Nations: A Simulation Game in International Politics is a 1995 case study available from the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy (School of Foreign Service) at Georgetown University, written by Michael Herzig and David Skidmore in the form of classroom game that is designed to give the students some understanding of international relations theory.
The game is set on the fictional continent of Lostralia, which has a neutral zone and seven countries: Spartonia, Bampff, Holy Zott, Pyrote, Libertania, Zamboni, and Crock. Each country has specified resources, cities, and problems, as well as a defined national identity and national objectives, and a set amount of resources. Students are divided into teams, each representing one of the seven countries. Each team is given a set of problems to solve, and must also obtain a certain amount of resources. Due to the needs of each nation and the problems each one is trying to solve, the teams find themselves competing with each other, and must solve these issues using diplomacy, trade, or other strategies. [1] As Stephen Fuchs of St. Joseph's College, New York states, "The challenge is to achieve your national objectives without compromising your nation’s identity." [2]
Although the game is designed for university students, it has been played by elementary school students. [3]
In the paper IR Teaching Reloaded: Using Films and Simulations in the Teaching of International Relations, Archie Simpson (University of Bath) and Bernie Kaussler (James Madison University) concluded that role-playing, films, and simulations like Nations: A Simulation Game in International Politics used in the teaching of international relations "can aid student learning especially in terms of IR theory." [4]
Stephen Fuchs, in the paper Dumping the Dead Folks: Teaching U.S. Foreign Relations, talks about the important place this game plays in the final three days of his college course, "U.S. Foreign Relations since 1920". Fuchs says of this game, "I have not found another teaching device that reinforces as many of my course objectives as Nations does. Nations challenges students to identify the major issues and questions affecting their own nation and to place them in an international context. [...] What becomes apparent in our debriefing session is that the students and teams who best understand and negotiate the fault lines of domestic policy and international relations generally win the game. Analytical, communication, and negotiation skills figure prominently." [2]
Model United Nations, also known as Model UN or MUN, is an educational model of the United Nations used for simulations in which students learn about diplomacy and international relations. At a MUN conference, each student works as the representative of a country, organization, or person, and must solve a problem with other delegates from around the world.
International relations (IR) are the interactions among sovereign states. The scientific study of those interactions is also referred to as international studies, international politics, or international affairs. In a broader sense, the study of IR, in addition to multilateral relations, concerns all activities among states—such as war, diplomacy, trade, and foreign policy—as well as relations with and among other international actors, such as intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs), international legal bodies, and multinational corporations (MNCs). There are several schools of thought within IR, of which the most prominent are realism, liberalism, constructivism, and rationalism.
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Simulation video games are a diverse super-category of video games, generally designed to closely simulate real world activities. A simulation game attempts to copy various activities from real life in the form of a game for various purposes such as training, analysis, prediction, or entertainment. Usually there are no strictly defined goals in the game, and the player is allowed to control a character or environment freely. Well-known examples are war games, business games, and role play simulation. From three basic types of strategic, planning, and learning exercises: games, simulations, and case studies, a number of hybrids may be considered, including simulation games that are used as case studies. Comparisons of the merits of simulation games versus other teaching techniques have been carried out by many researchers and a number of comprehensive reviews have been published.
World Game, sometimes called the World Peace Game, is an educational simulation developed by Buckminster Fuller in 1961 to help create solutions to overpopulation and the uneven distribution of global resources. This alternative to war games uses Fuller's Dymaxion map and requires a group of players to cooperatively solve a set of metaphorical scenarios, thus challenging the dominant nation-state perspective with a more holistic "total world" view. The idea was to "make the world work for 100% of humanity in the shortest possible time through spontaneous cooperation without ecological damage or disadvantage to anyone," thus increasing the quality of life for all people.
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Wolfgang Franz Danspeckgruber is the Founding Director of the Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination at Princeton University and has been teaching on issues of state, international security, self-determination, diplomacy, and crisis diplomacy at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and the Department of Politics since 1988. He is also founder and chair of the Liechtenstein Colloquium on European and International Affairs, LCM, a private diplomacy forum.
LSE IDEAS is a foreign policy think tank at the London School of Economics and Political Science. IDEAS was founded as a think tank for Diplomacy and Strategy in February 2008, succeeding the Cold War Studies Centre founded in 2004. It is led by Professor Christopher Alden and Professor Michael Cox. LSE IDEAS has been ranked as the top European university-affiliated think tank and the number two university-affiliated think tank in the world.
The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy is the graduate school of international affairs of Tufts University, in Medford, Massachusetts. Fletcher is one of America's oldest graduate schools of international relations. As of 2017, the student body numbered around 230, of whom 36 percent were international students from 70 countries, and around a quarter were U.S. minorities.
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The Balsillie School of International Affairs (BSIA) is a centre for advanced research and teaching on global governance and international public policy, located in Waterloo, Ontario. As one of the largest social sciences initiatives in Canada, the school is a collaborative partnership between the University of Waterloo, Wilfrid Laurier University, and the Centre for International Governance Innovation. The BSIA is an affiliate member of the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs, a group of schools that educate leaders in international affairs. The BSIA is housed in the north and west wings of the CIGI Campus. Admission to BSIA is highly selective.
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