The first week was … excellent!

First of all, I really enjoy the friendly atmosphere in the group. It’s only seven days that we all met, but it feels like we have known each other for a much a longer time. That’s really, really cool. Second, I guess that my Amazon.com wishlist is a pretty good indicator of the input and all the valuable hints we were given during the first days of the academic program.

On the picture below you see Richard and Aida, who gave us an overview of U.S. Foreign Policy institutions (in particular the Department of State and the Department of Defense, as we will deal with the President and Congress in separate units), U.S. Perspectives on International Security, and the U.S. in the World Economy.

One aspect which I found particularly interesting was our discussion about idealist internationalism and democratic peace. In the next days, I will read through Ido’s article “The Subjectivity of the Democratic Peace”, which he published in International Security (Fall 1995). Before I left Innsbruck for Florida, I had the pleasure to read a draft of David Rowe’s (who is currently Fulbright Professor at our department) latetst criticism of the liberal assumption that globalization enhances peace (click here to read an earlier article by him on this topic). I guess, this topic could stay with me for a while. Not least because there appear to be links to my previous work on rogue states.

Ido also mentioned the following book as a good read on the topic:

I’ve updated the Picasa web album with a couple of picture of today’s trip around Gainesville’s neighborhoods. I will add some more pictures tomorow. Click here to view the album.