting is the the good folks at the ICONS project at the University of Maryland have constructed a simulation on this very topic. Personally, I would love to play this (we have to purchase access to this, however) in both IB Global Politics classes. Now that I have more time....maybe we can talk about this in class this week and set up some time once we finish with our current projects.

Is there a most important concept related to the United Nations in world politics?

The results are in! Students in IB Glopo Year 1 have spent the last three days reading, debating, and synthesizing various concepts related to world politics and the United Nations as a part of our introduction to the Power, Sovereignty, and International Relations unit in IB Global Politics.

Working in groups, students identified key terms from their readings, sorted and ceded each term into a 32-team bracket, and then debated the significance of each term through the tournament rounds (complete lesson here). While there is not (of course) a single correct answer, these 24 students arrived at similar outcomes in their final rounds. The final class debate, discussion, and reflection will occur tomorrow; pitting the concept of sovereignty against that of global governance to determine once and for all (well, maybe once this week) which is the most important concept related to the UN in world politics. The complete list of terms used in the brackets are listed below (in no particular order of importance):

General Assembly (GA); Security Council (SC), Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), Secretariat (SEC), International Court of Justice (ICJ), State, Great Powers, Middle Powers, 3rd UN, Non-Aligned Movement, Human Security, Non-Intervention, Regime, Multilateralism, Multinational Corporation (MNC), Sovereignty, Group of 20 (G20), BRICS, Specialized Agencies, Globalization, Group of 7 (G7), Interdependence, Global Governance, International Organization, Collective Security, Peacekeeping, Arms Control, Self Determination, Non Governmental Organization (NGO), Democratization, Millennium Development Goals (MDG), Human Rights