What is ICPS?
The program at Reed in international and comparative policy studies (ICPS) is designed to meet the academic needs of students interested in pursuing a major involving interdisciplinary work in the areas of globalization, international relations, comparative policy, and international economic development. Course offerings reflect the interests of faculty members working in this general domain. Courses applicable to the ICPS major come from relevant areas within the departments of anthropology, economics, history, political science, and sociology; students are expected to concentrate their ICPS course of study in one of these four departments (anthropology, history, political science, or sociology), providing students with a firm disciplinary basis within the social sciences. ICPS majors will be identified by their home department of concentration as ICPS-anthropology, ICPS–history, ICPS–political science, or ICPS–sociology.
To be admitted to the ICPS program, a student must apply to the ICPS Committee for acceptance to upper-division standing prior to declaring their major. Applications for the major are due Monday of the 12th week of the second semester (11th week of instruction) of the sophomore year. First-semester juniors may apply by Friday of the first week of the first semester of their junior year. Since acceptance into the ICPS program is not automatic, applicants should be prepared to pursue an alternative course of study.
ICPS is not a department, but an interdisciplinary committee composed of faculty from the Division of History and Social Sciences. Like a department, the Committee monitors your progress in meeting your degree requirements. ICPS is not a substitute for a department; rather, it guides a student through a home department in a particular way.
While you can certainly focus on any country or region of your choice in the course of your study, including the United States, the ICPS program does not require that you do so. What the ICPS Committee primarily requires is that you develop a range of analytical skills to study either international or comparative policy issues that could be applicable to any area of the world. Students must take either an interdisciplinary-international or an interdisciplinary-comparative approach to policy in their subject area.
What counts as an ICPS course?
ICPS courses engage in international, comparative, and/or policy analysis from a wide variety of perspectives.
- International includes, but is not limited to, relationships that occur between, across, or among countries; phenomena within countries that affect those relationships; and effects of those relationships on countries; global or transnational organizations, structures, cultures, governance systems, and other phenomena. Examples include war, trade, globalization, foreign policy, and international development.
- Comparative includes, but is not limited to, the explicit and systematic comparison of social phenomena across organizational units (cities, counties, states, countries, regions, etc.) or time with a focus on patterns of similarity and difference using concepts that are applicable across the dimensions of comparison. Examples include comparisons of domestic policy, voting, corruption, repertoires of violence, and policy processes.
- Policy includes, but is not limited to, formal laws, rules, or regulations as well as institutional norms, principles, and practices that direct or influence the actions, behaviors, and decisions of others whether through public, private, or hybrid governance systems.