Political Science

The course provides a comprehensive examination of the processes of European integration and offers a critical analysis of EU policies in their broader historical, political, and economic contexts. This  analysis is undertaken considering the peculiar and often problematic relationship between Britain and European integration, which culminated in the country’s decision in June 2016 to leave the EU altogether. Given this momentous referendum result, which will shape the UK for decades to come, the course analyzes in explicit terms the costs and benefits of ‘Brexit’. The course is divided into four parts: Part I gives an insight into the main historical currents and key institutional mechanisms. Part II analyses the main policies, which continue to shape the integration processes of the EU including the Single Market (SEM), Cohesion, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), as well as Economic and Monetary Union (i.e. the Euro). In Part III the course focuses on the EU’s external policies which influence non-EU countries, as well as future member states, ranging from External Trade to enlargement and the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). The fourth part summarizes the effects of EU integration on the UK and discusses to what extent Brexit (the UK’s decision to leave the European Union) will be beneficial or detrimental to the country’s future.

This course introduces the main contemporary debates around human reproduction and discusses their potential impact on society, particularly as regards gender roles and family diversity. The course reflects on issues such as the possibility of diverse families and individuals to have children by using assisted reproductive technologies, the question of whether surrogate motherhood or social egg freezing are liberating or on the contrary oppressive for women, and the social implication of whether parents should be allowed to choose some attributes of their future offspring (such as eye color, height, or IQ) if able to do so. The course explores how current events such as the COVID-19 pandemic or the war in Ukraine have impacted the reproductive rights of various categories of individuals and the regulation of human reproduction in different countries, as well as at international level. The course builds on several disciplines, particularly law, gender studies, sociology, and bioethics. It discusses court cases (especially from the European Court of Human Rights), pieces of legislation, media articles and videos, and sociological and philosophical writings and other sources. Students work on topics related to human reproduction as policy makers, law makers, or gender and LGBT+ human rights specialists.

This course provides a solid overview of the law of international security, a set of rules regulating the maintenance and restoration of international peace and security, within which States and other actors exercise their policies, adopt decisions, and form mutual relations on the international scene. It covers international legal norms and to applies them to concrete cases in the world politics. The course sheds light both on the centralized international and decentralized regional levels of collective security mechanisms. In addition to the prerogatives of the United Nations, the role of the NATO, European Union, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, African Union, Economic Community of West African States, and Organization of American States is covered. It focuses on diverse measures aimed at the protection of international security, both involving and not involving the use of force (economic embargoes, targeted sanctions, interruption of diplomatic relations and, finally, the recourse to military force).