International Studies

This course offers an individual and collective occasion to master research, planning, and writing abilities to make sense of recent developments in connection and comparison with each other by using several political-historical methods. It trains students to interpret and deconstruct contemporary and past events with an original gaze by asking well-defined research questions; conducting research using traditional sources such as archives, as well as digital techniques; collecting, citing, and quoting sources; and bringing their findings together using analytical, historiographical, and conceptual tools. Connections are made between cases in international and global arena, supported by the findings through archival research, interviews, interdisciplinary approach, and the review of press and secondary literature. By adopting a critical review of their findings, students follow and comprehend sophisticated academic debates; take cultural, contextual, and ideological differences into consideration; work with techniques offered by multiple disciplines; report on their studies and research; and learn time management.

In this course students explore the history, structure, and functions of the UN, developing an understanding of how international politics has influenced the operations of the UN over time, how the UN has itself influenced the shape and direction of international politics, and how the UN has contributed to the development and direction of international politics and international justice.

This is part of the Laurea Magistrale program. The course is intended for advanced level students only. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. In this course, students develop a critical understanding of global health policy as a historical, political and moral assemblage to deal with the consequences of global inequalities. They also gain an appreciation of illness and suffering as the personal embodiment of broader social processes within local moral worlds embedded in historically deep and geographically broad social dynamics.

This course explores the basic conceptual tools and competing theoretical arguments within the academic field of International Relations, which try to explain the nature, scope, and degree of success of various regional cooperation schemes. The course is divided into three sections: The first section outlines the key concepts and theoretical arguments. The second section explores, using these concepts, the nature and fortunes of regional cooperation in Europe, Asia, Latin American, and Africa. The third section focuses specifically on the challenges and various examples of regional cooperation in the Middle East.

This course introduces the key issues underlying the interaction of states and transnational actors in the international system, particularly the problems of international peace and cooperation, regionalism, democratization, nationalism and cultural conflict.  Unlike conventional foundation courses in International Relations (IR), this course approaches the field from a student-centered approach. The course begins with an introduction to the main theories of International Relations, then an introduction to critical perspectives in IR. After students' understanding of the theories covered are examined through the midterm, the course discusses a series of empirical case studies and global issues. The goal is to integrate theory and practice, by presenting theoretical ideas and concepts in conjunction with a global range of historical and contemporary case studies.