Your final writing assignment for this class is to write a foreign policy brief (of approximately 7-8 pages) for the Trump Administration, on a
... [Show More] contemporary or emerging foreign policy issue of your choosing.
This is an advocacy brief, meaning that the objective is to advocate for and recommend a particular policy or course of action for the United States. This does not mean that you should cherry-pick your research, only that you should be prepared to make a reasoned argument for the United States to solve, improve, or counter a difficulty that merits our collective attention.
Components of Foreign Policy Brief
• Title page: This should include the title of your paper, an executive summary that summarizes the information in the brief, and your ultimate recommendation. Your reader should be able to tell, from the very first page, what you will talk about and what direction you think American foreign policy should take on your issue.
• Introduction: The introduction lays out the specific policy question or case and provides a brief overview of the components of your paper (a thesis).
• Background of the Case (2-3 pages): This section should bring your reader up to date on the case that you have selected. Include a succinct description of relevant historical background, and of the facts as they stand today. Be sure to discuss the various actors involved in your selected case, the problems, and the facts that are relevant to your analysis.
o You should also clearly explain why this is an issue that the United States should care about. Why should this topic (out of all the things that the United States could make into policy) make it onto the President’s agenda?
• Analysis and Presentations of Options (3-4 pages): Now, how should the United States update, alter, or create a new foreign policy to address this issue? Lay out the policy options that are available to the United States (you should present at least two but no more than four substantively different options) and analyze the implications of each policy option. This is where you (speaking as a scholar and analyst) think through the implications of policies and the costs and benefits of pursuing each option.
• Conclusion and Recommendation (2 pages): This section should summarize your findings and whatever other conclusions you derived from the research, and make a professional policy recommendation. Explain your reasoning for choosing this single policy recommendation.
Style, Formatting, Miscellaneous:
All papers will be typed in 12 point standard font, double-spaced, with one-inch margins all around. Pages shall be numbered at the bottom.
You must have your title page as a separate cover page with your name, the title of your brief, and an executive summary.
While you can use our class readings as starting points, for this memo you should draw primarily your own research; your memo should include at least 6 sources (scholarly books and articles, policy memos) that we did not use in class.
Using Chicago Manual Style, List all of the sources you cited or relied upon in the paper, and only those sources that are referenced in the paper. If you used additional sources that were not explicitly referenced in your paper, do not list them in the bibliography. [Show Less]