King's College London

The course provides students with an understanding of ‘who does what’ in the Russian echelons of power, who makes law, how laws are made, how they are structured and how they are applied. Example seminar topics include: division of legal systems into legal families, key characteristics of Russian law: codification of the law and the key codes, sources of law, including the highest law of the land, the 1993 Constitution, notable international treaties and the role of court decisions, Russian legal culture, including judges’ reasoning, and Russia’s government structure and key institutions, including the role of the President, the concept of super-presidentialism and also, silovyki or power ministries. 

In this course students explore the history, structure, and functions of the UN, developing an understanding of how international politics has influenced the operations of the UN over time, how the UN has itself influenced the shape and direction of international politics, and how the UN has contributed to the development and direction of international politics and international justice.

Experiments in economics have generated new insights into how people behave. Together with earlier psychological work, they have spawned a new field in economics: behavioral economics. This course is concerned with how the insights from this new field contribute to some key debates and issues in political economy. 

This course explores how the first Islamic caliphate transformed the society, culture, and politics of western Asia in the centuries after the mission of Muhammad, c. 600-950. In the 7th century the new faith of Islam emerged in Arabia. Its adherents, though few in number, overturned the geopolitical world order, defeating the superpowers of their day to create the world’s largest empire, stretching from Portugal to Pakistan. This course asks how this first Islamic state was brought into being and how it changed life in the Middle East and beyond.