Political Science

This course offers a study of the place that Latin America and the Caribbean occupies in international dynamics, its geopolitical and geostrategic position, the importance of its natural resources, the processes of interventionism by the U.S.A., among other mechanisms of integration and international relations.
 

To understand contemporary international society in the wave of globalization, it is no longer enough to follow behavior and interaction of governments. Other actors, such as NGOs, supranational organizations, migrant or indigenous communities, as well as other cultural entities including minorities and individuals, have transnational networks and influences. After defining globalization and methodology, the course sheds light on transnational influence of international migration and cultural exchanges through colonization, decolonization, and structural changes of postwar international politics. The latter half analyzes reasons and solutions for contemporary issues concerning international migration. This course focuses on the Asia-Pacific region with examples from former British colonies and Japanese policies. 

The course focuses on the principal elements of EU constitutional law, namely: sources of EU law, EU competences, institutions, law-making procedures, judicial procedures, implementation of EU law in the Member States, and the essential aspects of the main EU policies. The course helps develop the ability to analyze the main implications of the EU institutional structure and to determine the overall effects of the law into the municipal legal orders of the Member States; and to illustrate the main trends of the interplay between the Union and its Member States (both internally and on the international scene).

This course introduces students to the inter-disciplinary field of peace and conflict studies, and the range of practices that have developed to make peace in different parts of the world. These include international peacekeeping, mediation, peacebuilding, conflict transformation, and peace formation, among others. In particular, the unit sets such practices in the context of the key political science and international relations’ dynamics of power, international and state design, rights, resistance, and socio-political agency. It does so in the context of inter-disciplinary, multi-methodological, approaches, as well as a wide range of empirical case studies. The course outlines insights from a range of disciplines (social psychology, economy, anthropology, philosophy, sociology and geography) and places them in the context of insights from different conflict-affected regions around the world where various methods associated with peace processes have been applied.  

This course, together with International Relations (I) in the autumn semester, provides an overview of International Relations for political science majors and other interested students. The course aims to provide the following: a foundation in the study of international relations; an ability to apply international relations theory to discuss real-world politics; an overview of global politics; the ability to read academic texts in English, and oral and written communication skills in the English language.

This course explores the key problems that the oceans are contemporarily facing and how global governors, law enforcement agencies, and other actors intend to address them. The course is organized in three blocks. In the first part, it revisits the contemporary foundations of ocean governance, including international organizations and the law of the sea. It then revisits the key contemporary ocean discourses. In part two, the course investigates major issues on the ocean agenda, such as shipping, fishing, piracy, smuggling, or deep seabed mining and how international actors address them. Following an independent writing period, the course concludes with a workshop where case studies are presented. The course is assessed on the basis of participation and the independent project.

This course offers a study of the theory of social movements including features of social movements and key components for the emergence and development of social movements. It examines the history of social movements in three periods: 19th and 20th centuries (up to the 1960s); 1960s-1980s; 1990 to present. Finally, this course discusses specific social movements such as labor, racial and cultural rights, nationalism, feminism, environmentalism, LGBT, etc. 

This course examines the impact of religion, culture, and identity on global politics. International Relations (IR) conventionally refers to relations between sovereign states in an anarchic world. The sovereign state is assumed to be the natural political community of humankind and to command the allegiance of those subject to its rule. The culture, identity and religion of states are not conventionally considered relevant to how states interact with other states.  

However, since the events of September 11, 2001 (9/11), there has been renewed interest in culture, religion, and identity in global politics. The resultant US-led ‘War on Terror’ have reinforced the importance of religion to collective identities and rekindled the specter of a ‘clash of civilizations’ (Huntington 1996) pitting a Judeo-Christian West against a resurgent Islamic civilization. Echoes of the clash of civilizations but can be found in the policies of the Israeli state under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu towards Gaza after the attacks of October 7, 2023, by Hamas and in the policies towards migrants from Muslim majority states in the US under (ex) President Donald Trump and in many European Union (EU) states. In India, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) under Prime Minister Narendra Modi views Islam as a threat to India's national identity based on "Hindutva" (Hindu values). Religion has moved from the margins of global politics to its center-stage.  

But did it really go away? The modern international order instituted in Westphalia in 1648 was itself an attempt to contain religious and cultural conflict in Europe. How will the increasing resurgence of the non-western world and China and India in particular transform global politics? Will the eclipse of the West lead to a 'post-western' (Shani 2008) or 'global' (Acharya 2014, Acharya and Buzan 2020) IR? And will it be 'post-secular'? (Habermas 2008, Mavelli and Petito 2012, Shani 2014)? 

The course discusses these questions with reference to a series of historical and contemporary case studies in global politics. These will include Human Rights in the EU, the global "War on Terror," and Religious Nationalism in South Asia. 

This course explores the factors that have triggered the evolution of environmental law and governance beyond state (since the development of the UN Sustainable Development Goals), and how the theoretical approaches of environmental studies developed in that context. Additionally, it reflects on how and to what extent environmental law and governance can be resilient and adaptive in facing global challenges.