Earlier this week, I posted a photo of myself standing outside my first office at the old political science building to mark my 30th year teaching at Stanford University.

Most reactions were positive. Thirty years is a long time to have the same job (I did take on a few government roles in between)! But there were also the standard criticisms I hear about “wokeism” and “brainwashing” anytime I mention my job at Stanford. So, I thought I’d explain here in more detail how I teach at Stanford.

Before describing my classes and my approach to teaching, I want to emphasize that I am not making a generalization about all teaching at all universities in the United States, or even about teaching at Stanford, or in my political science department. I’m only discussing my courses and my experiences teaching for the last three decades. In the language of our discipline, it is an n = 1. I celebrate the debate our country is having about college curricula today, though I wish it were more grounded in evidence rather than opinion. But my essay is an anecdote about college education, not a research study.

Over the last several years, since returning to campus after government service, I have been teaching three seminars: “‘A New Cold War?’ Great Power Relations in the 21st Century,” “Political Mobilization and Democratic Breakthroughs,” and “Foreign Policy Decision Making in Comparative Perspective.” You can find the syllabi for all three classes on my website.

All three courses are “why” classes, not “what” classes. Why is there conflict between the United States, China, and Russia today? Why was there more cooperation in previous decades and centuries? Why do democratic transitions occur? Why did countries fail to transition to democracy, and others succeed? Why did the United States invade Iraq? Why did China launch the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)?

In attempting to answer these why questions across three courses, there is no single answer. Instead, I set up these courses as explorations of various hypotheses related to great power competition, democratization, and foreign policy behavior. Again, in the language of political science, these courses examine several different independent variables that influence the dependent variable. The entire exercise is about trying to measure causation. For instance, in the great power competition course, is the driver of conflict (1) power, (2) regimes, (3) ideas, or (4) individuals? In the course on democratization (or the lack thereof), do structural domestic variables (i.e., economic modernization or culture), agents (i.e., leaders or political movements), or the international system matter most? Regarding foreign policy decision-making, do bureaucracies matter most, or leaders, or international factors?

Read the complete blog post on the "McFaul's World" Substack.