International Studies

This course examines the ecological and social crises we are currently experiencing as a result of the pandemic and climate change.

This course examines the process of Korea’s growth and development from the macroeconomic and institutional perspectives. The transformation of the Republic of Korea from one of the most devastated nations to an advanced one is a rare success story in the world development. However, the underlying causes and mechanisms of the success are not well understood, although its surface level performance is well recognized. This course seeks the fundamental understandings about the causes and mechanisms of Korea’s growth and development in order to make Korea’s experience helpful for other developing countries. Furthermore, we draw useful lessons and insights for the future process of Korea’s growth and development from such understandings. This course provides a series of quantitative empirical analyses of Korea’s long-run process of growth and development at both aggregate and sectoral levels, together with theories of growth and development which are be used in interpreting the empirical analysis. We also discuss the issues of policy design and implementation methods that were used to materialize specific development goals. Historical data as well as current issues are explored together, relating the past and the present with each other, so that we pursue an evolutionary understanding.

This course introduces students to the main theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of foreign policy widely conceived. Foreign policy analysis (FPA) is a field of inquiry that aims to understand and explain how foreign policy is made and who shapes it, but is also interested in outcomes, their impact and the assessment of performance. Theories of international relations are relevant to FPA to understand pressures and opportunities arising from the international system, but states are not seen as unitary bodies that respond in the same way, but they differ amongst each other and comprise contradictory forces and competing actors. FPA investigates the interplay between systemic, national and sub-national factors, actors and processes, including bureaucracies, public opinion and individual decision-makers. FPA pays significant attention to decision-making processes and their outcomes, including group dynamics, leadership styles, and cognitive theories. The first part of the course is conceptual, theoretical and methodological, while the second part compares and contrasts the foreign policies of selected countries to understand national idiosyncrasies as well as common features and factors that shape foreign policy-making.

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. The course gives students a general overview and understanding of the international and European criminological debate concerning border control and a detailed knowledge of key topics and key scholars in the field. Students are expected to be able to combine their knowledge of different contexts and disciplinary approaches when analyzing border policies. Students acquire the competencies and knowledge necessary to analyze critically the contemporary policies of border control in different contexts, also in view of possible fields of work and research: border police, the role and functioning of administrative detention and deportation, the international relations of the externalization of borders, the use of criminal law in border control. 

The course presents the contemporary debate in the field known as "border criminology". At the end of the course, students are expected to be able to analyze the mechanisms of power subtending the processes of illegalization, detention, deportation, refusal, and criminalization of migrants. The perspective developed in the course embraces a critical approach and considers law, policies, and discourses as entrenched factors in driving the mechanisms of border control. The focus of the analysis is the European context, analyzed through comparative perspective as much as possible. Special attention is given to the intersection of race, class, and gender in the law-making and law-enforcement activities. Not only is the securitization of border taken into account, but also the more recently emerged “humanitarian control” is considered as an object of possible criminological enquiry.

Lectures first introduce the students to the critical perspective in criminology and to the main topics of the theoretical debate of border criminology. It then provides an introduction to the theoretical key concepts in border criminology, and especially the question of punishment, the nature of borders, and the transnational perspective we aim to adopt in the course, with an attention to the possibility of transforming borders from below. Then, the lectures investigate the different countries in Europe where one can observe the mechanisms of border control, highlighting the variety of cases. Each of them is discussed through empirical and theoretical researches carried out in different contexts.

This course covers politics and strategy in UN peacekeeping (UNPK) operations. To do this, the lecture relies on the works of Prussian officer and philosopher Carl von Clausewitz. The course mobilizes Clausewitzian concepts like the “means and ends”, “trinity”, “fog”, “friction”, "center of gravity” to examine their effects on the politics of UN peace operations. One assumption of this course is that UN Peacekeeping is often undertaken when it is not the appropriate instrument of policy. One of the problems of UN Peacekeeping operations is that they are not guided by a clear strategy. This problem can be traced to the political processes leading to their creation. The general objective of the course is to provide the intellectual tools to analyze more critically how UNPK is organized. The theories used to examine UNPK are mostly Realism (Classical, Structural), Liberalism, and Constructivism. The course focuses on critiquing but not rejecting UNPK. The goal is rather to try to fix the political and strategic problems surrounding this militaro-diplomatic tool invented between 1945 and 1956.