International Relations in Practice Course Descriptor

Course Overview

This writing-focused course is an application of the conceptual debates in International Relations (IR) to key real-world problems and empirical dynamics in the field. This course invites students to focus on the evaluation of the concrete circumstances under which conflict and cooperation occur in the international system. The course enhances student knowledge of international politics and its many working modes with a two-fold approach. First, the content and assessment of the course require students to apply complex scholarship to “real world” problems, such as state failure, new modes of security, international development. This will enhance student critical thinking skills and help situate current international events in complex disciplinary, empirical, and theoretical frameworks. Secondly, the course offers students an early opportunity to develop fundamental analytical writing skills to formulate sophisticated and insightful arguments relevant to the field. By the end of the course, students are expected to be more skillful writers on contemporary international affairs, well informed consumers of news and policy, and, hopefully, better citizens of the world.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

Knowledge and Understanding

Subject Specific Skills

Transferable and Employability Skills

Teaching and Learning

This course has a dedicated Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) page with a syllabus and range of additional resources (e.g. readings, question prompts, tasks, assignment briefs, discussion boards) to orientate and engage students in their studies.

The scheduled teaching and learning activities for this course are:

Lectures and/or seminars and workshops

40 scheduled hours – typically including induction, consolidation or revision, and assessment activity hours.

• Version 1:all sessions in the same sized group

OR

• Version 2: most of the sessions in larger groups; some of the sessions in smaller groups

Faculty hold regular ‘office hours’, which are opportunities for students to drop in or sign up to explore ideas, raise questions, or seek targeted guidance or feedback, individually or in small groups. 

Students are to attend and participate in all the scheduled teaching and learning activities for this course and to manage their directed learning and independent study.

Indicative total learning hours for this course: 150 hours

Assessment

Both formative and summative assessments are used as part of this course, with purely formative opportunities typically embedded within interactive teaching sessions, office hours, and/or the VLE.

Summative Assessments

The assessment will require students to develop and apply proficient and analytically sound writing and communication skills to the analysis of real-world problems and empirical dynamics in contemporary international relations through the practice of intense writing facilitated by the course teaching team:

Further information about the assessments can be found in the Course Syllabus.

Feedback

Students will receive formative and summative feedback in a variety of ways, written (e.g. marked up on assignments, through email or the VLE) or oral (e.g. as part of interactive teaching sessions or in office hours).

Indicative Reading

Note: Comprehensive and current reading lists are produced annually in the Course Syllabus or other documentation provided to students; the indicative reading list provided below is for a general guide and part of the approval/modification process only.

• Keohane, R.O. and J. S. Nye Jr. ‘Power and Interdependence’, 4th edition, Pearson Education, 2011
• Krasner, S. ‘Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy’, Princeton University Press, 1999
• Lebow, R.N. ‘Why nations fight: past and future motives for war’, Cambridge University Press, 2010
• Ostrom, E. ‘Governing the Commons’, Cambridge University Press, 2015.

Indicative Topics

Note: Comprehensive and current topics for courses are produced annually in the Course Syllabus or other documentation provided to students; the indicative topics provided below is used as a general guide and part of the approval/modification process only.

• Power and Governance in International Relations
• Case studies on contemporary problems in International Relations
• Writing and assessing arguments in International Relations