You will study three core units (chosen from a total of five options, listed below), an additional core unit (options vary from year to year), two elective units, and write a dissertation over the summer. Course units include one of three disciplinary training pathway courses, a course in research design, Transnational Security Studies, and specialist options in security studies and international relations.
Students studying for the Postgraduate Diploma do not undertake the dissertation.
Core course units:
Transnational Security Studies
This course introduces students to how the area of security studies has evolved to include ever more transnational dynamics. It outlines how scholars have traditionally understood security before progressing to examine how the study of security has developed. Each week of the course is designed to introduce students to important aspects of security studies to give them the theoretical and conceptual awareness to apply to issues of security today.
Introduction to Quantitative Research Methods in Politics and International Relations
You will be introduced to quantitative methods commonly used in the study of politics and international relations. You will acquire the skills to understand, critically analyse, and carry out a range of quantitative techniques, using statistical software packages such as SPSS.
Introduction to Qualitative Methods in Politics and International Relations
You will be provided with an introduction to core theories and qualitative approaches in politics and international relations. You will examine a number of explanatory/theoretical frameworks, their basic assumptions, strengths and weaknesses, and concrete research applications. You will consider the various qualitative techniques available for conducting search research, the range of decisions qualitative researchers face, and the trade-offs researchers must consider when designing qualitative research.
Foundations of Contemporary Political Theory
You will explore key texts and ideas that underpin a variety of late 20th and early 21st century approaches in political thought, such as contractarianism, pragmatism, genealogy, deconstruction, and contextual history.
Research Design in Politics and International Relations
This unit focuses on the process and practice of research in politics and international relations: the principles and procedures that guide scholars in PIR as they conduct research, the kinds of questions they ask, and the variety of decisions that they must make.
Dissertation (MSc only)
The dissertation gives you the opportunity to study an aspect of Security Studies in depth. You will be assigned a dissertation supervisor and the length of the piece will be 12-15,000 words.
Elective course units:
(N.B. Not all course units are available every year)
Africa and International Politics
This course explores the international politics of sub-Saharan Africa since the 1960s. In particular, it charts the ways in which geopolitical, ideological and economic shifts have helped shape and change African states’ role and engagement in the world.
Biopolitics and Security
Michel Foucault introduced the concept of ‘biopolitics’ to name a series of power relations that developed in the early modern period and that took the life of the body politic as their object. The emergence of this biopolitical regime involved an intense focus on the efficient management of population, economy, and dynamics that flow across permeable state boundaries. Biopolitical practices did not do away with more traditional forms of power relations (such as sovereign forms that operated through the threat of death and by holding a monopoly on violence within the state) or politics (such as geopolitics that sought to secure territory and rested on principles of realpolitik and the balance of power). However, it did modify the place of these older forms within a new relationship between power, knowledge, and discourse. This course will explore these ideas as they are developed in Foucault and other contemporary theorists and as they are applied to a variety of security issues both within and beyond the boundaries of the territorial nation-state.
China in the World
As an increasingly crucial force in world politics today, China is much discussed but less well understood. The aim of this unit is to critically examine Chinese foreign policy and China’s impact on the international system and society in order to understand the origins, nature and consequences of its current ascendance. This unit will equip and require you to evaluate the options and prospects for the exercise of Chinese power and the role of China in international society in the contemporary era.
Comparative Political Executives
This unit explores the political executives of established democratic systems, focusing on institutions – presidents, prime ministers, cabinets and so on – and how they function and interact with other parts of the political system. You will gain knowledge of the ‘nuts and bolts’ of the executives in question, and will also gain useful insights into the difficulties of political leadership, the centrality of political executives and the interdependence of executives with other parts of the political system.
Contemporary Continental Political Theory
You will be introduced to key questions and arguments concerning the relationship between identity, power, meaning and knowledge, through examination of key figures in contemporary continental political thought. You will develop the ability to critically reflect about the nature and scope of politics and ethics through engagement with texts that have sought to provide insights and new ways of thinking about these realms.
Culture and Community
You will cover a number of debates concerning the claims for recognition made by minority cultures and nations. The introductory session outlines the liberal perspective against which the multiculturalist critique is addressed. Thereafter, you will cover the assault on ‘false neutrality’ and a variety of attempts to overcome it, address a number of issues raised by multiculturalism, and you will focus on the resurgence of nationality as an ethically significant concept.
Democracy and Citizenship in Europe
This unit is designed to introduce you to the theory and practice of democracy and citizenship in Europe. You will be offered a distinctive perspective on the nature of democracy and citizenship in Western Europe today (with a particular focus on the UK, Germany and France, and using the United States as a comparator). It explores the roots of democracy and citizenship and asks to what extent those basic principles are still valid today.
Democracy in Comparative Perspective
The core aim of this unit is to provide you with a sound understanding of contemporary thinking about democracy and democratisation in different national and supra-national contexts.
Foreign Policy of the European Union
You will be provided with a systematic understanding of knowledge relating to the role of the European Union in international relations. You will develop a critical awareness of current research and methodologies within international relations relating to the development of the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the EU. You will also study conceptual tools for analysing and evaluating complex problems of order and justice in international relations.
Human Rights
You will explore some of the key issues which arise in the moral evaluation of human rights, both in general and with respect to particular rights. You will explore the role of rights in political and moral discourse and consider some of the key criticisms to which they’ve been subject. You will also explore three major categories of rights which have attracted much debate: economic rights, minority rights, and group rights. The final section of the unit will consider three central rights in liberal societies, examining the ways in which they have been interpreted and defended in the light of recent political debates.
Identity, Power and Radical Political Theory
You will be introduced to new conceptualizations of identity, difference, power, and politics that are associated most notably with what has been termed “Post-Marxist” or “New Left” politics and political philosophy. Its premise is that recent changes in both political theory and practice – some of which are associated with changes linked to globalisation and the emergence of new social movements – are compelling a paradigm shift in the way politics is understood.
Issues in United States Foreign Policy
Described by some as a “hyperpower” – that is a state which has surpassed the other great powers in the international system – the foreign policy of the United States has a significant impact on international politics. This course therefore focuses on the historical and contemporary ideas that animate US foreign policy. You will engage with a range of advanced texts and to interrogate these texts with regard to their relevance to contemporary American foreign policy.
Internet and New Media Politics
Drawing predominantly upon specialist academic journal literatures, this unit focuses on a number of important contemporary debates about the role and influence of new technologies on the values, processes and outcomes of: global governance institutions; public bureaucracies; representative institutions including political parties and legislatures; pressure groups and social movements.
Media, War and Conflict
The post-9/11 global security situation and the 2003 Iraq war have prompted a marked increase in interest in questions concerning media, war and conflict. This unit examines the relationships between media, governments, military, and audiences/publics, in light of old, new, and potential future security events.
Political Violence
This course seeks to provide an analytical and theoretical tool kit for understanding political violence, broadly defined. This ranges from riots and political assassinations to acts of terrorism, ethnic cleansing and genocide. The major questions running throughout the course will be why political violence takes place, how we can explain why violence is resorted to as a political tool or tactic, and why particular types of violence become prominent at particular times.
The Politics of Ethnic Multiculturalism
You will develop a solid knowledge of the history of Muslim migration and settlement in Britain, comparing their history with that of British Hindus and you will examine the origins and emergence of multiculturalism with regard to the politics of minority ethnic British communities. You will also examine critics of multiculturalism and their alternative political prescriptions.
Politics of Forced Migration
You will study ‘forced migration’, particularly refugees and IDPs, rather than economic or ‘voluntary’ migration. You will examine both the theoretical issues arising out of mass displacement, as well as specific case studies. You will also explore various policy options in naming and labelling, caring for and dealing with such mass upheavals.
Sovereignty, Rights, and Justice
You will engage with cutting edge contemporary international political/normative theory and apply theory to a number of key normative issues in the international system, exploring the differences between theory and practice. You will also be provided with a framework for thinking about challenging issues in the international system.
Theories of Globalisation
The meaning and causes of globalisation are highly contested. Some theorists hold that it is the logical outcome of capitalism and the development of world markets, or the result of information technologies with transformative implications for state, society and the individual. Others argue that it is the outcome of long-term processes through which the world has become shaped by certain cultural norms, or by the diffusion of rational models of societal organization leading to something akin to a world polity. In this unit, globalisation is understood in terms of the social, economic, and political processes resulting in greater interconnectedness coupled with a heightened awareness among people that they inhabit “one world.”
Transnational Security and the Law of Targeting
The aim of the course is to introduce students to the basic concepts of international law and how these concepts are applied to targeting during an armed conflict. It will enable students to develop critical thinking about what the law consists of and about how the legal rules are represented in certain important writings. The final aim is to show how the legal rules are applied in practice, in relation to particular types of attack.
On completion of the course graduates will have:
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an advanced knowledge and critical understanding of key concepts, theoretical debates, and developments related to security studies
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a sound knowledge of the texts, theories and methods used to enhance understanding of the issues, processes and phenomena associated with particular fields of politics and international relations
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an advanced knowledge and critical understanding of research methods within the disciplines of politics and international relations
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a solid foundation for progression to either a politics-related career or continued academic study.