International Studies

This course serves as an introduction to core concepts in Global Health. Through a multidisciplinary approach students learn about the way in which the health of the individual is shaped by socio-political forces. Each week students evaluate a major cause of ill health in developed and developing countries and the role of key actors that influence health. Topics covered include access and availability of healthcare, inequality, poverty, ethics, aid, and the key actors in global health.

This course investigates why advanced democratic states of the Global North have seemingly been unwilling or unable to grapple with migration, and why their societies feel threatened by migrants despite their vast wealth, stability, and ostensible commitment to human rights. Given this overarching question, the course provides a broad understanding of contemporary developments with respect to international migration in democratic states. It introduces major debates surrounding migration at the domestic, regional, and international levels and offers frameworks for analyzing migration politics tied to foundational theoretical debates in comparative politics and international relations. It provides an opportunity to develop research, written argumentation, and public speaking skills.

In our globalizing world, Trans National Corporations (TNC’s) are a well-known reality. All larger corporations have built a global presence to benefit as much as possible from the most efficient conditions for production and consumption. Governments have built their multilateral agencies on global (UN) and regional (EU, AU, Mercosur, Asean) level to better respond to the new reality of an interconnected world in order to be able to better serve the interests of their citizens. In the last few decades we have seen an emerging trend of global civil society organizations (GCSO’s) striving to take their role at the global stage. This works out differently for different types of civil society organizations (CSO’s). CSO’s which are into political advocacy (Greenpeace, Amnesty International, and Oxfam) are building global networks to hold governments and companies accountable about their policies on ecology, human rights, and poverty reduction. With their global brand they are trying to influence global policies in order to make this world safer and more sustainable. In order to be able to act on the global level, different types of CSO’s not only need to deal with organizational issues like building these global networks but they also need to face new issues of legitimacy and accountability. In this course students face these fascinating issues by focusing on crucial cases with Amnesty International, religious organizations, Neighborhood Watch, trade unions, or the GLTB movement. This course helps students understand the shifting role of civil society in the globalization process and the roles of legitimacy and accountability as key issues for civil society’s influence. Knowledge of Introduction to Public Administration and Organizational Science is recommended.

Is the West in decline and what are the main emerging powers? Are we heading toward a new world order or even great power conflict? These are some of the big questions students seek to answer in this course.

This course tackles questions of war, peace, and security from an analytical perspective, by highlighting changes and continuities in international security. The first half of the course reviews the major theoretical frameworks that have been used to explain the causes of war on the world stage, as well as its character and duration in the international and domestic arenas. Students use these theoretical frameworks as a lens through which to examine problems of war and peace, and threats to individual, national and international security in the contemporary era. The second half of the course turns to questions of security more generally. Students examine political violence, terrorism, insurgency, humanitarian emergencies, climate change, and other threats to individual and collective security.