Play Your Role: A Policymaker Simulation to Ground East Asian International Relations

Abstract

International relations is often confusing for students. IR theories are introduced as parsimonious and elegant and then systematically challenged as students learn more about detailed events. There are rules, there are norms, and states follow them until they don’t. East Asia increases these challenges because it often undermines IR theory. Simulations can provide a key means of grounding students studying international relations because they apply IR theory to real-world examples—something especially important in a large lecture course. While simulations are effective tools, they often rely on strong institutional arrangements around which the rules of simulations are based. This presents a challenge for studying foreign relations in regions like East Asia, which have weaker multilateral institutions and thus no obvious template for a simulation. To overcome the challenges of weak institutionalization and subject-matter difficulty, we present two alternative models of simulations tested in a large lecture course on transpacific relations. The consensus model simulates what an international summit looks like in a weakly institutionalized environment maximizing the realism of the experience for students. The cooperation model captures the motivations of states to seek international cooperation despite the complications faced in international relations, maximizing the spirit of urgency that animates weakly institutionalized environments. We provide detailed instructions and materials to adapt these models to similar courses.

Keywords:

• Simulations
• undergraduate education
• role playing
• experiential learning
• East Asian international relations

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank T.J. Pempel, Makoto Fukumoto, and Christiana Whitcomb for allowing us to design and implement pilot versions of these simulations in the course we taught together. We would also like to thank the participants in the Game and Post-Game Design Strategies panel of the Simulations and Games Track of the 2018 American Political Science Association Teaching and Learning Conference in Baltimore, Maryland and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments and suggestions on the paper.

Notes

1 Both models used a North Korea security crisis as the sample simulation.

2 This agnosticism differentiates our simulation models from Kempston and Thomas’s (2014) excellent SCS simulation which focuses specifically on the island disputes for graduate education. See Recommendations for Modification and Generalization for additional adaptability.

3 A primer of the roles suitable for students is available in the online Appendix.

4 A breakdown of student responses on the course evaluation can be found in the online Appendix.

5 There were two minor differences. First, rather than opinion leaders, students were assigned the domestic opposition party. Second, Southeast Asia was a single group; it could be subdivided in larger courses.

6 “We believe that there should be an open dialogue between China and Japan that facilitates cooperation and resolution (without arms) in regard to this maritime region.”

7 These provide important contextual information about the actor for the students (Asal and Blake 2006, 3).

8 The scorecards, stickers, and illustrated name badges may be downloaded from the online Appendix.

9 For example, China in Latin America.

10 Student evaluations, both quantitative and qualitative, may be found in the online Appendix.