International Studies

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 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. The other version, UCEAP Course Number 169A and Bologna course number 81782, is associated with the LM in Language, Society and Communication degree programme.

The course is part of the Laurea Magistrale Program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrolment is by consent of the instructor. The course offers a series of advanced analytical tools necessary to understand European economic development as well as economic policies related to EU integration and expansion, their political and economic prerequisites, and their impact on member states. The course focuses on models of political economy, institutional economics, and economic analysis in order to critically evaluate the process of economic integration in Europe in the trade, monetary, and financial areas. The course explores the economic integration of the European Union (EU) and its role in the global economy. Attention is placed on basic concepts and theory in order to understand the economic dynamics between EU member states as well as between the EU and the rest of the world. A special section of the course is devoted to evaluating current events and the debate on Europe’s economic future against the backdrop of changing dynamics in global markets.

The course deals with basic themes, concepts, and thinkers in international relations. The purpose is to provide students with essential conceptual and linguistic tools for understanding the underlying structure and fundamental features of international politics, as well as its material and immaterial changing aspects. The objective is to explain the dynamics through which men and women understand international politics as well as to achieve a coherent capacity to think about international life, both in its theoretical and practical dimension. The course covers seven specific topics: The first part of the course is dedicated to theory: international relations as a field of western knowledge; a fundamental theoretical framework: realism/idealism; war and ways of peace; beyond domestic analogy; justice and order in world politics The second part is dedicated to practice with the analysis of specific cases: the international political space; homogeneity, heterogeneity, and conflict; the global age and international relations.

This course provides an advanced introduction to global governance and the key international institutions that form the basis of global governance. It gives a detailed knowledge of the institutional landscape through which international political and economic interaction is mediated. The analysis is grounded in the theories of International Political Economy (IPE)/International Relations, which students are expected to familiar with.

This course focuses on the historical and current government, politics, and economy of Ethiopia and the Horn from an international context. It covers the history of Ethiopia and provides context for how Ethiopia is situated in Africa and the wider world while also explaining its internal dynamics.

This course analyzes, from an interdisciplinary perspective, the social, political, legal, and economic problems within International Studies. Students select a research question that seeks to respond to a real legal, economic, social, or political problem and then develop a research project to present at the end of the term.

This course explores the most serious challenges facing democracies today including social inequalities, national security, climate change, and the rise of nationalism and populism and how each European Union member state might autonomously handle economic and institutional crises. It focuses on European Union countries and, in particular, Spain as a case-studies.