Political Science

This course introduces students to political data analysis using domestic and international data. The course covers core substantive topics in politics and international relations, typically exploring one major research question from Politics and one major research question from IR. It explores how to access relevant data and assesses the appropriateness of data. It provides key skills in quantitative data analysis, including descriptive statistics, cross-tab/contingency tables, measures of association, correlation, and regression. 

This course introduces emerging technologies (ET) and international law. Topics include characteristics of the technology era, technology law and governance, convergence and interplay of politics, international norms and regulations, and evolution and future of emerging technologies.

This course examines the great contemporary problems of poverty and inequality within the context of a globalizing world. Sources and selected empirical cases of poverty and inequality are explored and related development theories and policies are examined. The geographical scope of the course ranges from local to international. One or more African languages may accompany English in some lectures or reading material. Coursework counts 60%; an examination counts 40% of the final mark.

Using a comparative perspective, this course explores the different foreign policy strategies and approaches that Latin American countries use to integrate in a globalized world. It examines the processes of integration, cooperation, and security between countries in the region. The course analyzes the difference in foreign policy approaches, specifically political, economic, and social processes that have occurred in Latin American countries since the 1980s. Other topics include the relationship of Latin America with world powers.

The course deals with substantive, procedural and political issues relating to international criminal justice, its origins, reach, legitimacy, and articulation with (post-) conflict management and peace making. It covers historical and recent international and national efforts undertaken to address these crimes. After presenting the framework and principles of international criminal justice, the course discusses contemporaneous issues. Experts and practitioners contribute to equipping students with the tools necessary to understand the role and impact of justice in international affairs.

This political theory course considers whether the end of climate change denial leads to climate justice or new forms of fascisms. It takes seriously the emergence of new ecofascist tendencies as complex phenomena to be critically studied, analyzed, and contested. The course is divided into three parts. The first part explores various conceptualizations of fascism and climate change generally. It then analyzes the tendency from climate change denial towards realism about (anthropogenic) climate change and the forms of fascism that may follow from it. Finally, it discusses democratic responses to the emerging phenomena. The course draws on political theories concerning climate change, democracy, and fascism. It presents ecofascist, neo-Malthusian, petro-masculinist, and collapsologist movements that in some cases convey racist, misogynic, and homophobic ideas and critically discusses them within materialist, new materialist, and critical theoretical frameworks.

The course introduces students to the political economy of global health. It evaluates the underlying social, political, and economic causes of ill health and the role of various policies in responding. An emphasis is placed on analyzing the role of institutions, aid flows, corporations, and macroeconomic changes in global health. The course gives students an understanding of core concepts, issues, and debates in global health. Students apply social and political science perspectives to the analysis of health problems and identify research questions and designs on global health topics. The course requires students to have completed an elementary statistics course as a prerequisite. The course is split into three parts. Part I offers an introduction to Global Health topics. The first two sessions introduce the main debates in global health: the global burden of disease project, Primary versus Selective Health Care, horizontal versus vertical health systems, Universal Health Coverage, DALYs, and the theory of epidemiological transition. The next six sessions evaluate in more specific detail the history, epidemiology, and economics of leading sources of death and disability worldwide. Part II focuses on better understanding the wider causes of ill health and potential modifying factors. It covers different methods for measuring and mapping the scale of health inequalities across countries and over time. It also reviews the ongoing debates about whether inequality is a causative factor in health outcomes. This component of the course reviews evidence on the impacts of financial crises on health, from the Great Depression through to the recent economic downturns in Europe and North America, as well as implications for health of radical populism and fascist political movements. Finally, it evaluates the roles of health and social security systems in responding to these health determinants. Part III maps key players and actors in global health. This part of the course evaluates the political economy of global health. It assesses who holds power, covering the role of the World Health Organization, Private Philanthropic Foundations and other non-state actors, International Financial Institutions, and Multi-National Corporations. It reviews debates on alternative forms of redistribution, from charity to aid to lending programs. Finally, this section evaluates the histories of engaging with commercial determinants of health and alternative regulatory systems.

The course provides a general and comprehensive approach to world affairs while introducing the international legal perspective. It covers both the essentials of public international law and particular legal regimes such as coercion, use of force, human rights, State territory, and space law with respect to selected world affairs and international conflicts. The course highlights the interaction between international politics and law and the role of international law in the world governance. It’s focus both on theory and practice and on interdisciplinarity allows a better understanding of international negotiation, norm-making, legal argumentation, and interpretative techniques.

This course examines the place of Europe - its countries, and the institutions they have created in the global order from the end of the Second World War to the present day. Students study how Europe has articulated its interests on the international stage, how the EU has evolved as an actor in foreign and security policy, what characterizes the European perspective on key issues and on international politics more generally, and how the EU relates to other regions and powers, including the United States, China, and Russia. The course proceeds chronologically, beginning with the origins of the Cold War and European integration in the 1940s and 1950s, and proceeding to analyze Europe 'between the superpowers' as the Cold War unfolded, its place in the American-dominated 'unipolar moment', and where the continent stands now as the 'rise of the rest' leads to the emergence of a more diffuse international order. The course concludes with a strategic foresight exercise in which students depict divergent scenarios for Europe in the world over the coming decade.

This course provides a deeper understanding of International Organizations (IOs) by studying their origins, structures, roles, politics and future. The first part of the course broadly introduces relevant theories of International Relations, and more specifically theories of IOs/international cooperation. The second part of the course covers the most prominent international organization-the United Nations (UN). The course focuses on four broad themes: international security, economic development, human rights, and environmental problems in discussing the UN.