MSc — 2025 entry International Relations

The module will examine, from a historical and practice-based perspective, international intervention in response humanitarian crisis, abuses of human rights, state failure, and armed conflict. Students will engage the historical cases of international intervention, to understand why, when, and how intervention talks place in practice. A UN Security Council simulation provides students with the experience of negotiating a resolution for intervention in the context of an evolving humanitarian crisis. Students also benefit from experienced practitioner engagement and a career-focused session.

This module is concerned with understanding the role of leadership in the contemporary political environment. Much attention tends to be absorbed in observing institutional factors driving change, such as parties, parliaments and demography. However, this module establishes leadership as a vital factor in politics. This unit explores the various theoretical perspectives on the role of political leadership, including charisma and psychological approaches. It uses a range of examples to illustrate key dimensions of leadership and considers to what extend the requirement of political leadership have changed in response to the contemporary political environment. By examining leadership from a gender and dyadic perspective, the module also considers whether some nations have an issue in the accessibility of (and therefore representation by) leaders. It also examines key issues political leaders face; from exploring how they cope with conflict to how they keep their hands 'clean' of corruption. It also considers ways in which we can quantify how successful a leader is. There is a focus on key issues in contemporary political events and case studies will be situated throughout the module.

This module covers the main ethical, legal, and theoretical issues arising from practices of international intervention. In doing so, it brings together and integrates different subfields from the social sciences and humanities, ranging from IR theory and law to ethics and political theory.

This module introduces students to one of the sub-disciplines of International Relations, Foreign Policy Analysis and explore the world of public diplomacy. Studying a variety of actors in world politics, students will be encouraged to apply the insights of Foreign Policy Analysis to improve their understanding of contemporary international relations and public diplomacy issues.

What is international order in the twenty first century? A few short decades have transformed the planet in ways that are only just being understood. A satellite image of the sky at night reveals coastal mega¿cities and inland urban corridors of unprecedented size and scope: new global city networks, mega-city regions and urban corridors have emerged that bring into question traditional state-centric notions of global politics. Alongside and through these urban patterns run other large technical systems: huge materially integrated physical structures: transport systems, supply chains, air travel networks, submarine Internet cables, satellites, research labs. Onto these systems now map planetary-scaled technologies of computation, generating a new mega-structure comprising smart grids, cloud computing platforms, and sensor nets. This is world order in the twenty first century. Conflict over these infrastructures is part of geopolitical competition and international order building today. This module builds on cutting edge social theory to introduce students to new ideas about how political order is built at multiple scales. It examines the ways in which China is using infrastructure investment to reshape the Eurasian political and economic order via its Belt and Road Initiative, and how the EU and the US are responding. It examines how global city networks are setting their own global governance agendas, often in parallel to states. It offers new perspectives on the infrastructural dark matter that holds international orders together, and allows them to endure across time and space.

This module provides students with both a theoretical and practical understanding of International Trade, considered from an international political economy (IPE) as well as management perspectives. This is done through the assessment of International Trade from different angles, predominantly from the international trade management view, the international trade operations dimension, the state’s perspective, from the international trade regime perspective (the GATT and WTO) but also from the perspective of the international society, regional cooperation and the perspective of business and industry.

The module expands and develops upon the key issues in international security and defence. Beginning by providing a background to the study of security and defence, the module introduces theoretical perspectives into contemporary themes in security and defence, as well as their inter-relation. The module also examines various security and defence actors ranging from international, regional and sub-regional organisations to NGOs and private military companies. Through readings from diverse scholarly and cultural backgrounds, individual and group work, and in-class simulations, students actively and critically engage with issues including, but not limited to, humanitarian intervention, nuclear deterrence, the role of gender in conflict, and African peace and security architecture.

The module provides an opportunity for students to apply their understanding of key theories and debates in International Political Economy (IPE) to current developments and case studies. Students will be able to discuss and debate the role of the main IPE institutions. Current and future challenges to the status quo of IPE are discussed as well.

The module offers an introduction to the major theoretical and empirical debates that structure two subdisciplines: Critical Security Studies and Critical Terrorism Studies. In the first half, the module is organised around core questions in Critical Security Studies, such as: what is security; security for whom of for what; security from whom or from what; how should security be achieved; and is security possible? In the second half, the module is organised around similar core questions in Critical Terrorism Studies.  

Since the US anti-Vietnam War movement, philosophical interest in armed conflict has increased considerably. Beginning with Michael Walzer's classic Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations (1977), this module looks at key thinkers, themes, and ideas from contemporary just war theory and the ethics of armed conflict, mostly from within the analytical tradition of philosophy. Topics include the paradigm of self-defense and its critics, the moral status of combatants, the normative sources (and limits) of non-combatant immunity, the moral nature of terrorism, as well as the problem of intervention. The module concludes by examining more recent ethical challenges posed by remote-warfare, cyber warfare, and the prospect of robotic weapons. In studying these topics, students will not only gain a sound understanding of contemporary just war theory; they will also be introduced to key ideas and concepts from contemporary ethical and political theory. Finally, students will be able to apply the more abstract philosophical material discussed on the module to real-life events via an assessed Ethics Case Study.

The module will examine, from a historical and practice-based perspective, international intervention in response humanitarian crisis, abuses of human rights, state failure, and armed conflict. Students will engage the historical cases of international intervention, to understand why, when, and how intervention talks place in practice. A UN Security Council simulation provides students with the experience of negotiating a resolution for intervention in the context of an evolving humanitarian crisis. Students also benefit from experienced practitioner engagement and a career-focused session.

This module is concerned with understanding the role of leadership in the contemporary political environment. Much attention tends to be absorbed in observing institutional factors driving change, such as parties, parliaments and demography. However, this module establishes leadership as a vital factor in politics. This unit explores the various theoretical perspectives on the role of political leadership, including charisma and psychological approaches. It uses a range of examples to illustrate key dimensions of leadership and considers to what extend the requirement of political leadership have changed in response to the contemporary political environment. By examining leadership from a gender and dyadic perspective, the module also considers whether some nations have an issue in the accessibility of (and therefore representation by) leaders. It also examines key issues political leaders face; from exploring how they cope with conflict to how they keep their hands 'clean' of corruption. It also considers ways in which we can quantify how successful a leader is. There is a focus on key issues in contemporary political events and case studies will be situated throughout the module.

This module covers the main ethical, legal, and theoretical issues arising from practices of international intervention. In doing so, it brings together and integrates different subfields from the social sciences and humanities, ranging from IR theory and law to ethics and political theory.

This module introduces students to one of the sub-disciplines of International Relations, Foreign Policy Analysis and explore the world of public diplomacy. Studying a variety of actors in world politics, students will be encouraged to apply the insights of Foreign Policy Analysis to improve their understanding of contemporary international relations and public diplomacy issues.

What is international order in the twenty first century? A few short decades have transformed the planet in ways that are only just being understood. A satellite image of the sky at night reveals coastal mega¿cities and inland urban corridors of unprecedented size and scope: new global city networks, mega-city regions and urban corridors have emerged that bring into question traditional state-centric notions of global politics. Alongside and through these urban patterns run other large technical systems: huge materially integrated physical structures: transport systems, supply chains, air travel networks, submarine Internet cables, satellites, research labs. Onto these systems now map planetary-scaled technologies of computation, generating a new mega-structure comprising smart grids, cloud computing platforms, and sensor nets. This is world order in the twenty first century. Conflict over these infrastructures is part of geopolitical competition and international order building today. This module builds on cutting edge social theory to introduce students to new ideas about how political order is built at multiple scales. It examines the ways in which China is using infrastructure investment to reshape the Eurasian political and economic order via its Belt and Road Initiative, and how the EU and the US are responding. It examines how global city networks are setting their own global governance agendas, often in parallel to states. It offers new perspectives on the infrastructural dark matter that holds international orders together, and allows them to endure across time and space.

This module provides students with both a theoretical and practical understanding of International Trade, considered from an international political economy (IPE) as well as management perspectives. This is done through the assessment of International Trade from different angles, predominantly from the international trade management view, the international trade operations dimension, the state’s perspective, from the international trade regime perspective (the GATT and WTO) but also from the perspective of the international society, regional cooperation and the perspective of business and industry.

The module expands and develops upon the key issues in international security and defence. Beginning by providing a background to the study of security and defence, the module introduces theoretical perspectives into contemporary themes in security and defence, as well as their inter-relation. The module also examines various security and defence actors ranging from international, regional and sub-regional organisations to NGOs and private military companies. Through readings from diverse scholarly and cultural backgrounds, individual and group work, and in-class simulations, students actively and critically engage with issues including, but not limited to, humanitarian intervention, nuclear deterrence, the role of gender in conflict, and African peace and security architecture.

The module provides an opportunity for students to apply their understanding of key theories and debates in International Political Economy (IPE) to current developments and case studies. Students will be able to discuss and debate the role of the main IPE institutions. Current and future challenges to the status quo of IPE are discussed as well.

The module offers an introduction to the major theoretical and empirical debates that structure two subdisciplines: Critical Security Studies and Critical Terrorism Studies. In the first half, the module is organised around core questions in Critical Security Studies, such as: what is security; security for whom of for what; security from whom or from what; how should security be achieved; and is security possible? In the second half, the module is organised around similar core questions in Critical Terrorism Studies.  

Since the US anti-Vietnam War movement, philosophical interest in armed conflict has increased considerably. Beginning with Michael Walzer's classic Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations (1977), this module looks at key thinkers, themes, and ideas from contemporary just war theory and the ethics of armed conflict, mostly from within the analytical tradition of philosophy. Topics include the paradigm of self-defense and its critics, the moral status of combatants, the normative sources (and limits) of non-combatant immunity, the moral nature of terrorism, as well as the problem of intervention. The module concludes by examining more recent ethical challenges posed by remote-warfare, cyber warfare, and the prospect of robotic weapons. In studying these topics, students will not only gain a sound understanding of contemporary just war theory; they will also be introduced to key ideas and concepts from contemporary ethical and political theory. Finally, students will be able to apply the more abstract philosophical material discussed on the module to real-life events via an assessed Ethics Case Study.