Year 1
Central to our International Relations degree is the opportunity to learn more about why all forms of political enquiry are necessarily contested. These critical thinking skills are at the core of all of our teaching and learning in the first year. You will learn about the different political, social, economic, and historical elements that make up the fabric of world politics and determine the lives of not just nation-states and international institutions but also (and perhaps most importantly) the 7.5 billion people living on this planet. You will look at issues as diverse as climate change, migration, terrorism, nationalism, and globalisation but also delve into the theoretical and ideological traditions that inform our understanding of the world.
Core modules
Introduction to International Relations (20 credits)
Core for Single Honours and Core for Combined Honours Students
This module has two main aims: first, to develop the key skills students will need to progress through their university studies (e.g. library and online research skills, essay writing skills and presentation skills), and second, to provide students with an understanding of key issues and theories in the study of International Relations. The former includes topics like migration, conflict, inequality, violence, climate change, etc. These will be approached by using theories as old as liberalism and realism but also look at more recent theories such as feminism, post-colonialism, and Marxism.
Contemporary Global Politics (20 credits)
Core for Single Honours and Core for Combined Honours Students
How has our world come to be shaped in the way that it is today? We will consider how the international political system of the past is being replaced by something markedly different – a global political world where state power is less significant. We will explore how the acquisition, possession and loss of state power became systematised over time and in different ways, and explain critically the responses which have been made to this loss of power, from protectionism to full scale war.
British Politics in Context (20 credits)
Core for Single Honours; Optional for Combined Honours Students
British Politics is an ongoing attempt by more or less self-interested actors to cope with the issues, conflicts, opportunities and threats thrown up by time and chance, as well as by underlying economic and social developments. This module provides students with an improved understanding of why, politically, we are as we are today. Topics covered may include: the post-war consensus, the miners’ Strike, Thatcherism, New Labour, the fall and rise of the Liberals, Britain and Europe.
Reimagining the EU in the World (20 credits)
Core for Single Honours; Optional for Combined Honours Students
Why do nation states choose to join the EU? Why do others wish to leave? How much sovereignty do states sign over to the EU? Why are certain policies so controversial? What is the purpose of the European institutions? What role does the EU play on the global stage? To answer these important questions this module will examine European integration during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and analyse the main policies and institutions of the European Union.
Key Political Thinkers (20 credits)
Core for Single Honours; Optional for Combined Honours Students
What is the purpose of government? Is it ever permissible for politicians to act immorally? Should national interest take primacy over individual rights? Is it ever ok to break the law? Would it be wrong to smash capitalism? This module explores key thinkers in the history of political thought, and their attempts to answer these and other challenging political and philosophical questions. It scrutinises a range of long-standing arguments and ideas in the history of political thought, and uses these to interrogate current dilemmas in domestic and international politics, and to establish connections between the political concerns of the past and present.
Year 2
The second year is all about deepening your knowledge of the subject area and further developing the transferable skills which will assist you in your career, once you leave university. You will strengthen your ability to critique interactions between people, ideas, structures of power and institutions. During your second year it may be possible to spend time studying abroad at a partner institution. Language skills need not be a barrier as some of our partners teach in English. This is a competitive process as the opportunity to live and study in a foreign country is an incredible privilege. Previous students who have participated in these exchanges have benefitted academically and in their personal development.
Theories of International Relations (20 credits)
This module explores the different ways in which the world of international politics can be understood. This not only refers to the many perspectives that exist politically, culturally, socially or religiously but also to our perspective on the world. To complement this, the module will look at a range of theories that further expand on the idea that there is not just one way of looking at the world. We will look at key events in the 20th and 21st century like WWI, WWII, the Cold War, decolonisation, 9/11, and the Financial Crisis and analyse them by using different theories that look at power (realism), cooperation (liberalism), identity (constructivism), gender (feminism), race (post-colonialism), or class (Marxism), to name but a few.
Political Research (20 credits)
Core for Single Honours; Optional for Combined Honours Students
You will examine certain methods used in political research; for example, survey and interview design; primary and secondary data analysis; and the use of statistics. We will explore the ethical issues that can arise when undertaking political research. Emphasis will also be placed on the theoretical context of research – specifically the domain of social scientific epistemology.
Year 3
The final year of your degree is when all the ground work laid in the first two years comes together. You will have amassed a great deal of knowledge and you will have more confidence in critically assessing the information you find and reaching your own reasoned conclusions. In your final year, you’ll pursue your own specialist study; you are given the opportunity to produce an extended piece of individual research on a topic of your choosing when you complete your dissertation, and to select from a range of specialised modules delivered by staff in areas of their own expertise.
Foreign Policy Analysis (20 credits)
Core for Single Honours and Combined Honours Students
Why do some foreign policy choices end in success and others in failure? Is it due to the way decisions are made or how policies are implemented? Who are the important actors and what factors influence their behaviour? What are the consequences of the rise of new powers and the shifts in priorities in a globalising world?Foreign Policy Analysis examines the nature of diplomacy and foreign policy in the 21st century. Students address both conceptual and empirical issues in relation to how foreign policy is designed and implemented.
Individual Study (40 credits)
Core for Single Honours and Optional for Combined Honours Students
For most students the main focus in your final year is the Individual Study. This is a significant piece of independent research, where you may select a topic of special interest within your discipline area. You will be guided by a lecturer, but the main direction of the work will be decided by you. Students who invest time in their work are rewarded by a huge sense of personal satisfaction as they produce academic research which is entirely their own. Your individual study also acts as a step on the path to your career as it allows students to demonstrate effective time and workload management in the production of an extended piece of work.
Likely optional modules
Year 1
Power, Politics and the State (20 credits)
What is the nature of political power? How does it operate in practice? How do structures of race, gender and class affect access to power? What role does the state play in contemporary society? This module will cover a number of key issues central to understanding the relationship between the realm of the state, its modes of power and authority, its various ideologies, and its connection with modes of governance.
Year 2
European Union: Power, Policy and Integration (20 credits)
You will examine the scope of community power, the supremacy of EU law and the complexity of EU decision making. Furthermore, you will explore some of the major policy areas covered by the EU - for example, the continuing debate over the role of the EU in a common defence strategy, and some of its major legal doctrines.
Federalism, Conflict Resolution and Good Governance (20 credits)
Some places on our prestigious international summer school are reserved for students who wish to remain in Canterbury over the summer. The course gives you an insight into the theory and practice of federalism and regionalism in a number of political systems. By focusing on the issue of multinationalism, you will see how federalism can be seen as a form of conflict management in divided societies in Europe and beyond.
Global Governance (20 credits)
This module has three aims. First, it provides a broad introduction to concepts and examples of globalisation and governance. Second, it provides a detailed exploration of international, supra-state and global dynamics, and retraces them through a range of issues that are often the solved but sometimes also caused by globalisation and governance such as humanitarian interventions, climate change, or global inequality. Third, it invites you to take part in a class-wide simulation where you will represent a particular party (state, organisation, NGO, social movement) at a negotiation. This will certainly give you a very direct experience of the promises and perils of global governance!
Year 3
Module options change annually and therefore it is not possible to offer further details here at present.
Contemporary Security: Theory & Practice (20 credits)
Students taking this module will learn about the most influential theoretical approaches in Security Studies, as well as to some of the major issues in contemporary international security. You will first look at the conceptual and theoretical history of Security Studies. Themes to be examined will include: NATO after the end of the Cold war and the security priorities for the United Kingdom. This will be followed by an in-depth study of what is known in the literature as ‘Critical Security Studies’. Here, the main theoretical schools – from the Copenhagen School to Post-Colonialism – will be discussed at length, supported by the analysis of specific case studies as diverse as the Arab Spring or global warming as a security issue. The third and last part of the module deals with the interaction between theory and technological development, focusing on post-modernity and risk as conceptual tools for the understanding of issues such as cybersecurity or the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), the so-called drones.
Radical Political Thought (20 Credits)
This module will begin by outlining key thematic tensions and theoretical difficulties in the classical Marxist tradition. The module will draw on the theoretical resources of political philosophy and positive political theory. Here attention will be given to the issues of ideology, revolutionary morality, strategy, democracy and ‘emancipatory knowledge’. Key thinkers to be explored include Althusser, Laclau and Mouffe, Geras, Badiou, and Žižek. Key questions will include: To what extent are the ‘problems of Marxism’ insurmountable for its reform? Is ideology a permanent aspect of human existence? Can a revolutionary ethics address the issue of ‘dirty hands’? How does desire motivate politics? Can we imagine a world free of ‘the state’? Is social clear still relevant for emancipatory politics? How important is the ecological ‘crisis’ for our understanding of radical politics? Can we imagine a world ‘beyond capitalism’? Is the ‘idea of communism’ dead?