Spring 2027

American Foreign Policy

A historical and analytical study of U.S. foreign policy since World War II, covering policy evolution, institutions, and 21st-century challenges like 9/11 and foreign aid.

offering recorded3–4 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 Sloane Ward

Summary

1 / 6

Past student reviews · Jon Pevehouse

One student described the course as having a high difficulty level due to a significant volume of assigned readings.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Obtain a better understanding of U.S. foreign policy.

  • Examine current foreign policy issues U.S. policymakers must address.

  • Understand institutional arrangements complicate the policy process.

  • Explore how particular issue areas challenge decision makers.

  • Examine what general theoretical statements can be made about foreign policy.

  • Assess the state of a body of scholarly literature related to course themes, identify gaps in that literature, and formulate an original research question in the context of those gaps.

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
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BC
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F

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

Sophomore standing and (POLI SCI 104, 140, or INTL ST 101) or graduate standing

POLISCI 359

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree

Professors

Spring 2027
Historical instructors & teaching patterns

JON PEVEHOUSE is recorded teaching in Fall 2009, Spring 2015, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Spring 2026. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

KATJA FAVRETTO is recorded teaching in Spring 2010, Fall 2010, Spring 2012, Spring 2014. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
LEC 001Classroom Instruction0 / 1020
DIS 302Classroom Instruction0 / 170
DIS 303Classroom Instruction0 / 170
DIS 304Classroom Instruction0 / 170
DIS 305Classroom Instruction0 / 170
DIS 306Classroom Instruction0 / 170
DIS 307Classroom Instruction0 / 170
DIS 532Classroom Instruction0 / 00

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections. Enrollment reflects scan time.

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Jon Pevehouse

Past students found Jon Pevehouse's lectures super interesting and engaging, noting he kept things lively and made them look forward to class.

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2021: 3.70 GPA, 90.1% A/AB (n=203 letter grades); Fall 2022: 3.86 GPA, 95.9% A/AB (n=49 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.81 GPA, 92.5% A/AB (n=201 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Jon Pevehouse

One student described the course as having a high difficulty level due to a significant volume of assigned readings.

Past student reviews · Jon Pevehouse

A student advised getting started on the final paper early.

Topics

  • Evolution of U.S. policy and impetus behind foreign policy choices since WWII
  • People, institutions, and processes guiding foreign policy formation and implementation
  • 21st-century challenges including response to 9/11 and effectiveness of foreign aid policy

Skills

  • Historical and analytical approaches to U.S. foreign policy
  • Understanding how institutional arrangements complicate the policy process
  • Examining general theoretical statements about foreign policy
  • Assessing scholarly literature and formulating original research questions

Grades

Latest available · Spring 2026— not enough history to project Spring 2027.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Spring 2026

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2026 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1280 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

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Selected offering source records
POLISCI 359 · Spring 2027

American Foreign Policy

Recorded 2026-10-14
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20261014T203208-0851c9a1",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:778:015908",
    "course_id": "POLISCI 359",
    "course_uid": "course_a0de00440cd1d6cba6902e05",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "015908",
    "source_subject_id": "778",
    "title": "American Foreign Policy",
    "credits_min": 3,
    "credits_max": 4,
    "typically_offered": "Fall, Spring, Summer"
  }
]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
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Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "b9124e40bec1379d7c2908714a20f220d6ed3792989fefe92f99a7425e82eb25",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}