Teaching Politics

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international-relations

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Free simulations, lesson materials, open textbooks, primary sources, and survey guides for teaching and studying politics and international relations.

Published

2 November 2026

This guide gathers free material for instructors and students in politics and international relations courses: role-play simulations, ready-made lessons and syllabi, open textbooks, primary-source collections, and help with building class surveys. Begin with the three picks under Start here, then browse the sections that fit your course.

Start here

NATO Enlargement in 1994 (CFR Education) — Free Council on Foreign Relations role-play set in January 1994, as former Soviet-bloc states ask to join NATO.
Statecraft Simulations — Commercial platform of student-led online simulations for international relations and government courses.
The Avalon Project — Yale Law School’s collection of documents in law, history, and diplomacy, from ancient texts to the present.

Simulations and games

Russia and NATO in the Baltics in 2016 (CFR Education) — Role-play set before a NATO summit, after Russia’s annexation of Crimea, as the Baltic states face Russian pressure.
Cyber Clash With China (CFR Education) — Role-play in which U.S.-China tensions rise after a major cyberattack on the Nasdaq.
U.S. Arctic Policy (CFR Education) — Shorter simulation on whether the United States should launch a new Arctic policy given climate change and Chinese and Russian activity.
Strategic Ambiguity Toward Taiwan (CFR Education) — Mini-simulation on whether the United States should keep its policy of strategic ambiguity toward Taiwan.
U.S. Foreign Policy: Multilateralism or Unilateralism? (CFR Education) — Mini-simulation asking whether a U.S. president should favour multilateral or unilateral foreign policy.
How To Do Simulation Games — Practical and theoretical advice for instructors who want to run simulation games in their teaching.

Lesson materials

NATO: The World’s Largest Alliance (CFR Education) — Timeline of NATO’s history from the end of the Second World War to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
250 Years of American Foreign Policy (CFR Education) — Timeline tracing the United States from a fragile early republic to a global superpower.
Six Essential International Organizations You Need to Know (CFR Education) — Short reading on six major international organizations and their role in global governance.
What Is Sovereignty? (CFR Education) — Explainer video, with transcript, on sovereignty as the foundation of the modern state system.
Intro to American Government Syllabus with Open Pedagogy Annotations (APSA Educate) — An annotated introductory American government syllabus explaining an open-pedagogy approach.
Group Activity: Write Your Own Headlines (APSA Educate) — Classroom group activity from APSA’s teaching resource library.
EuropeNow Syllabi — Course syllabi on European topics published by the Council for European Studies’ journal.
The Jigsaw Classroom — Explains the jigsaw technique, a cooperative-learning method in which students teach each other parts of a topic.
The Collective Action Problem — Lecture outline defining economic rationality and the collective action problem.

Open textbooks

Political Science OER (Cal Poly Humboldt) — Library guide to open, free teaching materials for political science.
International Studies OER (Cal Poly Humboldt) — The same library’s guide to open materials for international studies.
Social Sci LibreTexts — Open-access social science textbooks from the multi-institution LibreTexts project.
OAPEN Library — Library of open-access academic books, many in the humanities and social sciences.
Open Book Publishers — Independent open-access academic book publisher covering politics, international relations, and the humanities.

Primary sources

The Founders’ Constitution — University of Chicago Press anthology of founding-era documents, arranged by the parts of the Constitution.
U.S. Constitution (Cornell LII) — Full text of the Constitution from Cornell’s Legal Information Institute, with explanatory notes.
Oyez — U.S. Supreme Court case summaries with oral-argument audio.
Virtual Reading Room (National Security Archive) — Search thousands of declassified U.S. government documents collected by the National Security Archive.
CVCE.eu European Integration Collections — University of Luxembourg digital research infrastructure on the European integration process, with treaties, diplomatic archives, and oral histories.

Survey tools for class projects

Illinois Qualtrics Guide — Step-by-step guide to creating, distributing, and reading results from a Qualtrics survey.
Qualtrics: Designing Accessible Surveys (University of Minnesota) — Checklist for building Qualtrics surveys that meet accessibility standards.