Politics MA - 2021 Entry

Course Structure

You will study a range of modules as part of your course, some examples of which are listed below.

Core

• Dissertation (Standard)

  The module involves the negotiation, design and delivery of a research project whose precise topic will be determined by you and your project supervisor.

  The dissertation will be 20,000 words in length and is designed to provide you with the opportunity to both consolidate and enhance your existing knowledge and skills through engaging with an extended piece of project-orientated research and writing.

• Theory and Methods in Postgraduate Studies

  This module aims to consolidate postgraduate research and learning support by enabling you to engage with theories, methods, and skills relevant to your studies. The module is core for all PPR PGT politics students and should complement core subject and discipline-specific provision in religious studies and philosophy. Through this module we aim to equip you with the ability to reflect upon the processes and implications of research project planning, design and execution in Politics, Philosophy and/or Religion.

  The module involves a combination of lectures, small group discussions, and presentations. It aims to cover a wide range of topics and seeks to support you in developing and enhancing your research skills. The following is an indicative list of topics that may be covered:

  • The academic research process.
  • Project planning, design and process management.
  • Ethics in postgraduate research.
  • Resource identification and review processes.
  • Data acquisition techniques and issues.
  • Analytical and interpretative approaches.
  • Academic conventions (e.g. making an argument, writing, referencing).

Optional

• Conflict Management and Contemporary Conflicts

  The course aims to explore a variety of approaches to conflict management in contemporary conflicts, by third parties and parties in conflict, and critically assesses their effectiveness and potential. The course draws its theoretical foundations from peace and conflict research but is aimed at enabling students to learn to assess the scope for conflict management and peace-building in practice. The module includes both academic literature as well as policy relevant papers.

  The focus of the course is on analysing peace processes and practical problems of conflict prevention, conflict management and peace-building in a range of contemporary international, internal, ethnic, community and environmental conflicts.

  Students will be divided up into groups of two or three, and each group will take responsibility for identifying and investigating a specific approach to conflict management in a conflict of their choice. The choice of cases will vary with the interest of students. In recent year topics included Afghanistan, Chechnya, Georgia, Kashmir, Kosovo, Macedonia, Northern Ireland, Liberia/Sierra Leone, Timor Elste, conflict prevention and the emergent global climate change negotiations, and peace-building in contemporary Africa and Asia.

  The course is taught in 10 2-hour lecture seminars, with the first half devoted to the lecture and the second half dedicated to substantial presentations by the student / group.

  Select Bibliography:

  Barash, David P. & Webel, Charles P. (2008) Peace and Conflict Studies, London: Sage.Darby J & Mac Ginty, R, Contemporary Peacemaking (Palgrave Macmillan, 2002)Eriksen, T. H., Ethnicity and Nationalism (Zed, 2010).Kaldor, M., New & Old Wars (Polity Press, 2006) Lyons, T. (2008) Conflict Management and African Conflicts – Ripeness, Bargaining and Mediation, London: Routledge, 2008)Misra, A. Afghanistan: The Labyrinth of Violence (Polity, 2004).Misra A., Politics of Civil Wars (Routledge 2008)Paris, R., At War’s End (Cambridge Univ. Press. 2005)Ramsbotham, O, Woodhouse T. & Miall, H, Contemporary Conflict Resolution – 3rd edition (Blackwell's, 2010)Rupesinghe, K, Civil Wars, Civil Peace (Pluto Press, 1998)Zartman, I.W., Peacemaking in International Conflict (USIP, 2005)European Centre for Conflict Prevention, People Building Peace (1999)Wallensteen, P., Understanding Conflict Resolution (Sage, 2006)

• Globalisation and Democratisation

  This module aims to introduce you to the historical and contemporary making of the 'Third World' (the global South) with a focus on sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and South Asia.

  Typically the module is divided into two parts. The first half explores historical processes, beginning with the creation of an international capitalist economy and its incorporation of the global South from the sixteenth century onwards and ends with an examination of neo-liberalism and the post-Washington consensus with its emphasis on poverty reduction and the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

  The second half explores key contemporary development policies, debates and actors such as foreign aid and international NGOs; diaspora politics and remittances; grassroots social movements; and the role of China in fostering a renewed focus on resource-based models of development including reformist, redistributive models as in Venezuela and Ecuador.

  The module objective is to enable you to critically appraise the complex interactions between Northern and Southern state and non-state actors in shaping current development policy and resistance to it.

• Independent Study Module

  This module provides you with the opportunity to undertake a concentrated and focussed study of a topic, theme or subject which is of interest to you and for which appropriate supervisory coverage and academic resourcing are available. Your learning is facilitated by tutorial support.

  During this module you will be expected to:

  • clearly define a research problem based on a topic or subject of your interest
  • produce a reading list of relevant literature
  • produce the outline/early draft of an essay on the basis of the research for comments by the supervisor

  The supervisor supporting you can:

  • advise on whether your planned area of research is appropriate
  • give guidance regarding the nature and format of the essay
  • give guidance on the planning of the essay
  • give feedback on a draft of the essay provided by the student

  The final assessment is a 5,000 word essay.

• Issues and Practice in Diplomacy and Foreign Policy

  Diplomacy and Foreign Policy are central to the understanding of international politics. The structure of the international system induces a constant need for political dialogue and negotiations. Besides war, diplomacy is the common language states are using to interact on the world stage.

  Complementing the first core module (Theory and Concepts in Diplomacy and Foreign Policy), this module aims to apply your theoretical understanding of diplomacy and foreign policy to contemporary diplomatic and negotiation issues and great power politics. Our teaching and learning strategy seeks to give you both a theoretical and practical understanding of contemporary issues in diplomacy and foreign policy. Where possible, academic teaching will be complemented by guest lectures (e.g. by a practitioner) and in-class activities such as mock negotiation exercises.

  Topics covered vary each year but we often explore issues relating to the following areas: Nuclear weapons and foreign policy, Arms control and diplomacy, International climate negotiations, South-North relations and development, Diplomacy and terrorism, and Citizen protection.

• Major Approaches to the Study of International Relations
  This module aims to provide you with a broad understanding of the main areas of study within the field of international relations (IR). The introductory session seeks to address the general question as to what constitutes the study of IR. Subsequent sessions aim to examine the major approaches to the discipline (both mainstream and critical), focusing upon the distinctive insights and analyses that they have brought to bear.

  You will have the opportunity to gain an understanding of the nature of the wide-ranging theoretical debates that have shaped the discipline and will also be encouraged to take a critical approach to these debates to consider the ways in which we study IR.

  More particularly, you have the opportunity to:

  • understand and critically assess the interpretation of the world and of IR put forward by each theory
  • evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each theory
  • apply the theoretical tools to the “facts out there” (linking theory with practice)
• Philosophy of mental disorder

  This module provides you with the opportunity to explore a number of contemporary debates in the philosophy of mental disorder. Topics will vary from year to year, and has included explorations of the following:

  • What is mental disorder?
  • What is the relationship between evolutionary dysfunction and disorder?
  • Are disorders necessarily harmful?
  • Antipsychiatry/ postpsychiatry - Are mental disorders substantially like physical disorders? Or, do diagnoses of "mental disorder" simply label behaviour that is unusual, socially stigmatised, or bad?
  • Classification - Are mental disorders "natural kinds"? To what extent are values involved in the construction of psychiatric classifications?
  • Conceptualising cultural variations - Do mental disorders vary from culture to culture? Would cultural variation mean that a disorder is less "real"?
  • Realism and constructionism about mental disorder - What does it mean to say that a disorder is real or constructed?
  • Meaning and the limits of reduction - Can symptoms be reduced to faulty brain states? Or, do symptoms such as "delusion" resist reduction?
  • Responsibility and disorder - Are those with mental disorders responsible for their actions? Are psychopaths ill or simply evil?
  • Identity and mental disorder - Can a disorder be central to someone's identity?
  • Values in psychiatric research - In what ways are research in psychiatry value-laden? What are the advantages of user-led research?
• Politics and International Relations of the Middle East

  This module aims to familiarise you with the major issues in the politics and international relations of the contemporary Middle East region. We seek to present the contemporary picture in the region and, from that, ask the questions about how we got there.

  To explore that question we aim to provide a broad introduction to the people, society, history and politics of the Middle East. From here we also aim to explore the interplay of factors such as religion, ethnicity, gender and class in the politics of the region; the role played by internal and external actors; issues of conflict in the region; political economies; foreign policies of major states and the perception of what those policies might be; regional integration; the concepts of political Islam and the challenge of democracy and Islam.

  The aim of the module is not to provide detailed coverage of all of the most recent events, it will be assumed that you follow current affairs in the region. Rather, the aim is to undertake a deeper exploration of the region, to help you understand and analyse the dynamics involved in these events and processes. In other words: why did things evolve the way they did, why are they what they appear to be today, and what does this tell us about where they are likely to go in the future? Typically, this will be done through guided reading, seminar discussion, and your own research and writing.

• Studying Religion

  This module aims to provide skills training for postgraduate students in religious studies from induction to completion of the master's dissertation. It seeks to support existing taught modules by introducing a variety of research methods from other disciplines and theoretical issues within religious studies. It also introduces cross-cultural and cross-religious examination of research topics in religious studies. The module will provide you with the opportunity to develop generic skills in library research, essay writing, and dissertation planning.

  Topics covered may include:

  • Induction in the study of religions: resources, essay planning and writing, seminar preparation and presentations
  • Research methodologies: examples selected from philosophical, anthropological, sociological, psychological, and phenomenological approaches
  • Theoretical approaches to the study of religion: examples selected from the disciplines of the humanities and social sciences
  • Dissertation workshop: finding a topic and supervisor, completion plan, case studies.
• Theorising Security and War

  This module aims to examine the changing character of war and security in a time of rapid and disruptive technological and geopolitical/ecological change. We will combine analysis of contemporary policy documents with the interdisciplinary insights of intellectuals - such as Zygmunt Bauman and Paul Virilio - that have examined how war has changed in the modern age.

  You will be introduced to a range of concepts that are relevant to the debates about the future of war – concepts such as ambiguous war, the gray zone, unrestricted warfare, the third offset strategy and the three block war.

  While we ground the module in broader debates from social and political thought about war and modernity, you will also have the opportunity to explore a range of evolving and inter-related case studies that are central to understanding how war is changing, for example: cybersecurity/artificial intelligence; cities and urban war; drones and the future of robotics; climate change and ecological insecurity.

• Theory and Concepts in Diplomacy and Foreign Policy

  Diplomacy and Foreign Policy are central to the understanding of international politics. The structure of the international system induces a constant need for political dialogue and negotiations. Besides war, diplomacy is the common language states are using to interact on the world stage.

  This module introduces students to ways of conceptualizing diplomacy and foreign policy in the 21st century:

  • Why do states rely on diplomacy?
  • What are the current forms and features of diplomacy and foreign policy?
  • Is diplomacy the only form of international dialogue besides war?
  • How do states (and statesmen) negotiate?
  • How has diplomacy evolved throughout history?
  • Does ‘global governance’ exist?

  This module is designed to provide you with the opportunity to develop your knowledge of both theoretical and practical understanding of contemporary issues in diplomacy and foreign policy. Where appropriate, academic teaching may be complemented by lectures and in-class activities carried out by practitioners (diplomats, civil servants, etc).

Information contained on the website with respect to modules is correct at the time of publication, but changes may be necessary, for example as a result of student feedback, Professional Statutory and Regulatory Bodies' (PSRB) requirements, staff changes, and new research. Not all optional modules are available every year.