International Studies

This course reflects on how the institutions, issues, actors, and practices of global environmental governance have evolved over the past half-century since the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment, the first global conference on the environment. In addition, it explores the potential of current environmental governance systems to accelerate the social, economic, political, and ecological transformations for a sustainable future.

This course provides an overview of the academic field of international security. It is designed to provide students with a foundation in security studies with the aim of helping them develop their understanding of what international security is and think critically about explanations of international security. The course emphasizes peace and war among states, beginning with examining the realist paradigm (as a baseline argument) which has significantly influenced the discipline and policymakers. Reviewing key concepts and analytical perspectives, the course considers state behavior and security policy in the complex reality with reference to the Japanese case (and the Ukraine war as well).

This seminar provides students with an overview of international relations research with an emphasis on contending theoretical perspectives and some of the key empirical findings in the major issue areas of international politics. The readings include classics as well as more recent publications that illustrate ongoing areas of inquiry. The seminar’s primary purpose is to introduce and evaluate the main theories, arguments, and claims made and empirical findings produced by leading international relations scholars. Students also learn to identify interesting and important questions in the field, to think about ways in which research can be designed to get at these questions, and to ground their own research interests within the context of the broader theoretical and methodological issues in the field.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale program. The course is intended for advanced level students only. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. This course introduces the analysis of conflicts and international interventions providing an overview of major theoretical approaches and empirical applications in those fields. The course deals with the conceptual and methodological tools provided by academic literature and applies such concepts and methods to analysis of major conflicts and experiences of international interventions. The course starts by introducing the major strands of research that analyzed conflict onset and dynamics. Then, an overview of scholarship on interventions is presented and discussed. Finally, 6 seminars are devoted to the application of theories to the analysis of wars (and interventions) in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Cambodia, Colombia, the Sahel region, and Syria.

The diaspora of Chinese migrants is evident in the “Chinatowns” in major cities throughout the worldwide.  Their success have led others to describe Chinese migrants as “cosmopolitan” or “global citizens.” However, it is also true that Chinese migrants are an ethnic group that has involved in international politics and the volatility of national regimes. This course looks at Chinese migrants through different case studies and analyzes their narratives from political, economic, legal, and cultural angles to understand their relationship with global issues. Comparative studies with other diasporas are recommended.

This course offers a comparative study of the institutional law of international organizations. While it is acknowledged that each organization has its own legal structure and functioning, institutional challenges and rules of different organizations resemble each other in some way, and a great deal of body of institutional rules and principles has been developed. International organizations have much in common, such as the law on membership, competence, structures, decision-making and implementation, financing, and legal personality. The course discusses the practice of a number of international organizations, including the United Nations and regional as well as subregional organizations. The course explores the law, life, and functioning of these organizations.

This course analyzes the place of gender in world politics. It introduces theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of gender in international relations, and reviews different fields of research, focusing on security studies, with cutting-edge literature. The course examines how both the practice of international politics and the academic discipline are gendered. It takes its starting point by reflecting on international relations theory to understand why the mainstream of international relations has traditionally had difficulties in engaging with feminist critiques. It looks at the early feminist debates and turns to themes of international relations such as war, conflict, militarism, and security through a gender perspective. It analyzes the role of bodies in international relations and their complex intersecting identities to understand how gender is intertwined with categories such as race, class, and sexuality. The question of how these complex identities give subjects possibility for agency runs throughout the modules. The course emphasizes how gender, security, and politics are discursively constructed through both language and images. To shed light on these discursive constructions, the course conducts several case studies.

One of the greatest challenges for today’s global managers involved in transnational Post-Merger Integrations (PMI), is to be able to build and manage a highly effective team. Since today’s teams cross cultural boundaries, this involves building competencies that simultaneously ensure success across numerous cultural environments and enable accelerated performance through collaborative skills. The new breed of global managers must be prepared to work in a new team environment. Critical to forming and managing effective teams is an understanding and mastery of cross-cultural competence.
This interactive course builds individual and team competencies required for working, managing, and leading across cultures and geographies in the context of transnational Post-Merger Integrations. This course is aimed at demonstrating the impact of culture on communication, building relationships, business culture, and management styles, providing participants with the necessary knowledge, mindset, and skills for more effective multicultural teamwork.

This course aims to explore some static and dynamic aspects of the legal system in a globalized world and examines the function and application of international law in the settlement of disputes between actors (including states).  Basic knowledge both of law and of international relations (IR) is necessary for participants to follow this class effectively. Both 'Introduction to International Relations (IR)' and 'Introduction to Legal Studies'(or similar equivalents) are strongly recommended as prerequisite subjects of study for this course.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale program. The course is intended for advanced level students only. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. This course is a survey of the history of the concepts and practice of war and peace from the Renaissance to the beginning of the nineteenth century. It primarily explores the main ideas, events, aspects, and trends related to the topics of the classes. First, the course examines the period traditionally known as the Renaissance. The course then focuses on ideas on human nature, war, and peace in early-modern Europe. The course demonstrates how the medieval cultural attitude towards war and peace was replaced during this period by a new concept, based around novel ideas on the nature of man shaped by social and political tensions caused by unprecedented challenges which threatened early-modern European societies. Finally, the course addresses questions concerning modernity such as why European cultures increasingly relied on science and reason instead of religion.