International Studies

This course equips students with some of the knowledge and skills needed to work in international organizations. The first part of the course provides an overview of the core notions of International Law needed to understand the functioning of international organizations such as the sources of international law, the making of international treaties, or the areas of action of international law. The second part of the course examines the concrete functioning of international organizations by discussing the work of five global and regional organizations (with a focus on Europe and America), namely the Council of Europe, the European Union, the United Nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The third part of the course provides a few practical tips for working in international organizations. The course includes guest lecturers with experience in working for/on international organizations.

This course builds on new scholarship which expands the study of the Cold War from a primarily bipolar, Western, superpower perspective to a truly global perspective not only geographically, but also thematically, giving voice to underrepresented perspectives. Through combining diplomatic, military, economic, and cultural history with elements of intelligence studies and International Relations theory, this course approaches the bipolar conflict in the broadest sense possible. This course complements The Transatlantic Cold War, which approaches the bipolar conflict mainly from an East-West perspective. It can be taken in conjunction with that course, since it covers an altogether new set of themes and regions, or by itself, since students become familiar with the relevant skills and contents during the course.

This course has four parts: firstly, it sets the scene by introducing a series of analytical categories and dimensions that can be employed to examine social policy in comparative perspective; secondly, it illustrates similarities and differences in the social policies of high-income countries by reviewing in detail selected national models of welfare state; thirdly, it moves from the national to the supranational level by examining the role of selected supranational institutions in shaping social policies in the Global North and the Global South (e.g. European Union; World Bank; ILO); fourthly, it reviews some key challenges that welfare states are currently faced with and the opportunities for renewal that these challenges may offer. 

This course explores the ways the two Koreas, North and South, have coped with the dictate of international politics since the national division. It examines this question by highlighting and explaining the defining characteristics of the both systems in the context of their respective political change, economic development, national security, human rights and response to globalization as results of their respective choices of national survival, political development and economic prosperity.

Prerequisite: Introductory course on Korean politics

This course is designed for students interested in the environmental, economic, climate, and geopolitical issues of the global ocean. Addressing the themes of environment, maritime economy, climate issues and governance, it considers the characteristics and tensions of the current ocean world and measures the challenges facing the international community.

This is a graduate level course that 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 analyzes the way the western media covers the developing world and the humanitarian emergencies. Specifically the course explores the emerging and historical humanitarian narratives, with particular reference to the way in which the activities of NGOs are reported; how we understand and explain faraway disasters; how the media representations of suffering and violence has changed in the post-cold war period and in the digital era; the relationship between media, aid, corporate communication, and branding; and the relationship between power, media, and migration. This course encourages students to think sociologically about a range of issues and “social problems” related to the different ways in which media is used to report on humanitarian situations, and what impact this has. It also serves as an introduction to some important themes and issues within humanitarianism and migration. Areas under study include: the construction of “social problems,” media, ethics, human rights, disaster relief, war, famine, refugee camps, social movements, and NGOs.  A special focus is dedicated to the mediated performances that contribute to create the spectacle of the humanitarian border, which is physically and symbolically enacted by the different actors involved in contemporary management of migration. Moving from the assumption that our awareness of nearly all humanitarian issues is defined by the media, this course looks at the literature associated with humanitarian organizations and the NGO narratives, tracing the imagined and real encounters between solidarity, participation, and citizenship in the context of larger social processes of mediation and globalization. Examining humanitarian communication through various forms of aesthetic activism - documentary, photojournalism, benefit concerts, celebrities, and live blogging, the course explores how the circulation of humanitarian images and narratives impact the peoples it aims to serve, and what can be learned about global inequality from the stories associated with it. The course also focuses on how several news media framed Covid-19 as an invisible enemy, using metaphor of war to describe the current situation. The definition of the emergency as a war conducts inevitably to the identification of an enemy. The hyper-visibility of the war against this invisible enemy leads to a generalized fear of ‘the others’ and to the identification of this invisibility in visible bodies. Finally, the course reflects on long-term implications of the pandemic on mobility justice and what Mbembe (2020) has defined the “right to breath.” There are two versions of this course; this course, UCEAP Course Number 169A and Bologna course number 81782, is associated with the LM in Language, Society and Communication degree programme. The other version, UCEAP Course Number 169B and Bologna course number 75073, is associated with the LM in Sociology and Social Work and LM in Local and Global Development degree programmes.