Political Science

The course provides an introduction to the modern German polity. In the first part students survey the historical and cultural contexts in which German politics is embedded. The second part turns to the institutions and policy-making processes in the Federal Republic, including the Europeanization of German governance. The third part focuses on policy content by discussing important issues and policy fields in greater depth. This course is about key debates and arguments relating to German politics and society. It is assumed that students familiarize themselves with the basic elements of the German polity. 

This course explores selected topics in European politics and international relations, including the rise of modern states, revolutions, international orders, alliance politics, geopolitics, military strategies, strategic competition, political reforms, regional integrations, democratization, foreign policy, and sovereignty. Students are expected to actively participate in class discussions. Through their oral and written presentations, they are expected to be able to understand broad themes in European politics/international relations.

Students explore how women influenced and were influenced by the First and Second World Wars, the Cold War, Decolonization, leftist movements in the 1960s, revolutions, authoritarian regimes and struggles related to gender, racial and LGBTQ+ equality. Through broad global, regional, and comparative analysis in lectures and in-depth historical study of key women, groups, movements or institutions, students explore different methodologies for examining history in the 20th and 21st century. The course’s geographical focus is the Americas, including the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean, though there are also opportunities to explore comparisons and contrasts with other parts of the world including Britain, Europe, and Asia.

This course introduces students to the history, development, and institutions of the American political system. It provides a deeper understanding of contemporary US politics by exploring the historical origins of American political and economic development. The course examines the operation of the main branches of the US government (Congress, Presidency, Supreme Court), and the nature of political ideology and the rise of modern political parties. It also analyzes the development of the federal government, bureaucracy and regulation, and explains the importance of voting and elections in shaping the scope and breadth of public policy in the US today. 

Course Description

The module aims to provide students with a new perspective in understanding the making of the People’s Republic of China’s foreign policy. The “third world” and “internationalism” will be the key concepts of discussion for this course. It will address key issues such as the Afro-Asian national independence movement in the mid-20th century, Chinese revolution, the Korean War, the Bandung conference, the Sino-Arab relations, and the P.R. China’s admission into the UN. In addition to the linear historical narrative of major events in P. R. China during the Cold War period, this course will also allow students to understand from an analytical perspective the relations between Chinese foreign policy and its domestic nation building concern, between the aim of national salvation and the ideal of international solidarity. The primary materials discussed in this course will include political documents/writings, historical archives, posters, music, literature, and films.

Course Objective

1. Delineate a broader historical and socio-political landscape in which the Chinese foreign policy in the Cold War period was formed;
2. Enable students to engage with multidisciplinary primary and secondary sources in both English and Chinese languages for studying IR.
3. Familiarize key discussions and debates on the issue of internationalism, modernization, national independence, nation-building, and international cooperation in the 20th century in China, and other Third World countries.
4. Develop transferable skills in data collection, synthesizing information, critical thinking, and English academic writing.

The course is an introductory course to comparative democratization, ONLY open for the Mater students of Department of International Relation. Designed to introduce students to the study of democratization and assist students to developing research topics in democratization. The course is divided into three parts. First, we will review and basic concepts and theories of de- mocratization. Secondly, we will explore the determinants and consequences of democratiza- tion. Thirdly, we will put China into scrutiny and examine its democratic politics constructions. We will survey through a range of methodological approaches and explores key elements – eco- nomic development, political institutions, international factors as well as domestic structures, state-society relations, and elites decision making process, supplement with contemporary read- ing on democratization.

Apple, background, commutativity—underlying each of these words is a concept, which a language learner must identify and learn to decode and encode for parsing and constructing sentences. How do young children acquire words and know how to use their grammar correctly? Is learning apple just as easy as learning background? This class surveys classic and current views on cognitive underpinnings for language acquisition and how acquiring language impacts cognition.

The course provides students with an understanding of contemporary societal and policy debates around key energy policy challenges in the context of the transition towards sustainable and lower carbon energy systems. The course will take a distinctive Science, Technology, and Innovation Studies (STIS) approach which equips students with the analytical tools necessary to critically evaluate key energy technology and policy debates in the UK, Europe, and globally.

Science and technology (S&T) permeate everyday international exchange and increasingly drive change in international relations in complex ways. The criticality of competition in S&T at all levels of international interactions warrants systematic study from social science perspectives. This graduate seminar studies key aspects in S&T affecting the broad notion of International Political Economy, with China being an actor and factor, in the contemporary world. The substantive focus of this course is on how S&T manifests in diplomacy, international laws and norms, economic growth, trade, sustainable development and geopolitical risk assessments. The course invites students to appreciate and analyze these complexities through situating the role of S&T in examples include environment, health, manufacturing technology, energy, and AI. The course draws heavily on recent research to showcase how social scientists and policy-makers have evaluated and navigated debates over the interplay between S&T and international relations.

Prior knowledge about a particular topic covered in the syllabus is not required. The course will introduce basic concepts required for understanding the issues covered. The load of required readings is deliberately kept low to incentivize comprehension and questioning before the class meeting so that students from diverse backgrounds can have as much of a common plate to relate with each other during class.

Upon completing the course, participants can expect to have enriched knowledge base and appreciation for the scientific and technological dimensions of the broader issues they are interested in. The main objective is to enable students to produce research on current topics by practicing critical thinking.

This course examines environmental change as a problem of governance. It scrutinizes major governance dimensions - such as actors, institutions, and problem structures - at multiple levels and across domains. This includes the interplay of government, market, and civil society in efforts to mitigate and adapt to environmental change. The course critically approaches the changing institutional architecture of environmental governance, including the rise of alternative forms of governance beyond the state. Actors like regions, cities, international organizations, businesses, non-governmental organizations, and social movements are studied. Cases of environmental governance on various levels are contrasted and compared, together with overlaps between environmental issues and other domains like trade and security. The course allows reflecting on these cases in relation to central political scientific concepts like democracy, justice, legitimacy, and effectiveness.