International Studies

This course provides a historical, financial, political, and institutional overview of international financial architecture. The first part of the course reviews the progressive construction of the multilateral system over the last few centuries, with a specific focus on the main UN organizations, the Bretton Woods institutions, and multilateral development banks. In the second part, the course focuses on the limits of the current architecture in the face of the multiplicity of new global challenges (the fight against poverty and inequality, global warming and the protection of biodiversity, food and energy security, the response to pandemics). The course concludes with a reflection on possible ways forward for the current architecture, in an increasingly volatile economic, financial, and geopolitical context. 

This course offers an introduction to the fundamentals of political economy of international relations through the survey of international economic organizations and other global coordination attempts and development economics.
While reviewing all types of countries, it particularly focuses on least developed and transition economies, exploring the relationship between international economic organization mandates, policies, and economic development in
practice. The course does not require a significant background in economics but a fundamental understanding of micro- and macroeconomics is helpful. The course offers a review of theoretical and practical core knowledge and a systematic application through group case studies.

This course takes a comprehensive look at the challenges and dynamics of "Arctic" issues and relations. The course is structured in four thematic parts: what’s going on and the Arctic now and then; ways of analyzing what’s going on in the Arctic; what the Arctic is a region of; and global issues/arctic particulars. While the first part establishes the basics in terms of geography, states, institutions, and current political developments in an empirical way, the remaining three parts use theoretical approaches from international relations and neighboring disciplines to look at these political dynamics. The second part applies concepts and approaches from core international relations theories such as security dilemma, deterrence, interdependence, norms and rules, and securitization, while the third part deconstructs the idea of the Arctic as a region and understands how it is instrumentalized for a number of purposes, drawing on constructivism, post-structuralist, and critical geopolitics. The last part takes a cross-cutting look at three globally relevant and salient issues – post-colonialism and decolonization, feminism and gender, and climate change and the Anthropocene – to understand their relevance and particularity in the Arctic in a way that seeks to go beyond the state-focused approaches. As such, this course critically applies previous international relations theories and knowledge, but the final part also steps outside these theoretical approaches, and through the empirics of the course, ventures into texts and approaches from neighboring disciplines to gain other perspectives on the top of the world. The course necessitates curiosity about issues and concepts spanning military and strategic studies to post-colonialism and the notion than non-humans can also be analytically central.         

This course introduces both the fundamentals of child protection systems in Europe and the way international humanitarian work incorporates child protection mechanisms in developing countries. It covers how the supranational governance of humanitarian organizations, the EU, and states construct their child protection policies and set political agendas. The seminar combines conceptual tools, historical insights, and empirical evidence to investigate the evolution of child protection policies in the context of economic, environmental, and security crises and is divided in two parts: European child protection political agenda; and international humanitarian work and child protection policies in West Africa. Classes are partly discussion-based and include moderated group debates and student oral presentations. The course imparts practical skills and strategies to policy-related issues from first hand experiences in service delivery and policy-making.

This course, which focuses on China's Xi Jinping era, provides keys to understanding Chinese positions on the international stage. It compares official statements with the reality of Beijing's actions to understand the motives, modalities, and consequences of Chinese foreign policy.

How do different actors shape, relate to, sustain or contest the shifting orthodoxies of development? This course is organized as a genealogy of development policy thinking from post-war decolonization onwards. It gives students an essential introduction to the evolution of international development as a global project from its post-World War II origins to the present day. It maps out the key moments (of innovation, crisis, and reinvention) in that evolution and the shifts in thinking that underpin changes in global development agendas/policy.

The course discusses human rights in an interdisciplinary manner as legal, political, and cultural phenomena in both Europe and Asia, in particular China. This is an interdisciplinary course, combining approaches from law and the humanities. 

This course provides a critical introduction to three major related areas of international law that focus on the protection of the human beings: international human rights law, international humanitarian law (the law of armed conflict), and international criminal law. The course covers the main normative instruments and principles relating to the international protection of human rights, the rules aimed at limiting the effects of armed conflict, and the criminal repression of individuals under international law; and assesses the flaws and limitations of the international system, as well as the benefits and practical consequences of using the remedies it provides.

The course introduces a variety of concepts and theories to analyze global governance, with a focus on organizations and institutions including international and regional organizations, firms, and NGOs. Course materials discuss topics from international relations, political science, economics, sociology, and anthropology. Substantively, the course covers diverse issues such as security, development, and science.   

Drawing on the seminar style, the course requires each person to contribute through discussion, presentation, and a written research proposal on topics of their choice.   

The course explores the geopolitics of borders in today's world. Topics include: defining, drawing, and managing borders; borders of the Spanish state.