Democracy Course Guide

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Professor Peter Furia 

Studies the geographic, demographic, economic, and ideological factors conditioning the policies of states, and the methods and institutions of conflict and adjustment among states, including the functions of power, diplomacy, international law and organization. 

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor David Waldner

Introduction to Comparative Politics surveys the major themes, theories, and methods of domestic politics around the globe in the modern era. Thematically, we examine the gap between rich and poor nations, between democracies and dictatorships, and between civil war and civic orders. Theoretically, we consider theories of political culture, political institutions, and political economy. 

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Professor Colin Bird 

Introduces political philosophy as a mode of inquiry, and consideration of selected problems and writers in Western political theory.

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Professor Dreama Johnson 

This course defines public service and introduces students to the practices that support impactful service. Through speakers, readings, and reflection, students will begin to define their mission, recognize the power of collaboration, evaluate their strengths, and learn from challenges encountered during service. Students will understand how their own rights and responsibilities and those of their fellow citizens combine to sustain democracy.

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Professor Siva Vaidhyanathan 

This course is a survey introduction to the complex and increasingly pervasive impact of mass media in the U.S. and around the world. It provides a foundation for helping you to understand how mass media -- as a business, as well as a set of texts -- operates. The course also explores contextual issues -- how media texts and businesses are received by audiences and by regulatory bodies.

School of Data Science 

Professor Jess Reia 

Explores principles and applications of data ethics within a broader social framework that prioritizes conversations about policy, regulatory frameworks, accountability, transparency, and governance models. Will discuss who is responsible for doing responsible data science, question how our work shapes the world around us, and understand the impacts of big data on people and communities. 

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Professor Emily Burrill 

We will explore the history of human rights through analysis of overviews that emphasize political and social transformations and events, as well as through the study of historical case studies. Our main questions will concern how a powerful rhetoric of human rights has developed, who has spoken on its behalf (and who has been heard), and how human rights claims have intersected with existing political, institutional, and legal structures over time. We will address human rights atrocities and affronts to humanity, but our emphasis in the class will be on social movements and efforts toward redress and repair through the challenge and the promise of human rights.

School of Data Science 

Professor Mona Sloane 

Explores principles and applications of data ethics within a broader social framework. Works to lay foundational knowledge for more advanced courses in the Value domain of the major. Will discuss who is responsible for doing responsible data science, question how our work shapes the world around us, and understand the impacts of big data on people and communities. 

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Professor Jon Lendon 

Studies the political, military, and social history of Ancient Greece from the Homeric age to the death of Alexander the Great, emphasizing the development and interactions of Sparta and Athens. 

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Professor Sonal Pandya 

Introduces core concepts in political economy, including the institutional bases for states and markets, and the way these interact through the exercise of exit, voice, and collective action. Empirical material drawn from the last five centuries. 

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor Nate Adams 

Examines and evaluates some basic practices and principles of Anglo-American law. Discusses the justification of punishment, the death penalty, legal liability, good samaritan laws, and the legal enforcement of morality. For more details on this class, please visit the department website. 

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Professors Fatima Siwaju and Amir Syed 

This course will introduce students to the multifaceted worlds of Islam, through an interdisciplinary survey of its diverse instantiations across more than1400 years of history, and geographies that span the globe. Drawing on the resources we have at UVA across multiple departments, students will be offered a pluralistic engagement into social, artistic, intellectual, economic and political worlds infused with Islamic sensibilities and ethics. 

Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy 

Professor Peter Johannessen 

This course will introduce students to both the process of public policy and the tools of policy analysis. The first part examines the actors, institutions, and procedures involved in the adoption, implementation, and evaluation of public policy. The second part introduces students to the basic concepts and tools of policy analysis including problem definition, specification of alternatives, and solution analysis. 

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Professor S. Deborah Kang 

This course will trace the origins of today's immigration policy debates by providing students with a comprehensive overview of American immigration law and policy from the eighteenth century to the present. The course will also explore how state and federal policies impacted a wide array of immigrants, including the Irish, Chinese, and Mexican arrivals of the 19th and 20th centuries.

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Professor TBA 

This course explores the theoretical ideas that informed the creation and development of America's political system and considers some of the major contemporary challenges to the maintenance of American liberal democracy. Topics to be treated include the political thought of the American Founders, the place of religion in public life, the nature of written constitutions and the role of America in the world. 

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor Sarah Richardson 

Includes courses on writing studies, corporate communications, and digital writing. For more details on this class, please visit the department website. Prerequisite: Completion of first writing requirement. 

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor Indrani Chatterjee 

This course provides the opportunity to offer a new topic in the subject area of South Asian history. 

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor Kate Sweeney 

This course introduces you to the style and structure of news writing. The main goals are to sharpen your writing, reporting, and critical thinking skills, as well as teach you about news values and ethics. We will focus on writing “hard news” stories and feature stories, and we will draw from current events to discuss what makes news newsworthy. 

The course is practical. It’s designed to teach you to think like a journalist and participate in the truth-telling process by learning to report and write accurate stories on deadline. You’ll receive feedback on your writing, and you will have the opportunity to revise your writing for inclusion in an end-of-the-semester portfolio.

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor Kevin Driscoll 

This is a hands-on introduction to global media history. The course situates technologies, industries, texts and programs in the context of social, cultural, and political changes. Students will acquire basic competencies in historical research and writing: developing research questions, evaluating secondary sources, selecting archives, querying databases, managing notes, citing sources, sharing resources, and communicating findings as a team.

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor Dale Copeland 

Examines the threat and use of military force in international relations. Includes deterrence theory and recent critiques, ethical and international legal considerations, domestic constraints, and the postwar U.S. and Soviet experiences with the use of force. Prerequisite: One course in PLIR or instructor permission. 

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor Gerard Alexander 

Surveys developments since 1945 in democratic stability, party politics, and political economy in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. 

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor Paul Freedman 

Examines the role of mass media in the political process including such topics as print, broadcast, and online news, media and election campaigns, political advertising, and media effects on public opinion and political participation. 

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor Carah Ong Whaley 

This course explores how artificial intelligence technologies are being developed and used in politics. Participants gain experiential learning opportunities to creatively address challenges AI technologies pose, such as manipulating voter behavior, exacerbating inequalities in political access and participation, and undermining public confidence in institutions and elections. 

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor Kimberly Fields  

This course is dedicated to examining government responses to environmental injustice. Our readings and discussions will use an interdisciplinary social-science perspective to track the trajectory of environmental justice activism and official responses to it in the five states (DE, MD, PA, VA, WVA) the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) has designated as comprising the important but understudied mid-Atlantic region. 

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor Justin Kirkland 

Focuses on the contemporary organization and workings of the United States Congress. Emphasizes elections, the committee system, political parties, staff, and the law-making process, as well as the role of Congress in the national policy making system.

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor Denise Walsh 

Focuses on the state and how power is gendered in the developing world. Topics include feminist methods and concepts, women in the military, nationalism, women's movements, quotas, citizenship and globalization. Cross-listed with SWAG 3350.

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor Larry Sabato 

Provides students with the opportunity to be directly involved with the research, programming, operations, and outreach of the University's non-profit, non-partisan Center for Politics. Includes projects focused on state and national politics, political history, civic engagement, voter behavior, media and politics, campaign finance and political analysis. 

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor Evan Pivonka 

This course explores the historical development of the American economic system since the Founding, and its relationship with political institutions. We will examine various economic regimes such as mercantilism, Progressivism, the welfare state, and neoliberalism, among others. While some basic economic principles will occasionally be drawn upon, no previous knowledge of economics is required for the course. 

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor Fatima Siwaju 

Reading, class discussion, and written assignments on a special topic in African-American and African Studies. Topics change from term to term, and vary with the instructor. 

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor Anne Meng 

This course will provide an introduction to game theory: the study of strategic interactions. We will examine topics in comparative politics and international relations through the lens of game theory. For instance, why do countries go to war, instead of negotiating? How do parties choose their political platforms? There are no math requirements for this class, though some knowledge of basic algebra may be helpful.

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor Sophia Solomon 

Analysis of selected issues and concepts in comparative politics. 

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor Colin Bird 

Special topics in political theory.

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor Amir Syed 

Required for history majors, to be completed before enrollment in the Major Seminar. Introduces a variety of approaches to the study of history, methods for finding and analyzing primary and secondary sources, and the construction of historical arguments. Workshops are offered on a variety of topics each term. 

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor Indrani Chatterjee 

This course set out to answer a question from an undergraduate student: Why are so many poor of the world women? The course tries to answer with reference to women of the Indian subcontinent. This course teaches students two distinct and graduated forms of historical writing. One is review: It begins with learning the skills of summary (presenting the main points of another text concisely) and is completed by learning skills of evaluating texts in terms of their "sources," interpretative methods, persuasiveness in comparison with other similar texts. Required for history majors; to be completed before enrollment in the Major Seminar.

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor Aaron Martin 

Media policy is increasingly gravitating away from the confines of the Washington Beltway, think tanks, and law schools, and entering into the conversations of mainstream media and everyday people, with terms like “net neutrality” and “fake news”, for example, part of American vernacular. Media policy is also being transformed by digitalization—that is, the integration of digital technology into media services and platforms.  

These policies have broad impacts. They influence what cell provider is available in your area, what channels you are able to watch on TV or—increasingly—to stream, what content you can access online, and the speed of your home Internet connection. These issues are becoming ever more complex and vital to democracy as the digital world becomes more interconnected, converged, and corporately concentrated. 

 Understanding the foundations of the laws, policies, and regulations that govern our digital media and communication systems has become a necessity in our everyday lives as consumers and citizens. More than this, understanding the language of policy, the methods of policy analysis, and the politics of policy can help us translate complex policy issues vital to democracy. 

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor Lauren Bridges 

Metaphors like “the cloud” suggest our digital environment is immaterial (substituting the material for the virtual) and ephemeral (short-lived). However, our digital worlds both rely on the physical environment—from water needed to cool computer servers to rare earth minerals for magnets in hard-disk drives – and impact our environments by adding to carbon emissions, leeching toxic metals into groundwater, and eroding natural waterways, among other issues. This course introduces students to the relationship between digital media and the environment. Students will learn critical perspectives to examine cultural representations of digital media, how digital tools shape environments, and the material impacts of digital media technologies on the surrounding natural and built environment. Students will explore topics such as AI and the environment, representations of “green” digital media, the hidden tech supply chain, and the global flows of e-waste. 

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor Lauren Bridges 

The global market value of AI is estimated to reach nearly $2 trillion by 2030. Given its rapid and transformational nature, AI poses sticky challenges for policymakers to find a balance between innovation and regulation of risks. This course introduces students to critical debates surrounding AI governance and AI ethics. Students will evaluate statutory and regulatory requirements, guidelines, and frameworks for AI covering a broad range of issues, including data governance, privacy, intellectual property, bias and discrimination, explainability and transparency, mis- and disinformation, labor practices, policing and military uses of AI, and the vast environmental impacts of this computationally intensive technology. Each week we’ll consider these issues from a legal/policy perspective and analyze AI-specific policies (e.g. The EU AI Act) to see how they address (or not) the plethora of social issues. By the end of the course, students have a toolkit to critically assess AI policy frameworks and propose actionable solutions.

Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy 

Professor Paul Martin 

This class examines how citizens, leaders, interest groups, and activists work to reshape our understanding of problems over time and investigates why some problems gain policy attention while others languish. The class emphasizes the complexity of understanding, designing, and implementing large-scale policies that attempt to address problems that are ultimately experienced by people in specific contexts and communities. 

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor Aynne Kokas 

The growth of media industries in China sits at the intersection between commerce, technology, and policy. The objective of the course is to cultivate a rigorous understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of these three areas within the context of China's global expansion. Students will also be expected to develop fresh critical perspectives on the significance of analysis of industry practice as a means to critique media texts. 

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor Elizabeth Gorman 

Many goals require the combined efforts of multiple individuals, from developing a new product to providing health care to the poor. Yet individuals have their own interests, so how do organizations keep them coordinated? And what are the impacts of organizations on social inequality and social institutions such as democracy? This course introduces the study of organizations in their cultural, economic and political environments. 

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor David Nemer 

This course studies the relationship between social media and Global South societies. Students in this course will analyze the various theories related to the effects and affordances of social media on ideological polarization, social influence, social capital, and social movements. Students will be required to look beyond positive/negative effects of social media, and conduct in-depth interrogations about issues that surround them. 

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor Holly Vradenburgh 

Studies the legislative, executive, and judicial branches and the functional and territorial distribution of powers as reflected by Supreme Court decisions. Includes the nature of the judicial process. (No CR/NC enrollees.) 

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor Andrew Kahrl  

This course examines the history of housing and real estate and explores its role in shaping the meaning and lived experience of race in modern America. We will learn how and why real estate ownership, investment, and development came to play a critical role in the formation and endurance of racial segregation, modern capitalism, and the built environment. 

School of Education and Human Development 

Professor Beth Schueler 

Education policy has taken center stage in a variety of national, state and local debates such as teacher evaluation, universal pre-K, school accountability, and charter schools. These are issues around which there is often contentious debate, much of which is polarized and simplistic. This class will explore a few current education policy debates through the lenses of conceptual models and empirical evidence. 

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor Paul Freedman 

Explores the role of political advertising in American democracy. Examines ad messages as strategic political communications, analyzing both classic and contemporary ads. Explores the effects (if any) of political advertising on citizens' attitudes and behavior. 

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor Carol Mershon 

Examines how and why legislators and legislative parties make the decisions they do. Compares legislative decision-making processes and outcomes in a variety of institutional settings. Prerequisite: At least two courses at the 3000 level in American politics and/or comparative politics. 

Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy 

Professor Peter Johannessen 

What are the strengths and weaknesses of the major policy-making institutions, and how does the current system of American governance compare with that of other advanced societies? This class will examine the key institutional and political actors in policymaking; focusing on the increasing role of non-governmental institutions in problem solving. 

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor James Savage 

This course examines how the world’s major states and regions manage their public finances through their budgetary processes and institutions.  Budgeting is a core state function.  Effective budgeting enables the state to plan, prioritize, allocate scarce public resources, manage the bureaucracy, and provide essential public services.  Competent budgeting contributes to efficacious fiscal and macroeconomic policies.  Budgeting and the government it serves can be transparent, participatory, and promote democratic decision making, or it can be opaque, hierarchical, and encourage authoritarian rule.  Democratic budgetary institutions contribute to the rule of law, transparent decision making, a culture of bargaining and compromise, deliberation in the distribution of resources, an efficacious civil society, and accountability in the management of public funds.  Thus, public financial management is the fine art and practice of budgeting, spending, and managing public money.  Cases studied in this class include the European Union, the United States, Japan, China, and selected developing and conflict/post-conflict countries.  Particular attention will be paid to the role of international organizations, budgetary institutions, and the economic, political, and social conditions that influence how governments manage their public finances through their budgetary processes. 

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor James Savage 

This course examines the development of American political thought from the Puritans through the Civil War. The questions they posed and attempted to answer are the eternal questions of all political thought, such as, what is the best form of government; what are the rights and obligations of citizens; what is the proper relationship between the state and religion. 

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor John Owen 

Conceives of the international system as hierarchical, and considers how states gain, maintain, and lose predominance; whether hierarchy is necessary to international order; and how hierarchy affects the options of smaller states and other actors. Prerequisites: At least one course in PLIR. 

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor Larry Sabato 

This class examines campaigns and elections from the perspective(s) of a candidate for public office and their staff. The objectives of the class are to provide students with a better understanding of the evolution of political campaigns, campaign strategies and political parties in the United States. We examine how candidates interact with the electorate; study some common effects of interest groups on political campaigns; and explore the processes of image-making and widely used techniques for influencing public perception of candidates and campaigns.  We examine these and other common challenges and requirements that confront candidates and campaigns leading up to, and during a typical campaign for public office all as students run a mock campaign for the United States Senate. 

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor John Owen 

This course explores how different countries sometimes disagree about the best way to order society and the world – for example, some are more democratic and others more authoritarian – and how those disagreements can complicate international relations. 

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor Amber Mackey 

Some argue that a good representative should mirror the desires of their constituents. But what does this look like in practice? What happens if their constituent desires conflict with their own? What happens if their constituents are divided? What is it that makes a good representative—and is it even possible to represent all constituents well? 

We will start this course by examining theories that try to understand different puzzles of representation. After establishing some familiarity with concepts like congruence and responsiveness, we’ll apply these theories and ideas to questions of race in the United States in both historical and contemporary periods. Are racial and ethnic minority constituents represented differently than white constituents? If so, how? How does the legislative behavior of racial and ethnic minority representatives differ? Each week we’ll tackle a new topic from redistricting to symbolic representation to campaigns and racial appeals. By the end of the course, each student will complete a research paper tackling an original question on race and representation in the United States. 

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor Albert Rivero 

American courts decide many important questions of public policy. Not all judges are elected, however, and there have long been debates about how much judges should be insulated from the public. This course will consider topics such as judicial elections and appointments, the relationship between public opinion and judicial behavior, the role of courts in the electoral process, and normative questions about the role of judges in a democracy. 

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor TBA 

Investigates a selected issue in American government or American political development. Prerequisite: One course in PLAP or instructor permission.

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor Todd Sechser

Intensive analysis of selected issues and concepts in international relations. Prerequisite: One course in PLIR or instructor permission.

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor Jennifer Rubenstein 

Investigates a special problem of political theory such as political corruption, religion and politics, science and politics, or the nature of justice. Prerequisite: One course in PLPT or instructor permission.

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor Charles Kromkowski 

School of Education and Human Development  

Professor Rachel Wahl 

Is it inevitable that classrooms and schools look similar across the world? Why have modern education systems been adopted by societies with a diversity of local histories, cultures, and resources? This course examines the effort to increase access to modern Western schooling, explores countervailing conceptions of education, and considers what is gained and lost in modern schooling.

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor Denise Walsh 

Investigates the ways social structures and institutions shape gender in sub-Saharan Africa, with an emphasis on the state. Topics include gender in the pre-colonial and colonial era, contemporary African women's movements, women in politics, development, HIV/AIDS, and sexuality.

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences  

Professor Laurent Dubois 

This course will explore the intertwined history of the American, French and Haitian Revolutions and how they shaped the democratic culture and institutions of the modern world. The class will include works of history, literature and film, as well as primary source materials in UVA’s special collections. We will also explore public history and cultural memory in the context of the commemorations of the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence. 

School of Architecture 

Professor Andrea Roberts 

In this course students grapple with the dynamic tensions between planning and democracy, the various responses that have been proposed, and planning failures and successes. They explore the development of theories about how we ought to plan, why, and for whom. 

Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy 

Professor John Holbein 

In this course, students will learn how to create change in the public policy arena by understanding political actors, their interests, and the institutions they inhabit. Students will learn how issues move through the policy process, at which points they are most amenable to influence, and how to create and use professional work products to influence them. 

Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy 

Professor Gerald Warburg 

This course will provide a solid foundation of insights into how Congress works, essential for aspiring public policy advocates. Topics investigated include historical precedents for policymaking, the process of Congressional decision-making, and power dynamics in Congress. We will also identify and develop the leadership skills and tactics of successful advocates, placing recent controversies and public policy issues in a historical context. 

Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy 

Professor Andrew Pennock 

What are the most pressing policy problems facing Virginia and how can they be addressed? Students will learn how the broad historical forces of Virginia's past, her current political institutions, and changing social divisions shape public policy in Virginia today. Student projects will focus on current and future challenges facing the Commonwealth and develop strategies to address them. 

Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy 

Professor Ashley Jardina 

Consider the effect of public opinion on policy in the U.S. What do policymakers believe about citizens' preferences? Whose opinion matters, when does it matter, & why? Do policies always reflect the majority? How has partisan polarization affected policy-making in recent years? Examine questions through lens of some of today's most pressing issues, including immigration policy, social welfare programs, military spending, abortion, and more. 

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor Paulina Ochoa Espejo 

This seminar will provide a unique learning experience that combines interdisciplinary inquiry with diverse forms of scholarly engagement, opportunities to interact with distinguished guests, both academics and community leaders, from on and off-Grounds. The fall semester will be devoted to readings that explore critical, conceptual, and methodological problems on the seminar theme.

School of Law 

Professor TBA 

In American corporate governance, a "proxy fight" occurs when one or more dissident candidates challenge the board's own nominees for election to the board of directors. In the last few years, the rise of shareholder activism and major changes to the SEC's proxy regulations have reinvigorated the proxy fight as a shareholder tool. This Course will explore the proxy fight, with an emphasis on current trends. 

Darden School of Business 

Professor TBA  

This course is about "financial civics," or how the markets, institutions, and instruments in finance have interacted with the public will ("democracy") and its instrument, the regulatory establishment. Finance and democracy have stimulated each other on a recurring basis over the centuries, and this stimulus provokes a response. 

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor Lawrie Balfour 

This new seminar in African American Political Thought will survey the political ideas of Black writers in the US from the founding era to the 21st century. Through our readings and discussions, we will assess the claims that Black Americans have made upon the polity, how they have defined themselves, and how they have sought to redefine the basic terms of American public life. Among the themes that we will explore are the relationship between slavery and democracy, the role of historical memory in political life, the political significance of culture, the connections between “race” and “nation,” and the tensions between self-determination and integration, as well as the meaning of such core political terms as citizenship, freedom, equality, progress, power, and justice. As we focus our attention on these issues, we will address the complex ways in which the concept of race has been constructed and deployed and its interrelationship with gender, sexuality, class, and religion. 

College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 

Professor Daniel Gingerich 

Provides a graduate-level survey of the contributions of rational choice analysis and game-theoretic modeling to topics of central concern in the subfield of comparative politics.

School of Law 

Professor TBA  

This seminar will examine domestic and global defects in democracy, assessing the opportunities and possibilities of trying to harness AI technology to address those flaws.

School of Law 

Professor TBA 

From 1940 to 1990, the United States eventually led the democratic world to victory in two worldwide struggles ‘World War II and the Cold War' against authoritarian systems. This course examines this pair of victories, especially the Cold War, through the role of international law, as well as the interplay between U.S. domestic law and foreign policy.