This is the core course of the MSc Global Politics. It examines the nature, the causes and the political consequences of globalization in a variety of domains, including security, culture, the economy, and the environment. The course aims at enabling students to assess the extent of continuity and transformation in key areas of global politics. The course will analyse how globalization shapes and in turn is shaped by, politics within countries, between countries and beyond countries. It will introduce the main approaches to the study of globalization and examine how it affects patterns of conflict, cooperation and competition between a range of politically relevant actors, including governments, political parties and citizens: great powers: intergovernmental and nongovernmental organisations: global companies and other non-state groups. These patterns of patterns of conflict, cooperation and competition will be illustrated with examples drawn from a variety of policy domains, such as security, economy, environment, health and migration. The course will also assess the challenges to and opportunities for democracy in a global age.
The course examines the process and outcomes of policy-making at the global level. Students can choose an area of specialization from a range of global policy issues, with a focus on those addressed by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by the United Nations. Examples of policy areas covered in the course are environmental governance, with a focus on the protection of forests; global health governance, with a focus on tackling communicable diseases; the promotion of workers' rights in the global economy; the elimination of gender-based discrimination and violence; and the fight against tax avoidance and illicit financial flows. The course considers a range of modes of policy-making, from classic intergovernmental cooperation to novel forms of governance beyond the state such as transgovernmental networks, multistakeholder initiatives, and regulation by non-state actors. The sessions cover the following topics: 1. What are “global”, “public” and “policy”? Does global public policy exist? 2. Who are the targets of global public policy and what are their interests? 3. How to assess the performance of global public policy: output criteria. 4. How to assess the performance of global public policy: input and throughput criteria. 5. Which types and combinations of actors develop global public policies and how does it matter? 6. How are global “problems” framed and interpreted, and how does this affect their solution? 7. Do the delegation of authority and the legalization of global public policy affect its outcomes? 8. What role does deliberation and experimentation play in global policy initiatives? 9. What are the consequences of fragmentation and competition in the overall architecture of global public policy? 10. What are the prospects for building a global polity?
The first part of the course introduces the main theoretical approaches that provide alternative explanations for key questions about international institutions: their creation, institutional design, decision-making processes, their impact and their interactions with other international institutions. The second part analyses these key questions with regard to specific international institutions, including the United Nations, the European Union, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, the World Trade Organisation, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, as well as international institutions in the areas of human rights, environmental protection, and health policy.
Technological change can generate major benefits but also significant harm. The course examines harms that display three features. First, their impact is not limited to the country of origin but extends across borders, raising the problem of international collective action. Second, their impact may be particularly severe in the future, raising questions of intergenerational justice. Third, the harms are potentially catastrophic in magnitude. The scope of the course encompasses nuclear technologies, biological research with the potential to cause pandemics, growing antibiotic resistance, geoengineering, misaligned artificial intelligence, and cyberwarfare and cyberterrorism. The combination of international and intergenerational dimensions can make the governance of such risks especially challenging. The course applies to such problems the insights on the conditions for effective cooperation in a world of sovereign states that are offered by the current literature in International Relations and related disciplines.
The course has three parts. The first part analyses the features and implications of major risks that transcend national borders and have long-term impacts. The second part examines international governance schemes - those that are already in place, those that are being negotiated, and those that have been proposed. The third part consists of a classroom simulation of the negotiation of an international agreement aimed at mitigating a major contemporary risk, to be chosen in consultation with the students taking the course in any given year.
IR507 is part of the research-training programme for all research students working on the theory, history and/or practice of international institutions, international law and ethics. The workshop's principal objective is to foster intellectual exchange by showcasing new and innovative work from leading and emerging scholars. The workshop will provide a forum in which research students can present their work, discuss the theoretical and methodological problems involved, discuss common challenges in conducting research in this area and obtain feedback on their work. Research in this area runs from the study of intergovernmental and nongovernmental institutions and global governance, to the politics of international law, to the ethical and normative dimensions of global politics. It includes, but is not limited to, the study of international institutions such as the European Union, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, and the International Criminal Court and international issues such as human rights, humanitarian intervention, climate change, global health and international crime.