Introduction to International Relations

2023/2024

Учебный год

ENG

Обучение ведется на английском языке

6

Кредиты

Кто читает:

Факультет мировой экономики и мировой политики

Статус:

Курс обязательный

Когда читается:

2-й курс, 3, 4 модуль

Преподаватели

Девяткин Павел Димитриевич

Кондратьев Сергей Викторович

Корягин Григорий Дмитриевич

Course Syllabus

Abstract

Students of this course are bound to ask the question – what exactly is International Relations (IR)? What distinguishes this subject from history or law, economics or comparative politics? When did ‘IR’ emerge as an academic subject? How has it changed over time in the West and in Russia? What does IR contribute to the sum of human knowledge? And why has it become one of the most popular twenty–first century social sciences despite the fact that – as students will discover fairly early on – IR scholars around the world spend more time than most defending and defining their ‘discipline’? The purpose of this course is to try and answer these questions while providing students with a foundation in the theory and practice of international relations and world politics and an introduction to more specialised topics that they may choose to study in more depth in the future. This course does not presuppose a specialised knowledge of international affairs. On the other hand, it does assume that students will have a genuine interest in world politics in addition to a willingness to expand their knowledge of geography, policy issues and events of international history. The course shall touch on the whole modern period of international relations, from the birth of the European state system in the early 15th century to the present day. But most of our focus will be on the last hundred years or so, a period marked by the quickening pace of globalisation, the search for a lasting, post–war international order and comparable events of international crisis associated with this collective enterprise. This course is therefore a roadmap and guide to the complex issues in an increasingly globalised context of world politics. Rather than trying to be exhaustive, it seeks to introduce students to a wide range of issues and problems, linked in some shape or form to changes brought about by political, cultural and economic aspects of globalisation; developments that have preoccupied scholars and policymakers alike around the world since the origins of ‘IR’ as a professional field of inquiry. Instead of arguing in favour of a specific approach or pointing to an absolute truth in IR, this course will ask students to think about the origins and dynamics to events and challenges in world politics in a clear and (where appropriate) critical fashion, coming to well–reasoned conclusions based on a combination of empirical observation and theoretical rigour. The aim, in other words, is to inform and stimulate and, in so doing, get all the students who take this course to ask questions and consider research puzzles about the international relations of the past and the present which they may never have thought of before.

Learning Objectives

• Explore the evolution of the discipline of international relations (IR) over the past century by examining the changing understandings of order in the modern world
• Consider the impact of major historical events on the evolution of IR, including the treaties of 1648, Europe’s imperial expansion, the First World War and the ongoing influence of globalisation
• Introduce students to a range of theoretical tools in order to analyse the behaviour of international actors and the nature of international systems
• Define and discuss some main concepts within the discipline, including war, peace, the state and power
• Critically assess challenges facing contemporary international society, including new security issues, global governance and the rise of East Asian actors.

Expected Learning Outcomes

• Understand the global evolution and limitations of International Relations (IR) as an academic discipline, including inside Russia
• Identify the strengths and weaknesses of various approaches for understanding and explaining changes in international order since 1919 in terms of the agency–structure problem in theory
• Analyse international events from a variety of actor–specific and theoretical viewpoints for understanding a range of (global) policy challenges in the twenty–first century
• Evaluate the relevance of key concepts for making sense of empirical, policy–facing situations in world politics and developing the theory of international relations in analytical response to these cases
• Discuss critically, and write knowledgeably about, major IR theories and paradigmatic debates
• Use key IR concepts to think, talk and write persuasively about historical processes and contemporary events

Course Contents

• The History of ‘IR’ between Wales, America & Russia
• The state as an actor in international relations
• Peacemaking and the ‘Crisis’ of International Orders
• War
• Realism
• Liberalism
• The Debate of Realism and Liberalism
• Is conflict between the USA and China inevitable?
• Constructivism
• The English School
• Power
• Gender and feminism
• Critical theories and International Political Economy
• Global Governance

Assessment Elements

• MOCK 2
• Oral exam
  students will receive the questions DURING the exam and will have 15 min to prepare the answer. The questins will be similar to the UoL exam questions, thus students will need to present arguments on the question asked.
• Seminars activity
• MOCK 1

Interim Assessment

• 2023/2024 4th module
  0.2 * MOCK 1 + 0.2 * MOCK 2 + 0.4 * Oral exam + 0.2 * Seminars activity

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

• Lebedeva, M. M. V. (DE-588)1051718589, (DE-627)786618302, (DE-576)407279407, aut. (2018). Russian studies of international relations from the Soviet past to the post-Cold-War present Marina Lebedeva ; with a foreword by Andrei P. Tsygankov. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edswao&AN=edswao.51570654X
• Wendt, A. (1992). Anarchy is what states make of it: The social construction of power politics. International Organization, 46(2), 391. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818300027764

Recommended Additional Bibliography

• Theory of international politics / Kenneth N. Waltz. (2010). Long Grove, Ill.: Waveland Press. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edswao&AN=edswao.322626552