Teaching Critical Understandings of Realism through Historical War Simulations

Abstract

This article presents a simple modular simulation for teaching the advantages and limitations of Realist theory in an introductory international relations course. The advantages of this simulation include low preparation time, minimal resource requirements, and ease of integration with existing curricula. The game design is built around Kenneth Waltz's "three-image" framework for analyzing international politics, in a way that increases scenario complexity but not game difficulty. The article describes the full simulation process, from game design and implementation through debriefing and assessment. Two historical simulations were conducted: the first helped students to understand Realism and the second helped them to see its limitations. The article concludes with a discussion of the results of a voluntary, anonymous postgame survey that is intended to assess achievement of our learning objective.

Learning by Creating: Making Games in a Political Science Course

“…In these games, international cooperation is never an option and the role of international institutions is minimized. Indeed, even games designed to teach realism often are too rigid in their emphasis on core realist assumptions, making it difficult for students to recognize the limitations of realism (Mendenhall and Tutunji 2018).…”

“…Games also are a useful way to illustrate how theories work and how they might apply to real-world settings (Asal 2005, 360). It is important for instructors to create game or simulation rules that precisely reflect the theories or reality they want to emphasize (Asal et al 2018;Mendenhall and Tutunji 2018;Sears 2018).…”