Political Science

This course examines how individuals and groups shape local-global dynamics of international environmental politics, how economic, political, and social processes at multiple domains shape global environmental changes, including climate change, and how challenges of international environmental politics and policy formulations shape solutions to global environmental changes. This course discusses five areas crucial to comprehending the nature and dynamics of global environmental issues and effective policies to deal with them: international political order, international environmental law, human-environment interactions in the context of market and politics, political and societal challenges of sustainability, and dynamics of human values and rules.

The extensive independent study field research paper produced by the student is both the centerpiece of the intern's professional engagement and the culmination of the academic achievements of the semester. During the preparatory session, IFE teaches the methodological guidelines and principles to which students are expected to adhere in the development of their written research. Students work individually with a research advisor from their field. The first task is to identify a topic, following guidelines established by IFE for research topic choice. The subject must be tied in a useful and complementary way to the student-intern's responsibilities, as well as to the core concerns of the host organization. The research question should be designed to draw as much as possible on resources available to the intern via the internship (data, documents, interviews, observations, seminars and the like). Students begin to focus on this project after the first 2-3 weeks on the internship. Each internship agreement signed with an organization makes explicit mention of this program requirement, and this is the culminating element of their semester. Once the topic is identified, students meet individually, as regularly as they wish, with their IFE research advisor to generate a research question from the topic, develop an outline, identify sources and research methods, and discuss drafts submitted by the student. The research advisor also helps students prepare for the oral defense of their work which takes place a month before the end of the program and the due date of the paper. The purpose of this exercise is to help students evaluate their progress and diagnose the weak points in their outline and arguments. Rather than an extraneous burden added to the intern's other duties, the field research project grows out of the internship through a useful and rewarding synergy of internship and research. The Field Study and Internship model results in well-trained student-interns fully engaged in mission-driven internships in their field, while exploring a critical problem guided by an experienced research advisor.

The course focuses on Berlin as a case study of urban governance for sustainability. It compares local policy challenges in national and international contexts, developing a more nuanced view on the top down and bottom up strategies of building sustainable cities. The course combines a comparative policy analysis approach with concepts of international relations studies. The objective is to unravel the concept of sustainability and study its translation into politics and policies in multi-level governance structures.

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.