Politics and International Relations BA (Hons)

This module aims to develop our students’ understanding of contemporary British and European politics. Students will focus on political systems in order to develop an awareness how the different layers of political structures and hierarchies interact, both internally within Britain, and internationally between the major European powers, and through political structures such as the European Union.

This module engages students in a critical assessment of issues around identity in the field of politics and international relations. It develops concepts and methods related to identity politics, including gender and sexuality, race and racism, class and culture, nationalism, religion, ethnicity, LGBT, disability, equality, power, discrimination, domination and oppression. Students are introduced to political issues and movements surrounding identity politics, such as feminism and intersectionality, right-wing populism, postcolonialism, antisemitism, Islamophobia, political correctness, #MeToo movement, no-platforming and safe spaces.

Since the second world war international organizations have become prominent players in the international system. Debate continues in academic and policy communities over why international organizations exist, whether they matter in global politics, and how useful they are in alleviating global problems. The goal of this module is to develop an advanced theoretical and practical understanding of international organizations (IOs) and the main policies they action in the international system. Upon completion of the module, students should be able to articulate the leading explanations within international relations for why IOs exist, what policies they put forward, what controversies surround IOs in the context of international relations theory, and the main strengths and challenges IOs face in meeting their objectives.

This module consists of theoretical and experiential components to enable students to examine and critically evaluate theories and concepts of Politics and International Relations in applied settings. It encourages students to develop an in-depth knowledge of organisation-specific concepts and theories within their chosen field, and they are required to carry out a minimum of 30 hours of experiential learning in an organisation. They will be guided in terms of the theoretical constructs they should examine for their placements and seminars concerning the key theories in the field will be given. The experiential learning itself will take the form of participant observation. The module encourages students to reflect upon and work towards their career goals, enabling them to focus on acquiring and demonstrating the relevant skills for their target employers and further training providers.

This module concentrates on the major current issues involved in Asia, Latin America and Africa in the field of Politics and International Relations. The historical and theoretical background to these issues will involve the relationship between the state and civil society, clientelism and the issues around religion, nationalism, democracy and authoritarianism. The position of NGO’s and international interventions will also be investigated, where applicable, to the regional international relations dynamic. In order to facilitate this study, students will be inducted into the methodologies appropriate to comparative political analysis. By the end of the module students will be able to use conceptual tools to analyse current affairs involving democracy, authoritarianism, clientelism and other such topics relating to problems in Asia, Latin America and Africa.

This module will introduce students to the basic challenges and difficulties a scientific research into Politics and International Relations involves, and to prepare them for undertaking a research project for their final year undergraduate dissertation. It provides them with initial knowledge and skills for planning, designing and interpreting research into politics and international relations. They will learn about practical and philosophical challenges into social science research, and how to formulate practically useful research questions. It presents them with a typical range of research methods, an overview of the different kinds of data they produce, and different ways to analyse that data. A special focus is given to formulating research questions with an appreciation of the kinds of methodological approaches useful in answering them. By the end of this module students will have a better awareness of the difficulties involved in undertaking research into Politics and International Relations, and the limits to research those difficulties impose.

This module will expose students to the research interests of the lecturers within the department, giving them an opportunity to develop the module content around their research interests, and how they relate to current issues in politics and international relations. The content of the module is therefore not set, but indicative content reflecting contemporary issues and debates would include the following (the intention is that only one of these, or similar, topics would be covered in depth):

• Debate between Rawls and Nozick on redistributive justice, concentrating on John Rawls’ Theory of Justice and Robert Nozick’s Anarchy State and Utopia.
• Critique of contemporary global capitalism via selected readings of Ha-Joon Chang’s Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism; Jonathan Tepper and Denise Hern’s The Myth of Capitalism and David Graeber’s Debt: The First 5000 Years.
• Democracy and inequality (Rawls, G.A. Cohen, through Alan Thomas’: Republic of Equals: Predistribution and Property-Owning Democracy.
• The problem of multiculturalism with Will Kymlicka’s Multicultural Citizenship.

As the module exposes students to the research interests of the lecturers within the department, it will equip them with a deeper understanding of a major political theory or a problem. By doing so it also encourages students to develop their own critical abilities in engaging with the literature in order to experience how theoretical research in politics actually happens.

This module aims to engage students in the actual diplomatic mechanisms of conflict resolution and crisis management. They will start by exploring concepts such as conflict, crisis, conflict resolution and crisis management in the global context, including an exploration of the rapidly changing nature of contemporary conflicts. They will study various empirical case studies, where different causes of international crises and conflicts are discussed in their contemporary contexts. Finally, through the presentation of different international organisations directly involved in crisis management and peacekeeping (OSCE, EU, NATO, UN, NGOs), formal mechanisms of conflict resolution in international politics are discussed, paying particular attention to the limits of these formal mechanisms in the changing nature of contemporary conflicts. The students are expected to critically assess the limits and strengths of traditional tools of conflict management and to engage in a live simulation of an actual or hypothetical crisis in the UN Security Council. The students will work in groups during the simulation to find a joint solution by applying all the theoretical and practical knowledge and diplomatic skills acquired during the module.

This module introduces students to the terrain of political sociology. The parameters of this interdisciplinary subject area have been mapped out over the last twenty years or so. The content intersects both perennial political issues, such as that of power, with wider social institutions, such as the family, religion, or the media. Students on this module will study Luke’s classic text on power as a basis for discussing the intersection between politics and civil society. Indicative topics include Weber, bureaucracy & charismatic leadership, ideology, political violence, terrorism, the concept of revolution, totalitarianism and new social movements.

This module will explore how human rights theory has developed (both up to and since) the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. The expansion of rights-based arguments from Thomas Paine through to contemporary theory will be discussed, as well as the expansion in the international law of rights such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), and other international human rights treaties. Further issues include the rights of indigenous peoples and issues around global development and social justice. By the end of the module, you will have explored the specific philosophical and theoretical literature on human rights and have acquired an understanding of the historical development of rights-based arguments. You will have learned to evaluate a broad range of issues and contexts related to the national, regional and international human rights doctrines, their tensions and their application, to contextualise the issues of politics and morality to a given human rights question.