International Studies

Position with a member of the Irish parliament or with a nongovernmental organization affiliated with the EU government. The internship is an officially authorized program working within the Irish Houses of Parliament: the Dail and the Senate. It is governed by the House Committee on Procedures and Privileges. Interns have the status of adjunct staff. Work in parliament is subject to conditions laid down by the Committee on Procedures and Privileges covering such matters as access to facilities, dress code, dealings with press and televised media etc. Each intern is part of a small staff: Irish parliamentarians commonly have a staff complement of just one or two. Interns are expected to work between two and three days per week. The nature of the work varies greatly but can be summarized as either administration or research. Typically a student will undertake some combination of these research and administration tasks. Throughout the internship, students are required to give an account of progress to the program director.

This course introduces students to international questions of security and policing. In light of an interdisciplinary approach, the course thus focuses on the way in which current topics of interest are politically and operationally addressed, from criminal and political violence to illicit finance and global infectious diseases. In this regard, it fosters a capacity of analysis and independent judgement on the politics and everyday practices of transnational policing, border and migration control, surveillance, and security intelligence in the digital age.

This course explores the weaponization of non-military means to interfere and destabilize countries, including economic competition, social agitation, propaganda, and foreign interference; and how intelligence, security, and defense capabilities adapt to irregular warfare to deter and secure societies. Establishing the basics of conflicts in our contemporary times, this course covers numerous case studies around the world to understand their diversity, evolution, and structuring impact on international relations. 

This course investigates the main challenges that political activists need to address, and how protest takes different forms and employs different strategies and tactics in different countries, cultures, and circumstances. The course explores a wide variety of cases around the world, ranging from opposition movements in Socialist and authoritarian countries, environmental and civil rights protests, to peace movements and protests on behalf of foreign nations. Based on an examination of the successes and failures of different groups, the course develops a deeper understanding for the communicative dynamics of protest communication. Building upon this understanding, the course then focuses on a selection of specific protest movements around the globe, mapping their goals and strategies, challenges, and opportunities for achieving political change. The course analyzes these movements' activities communicating their causes toward the media, the public, and political authorities. The course brings together insights from several cases, discusses how different strategies can be applied in different contexts, and reviews the implications for the viability of effective political protest.

This course examines the evolution of the historiography of the Cold War, with its recent transformations, to then analyze the nature of today's international relations marked by the “return of competition between the super powers,” an expression created by the Pentagon in 2016. The Chinese and Russian analyses of the evolution of the world that we have long called "Post-Cold War" is also studied.

This course explores the impact of digital technologies on international affairs. It provides some key factual and analytical elements that should contribute to a better understanding and appreciation of this new field of study. Digital technologies are increasingly recognized as a defining feature of contemporary world affairs. The web, social media, but also blockchain and AI affect public engagement and governance at European and international levels.

This course examines the various human rights responses under international law to mass atrocities committed in communities around the world (a field known as transitional justice); the development of transitional justice and how it operates within the broader peace-building field; the historical development of transitional justice, the various justice processes that may be employed, and how they operate in theory as well as practice; societies in transition in contemporary settings and the applicable laws and legal processes.