Political Science

This course provides the tools to analyze, as citizens as well as practitioners and workers, international affairs in the contemporary world. It explores international issues, based on research and practice, through economic, strategic, political and social lenses. National and international political issues are of particular interest. Indeed, all actors, should they be public, private, non governmental, etc., face questions related to power, financial means, culture and organization. Hence, this course begins by studying global and transversal issues to lay the foundations for examining regional and national issues. Theories of international relations are used as far as they shed light on the practice of world affairs as well as history, geography, economics, strategy and other social sciences. The course attempts to cover the most important issues, actors and geographical areas pertaining to international affairs.

This course examines political dynamics of development and resistance. It covers contemporary struggles over development as well as some of the historical trajectories underpinning those. It introduces the ﾠpolitical dynamics of development and resistance at local, national, regional, and global levels, and the relevance of decolonial thought. It explores how different political development objectives inter-relate, and how they are institutionalized, experienced, and acted upon, not least through resistance struggles, contestations, and calls for reform or change. 

This course provides a better understanding of the European Union and how it operates, and reflects on how it can (or cannot) respond to the major challenges facing the world today. It considers questions such as: How will the European Union cope with these challenges? Will it be able to continue building its strategic autonomy? Will it be able to offer Ukraine the support it needs, both militarily and politically, in a landscape where voices are being raised in both the Council and Parliament against enlargement? And how will it pursue its own objectives? How can we respond to the challenge of climate change, at a time when the Green Pact is being undermined by the energy crisis and growing contestation from a section of the population and the political class? The course discusses a new political sequence opening up for the EU, with the renewal of its leadership and a new balance of power in Parliament, and the context of this new configuration taking place against a backdrop of unprecedented geopolitical tensions.

This course addresses Jewish migration as a part of Germany's past and present, explores integration issues from the perspective of Jewish immigrants and the non-Jewish majority, and makes relevant comparisons with the current population of refugees in Germany. Topics include the trend of Jewish migration from Eastern Europe to Germany as early as the late 19th century and with the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, how Jewish migration from the former Soviet Union fundamentally changed Jewish life in Germany. Students also examine the increase in migration from Israel.

This course examines advanced theoretical and empirical debates about the origin, development and collapse of democracies since the 20th century. It also focuses in-depth on understanding why some authoritarian regimes remain resilient despite an ongoing global trend towards democratization.

This course explores the international relations of the East Asian countries of China, Japan, and Korea and provides students with critical perspectives on various issues related to international relations in East Asia. This course examines the question of how East Asian countries have coped with the West (Western values, power, economy, etc.,) since the European expansion in the nineteenth century that broke apart the China-centered East Asian world order. 

Topics include national security, foreign policy, regional and global governance, civilizational/modernity politics, and power transition.   

In this theoretical and practical course, students will analyze the development of the human rights of women and sexual dissidence, focusing on the actors who have made said development possible and the mechanisms through which they have been disseminated. The above is analyzed through lectures, individual analysis of texts and group development of research, which contributes to the development of scientific and empirical knowledge about international political processes in the students.

This course explores the politics of food. Themes include supply chains in the alimentary system, including production, transformation, distribution, consumption, and waste, as well as the politics of land and farm policies and alimentary inequities.