Part One: Theories of International Relations

Participation

Students are expected to attend all their courses and to be prepared – having done the readings and generally keep apace with the course – to engage the topic of the week. Certainly, there are some situations in which students may be excused from class, however please inform me in case of such circumstances.

Midterm Examination

In week six (14 November) of the regular course schedule, a midterm examination will take place. This exam will consist of 25 short answer questions and two bonus questions. The exam will take place over the full 90 minutes of regular course time and will cover the material presented in the first 5 substantive weeks of study.

Final Examination

This final examination will take place during the winter examination period. This exam will consist of four sections: multiple choice (10 questions = 10 marks); true or false (10 questions = 10 marks); short answers (10 questions = 20 marks); essay question (1 question = 10 marks). The duration of this exam is set at 180 minutes (3 hours). Materials from the entire course, even those raised during the midterm, may appear on the final examination.

Readings

This course is on a single textbook: John Baylis and Steve Smith, The Globalisation of World Politics: An Introduction to International Relations, 4^th ed., Oxford University Press ltd., Oxford UK., 2008.

The later half of the course is based on Joseph Nye’s Understanding International Conflicts. The respective chapters have been uploaded to the university’s SIS system.

Note: The MUP library has 5 copies of this book though it is highly recommended that you purchase it for yourself. Orders are available at: Big Ben Books (e-mail: [e-mail] | Malá Štupartská 5, 110 00 Praha 1 | tel.: [phone]). You should be entitled to a 10%-15% discount if you show them your MUP student ID.

Note: You may use any addition later than the 2^nd. Also, please note that the EXTRANET contains readings which are essential for this course.

Note: Please keep up with your weekly readings. Failure to do so will result in a pop-quiz which will be deducted from your participation mark! Page for the weekly readings are located in the Session Breakdown below.

Session Breakdown

Part One: Theories of International Relations

Comprised of 6 lessons the first part of Introduction to International Relations 1 looks at some important theories, their origins and critiques.

Week 1) Introduction: International Relations Theory throughout History

This session consists of a historical account of the birth and proliferation of International Relations as an academic field. We will closely inspect the political context within the political world which gave rise to International Relations and seek to ask the question of whether Aristotle’s depiction of “man as a political animal” can be extended to IR theory. Also, this session seeks student reflections of what motivated them to study IR.

This Week’s Required Reading: pp. 36-69.

Week 2) Idealism, Early Liberalism and Realism

The late 19^th and early 20^th centuries brought about some of the most prolific changes to international society in the history of humanity. Technological innovations may have sped up the pace of production, travel and society as a whole; but they also developed terrible destructive capabilities. This session explores some of the mainstream international relations theories which emerged in this historical period and have, retrospectively, come to reflect that period’s optimism and pessimism.

This Week’s Required Reading: pp. 90-123.

Week 3) The Neo-Neo Debate

World War II was the culmination of a budding high-tech society and the political immaturity of societies harnessing such material wealth and technological prowess. The war represented a watershed in political regression and technological progress. Within this context – post WWII/Cold War – two new theoretical dimensions of IR emerged. Neorealism and neoliberalism challenged the core beliefs of pre WWII IR theory. This session will detail and then debate these typologies to gauge which one was and may still be more relevant in depicting international society.

This Week’s Required Reading: pp. 124-141.

Week 4) Marxism as International Relations

Although Marxism is best known according to the political systems of suppression inspired by the USSR and communist China during the Cold War, there is a decidedly important undercurrent in International Relations which views the exchanges between states (and other political communities) as driven by primarily economic factors related to dominant and dominated actors. This week’s lesson presents Marxism as an IR theory and pays close attention to Neo- Gramscianism and International Political Economy (IPE).

This Week’s Required Reading: pp. 142-159.

Week 5) Constructivism and Post-Constructivism

Perhaps the most significant challenge to neorealism and neoliberalism has come from the theory of constructivism. Constructivism is convincing because its IR assessments attach great importance to normative values such as ideas. This session highlights the basic contours of constructive theories and its critiques.

This Week’s Required Reading: pp. 160-173.

Week 6) Feminism and International Relations Theory

With growing academic interest, Feminism offers a complete historical and political narrative of IR based on one constant variable: that women have always comprised an underclass, locally, regionally and internationally. The Feminist critique has become a very important source for advanced knowledge in IR.

This Week’s Required Reading: There are no readings for this weeks!

Part Two: Historical Relevance

The following 6 lessons are meant to relate the theories explored in the first 6 weeks to actual historic and currents events within international society.

Week 7) WWI and the End of Empires

The lead-up to, initiation and aftermath of WWI is said to have changed the “art of war” forever. For the first time in history aeroplanes crisscrossed the fronts dropping ordinance on vulnerable soldiers, towns and even distant cities: tanks broke through the trenches – modern war was born. Yet, how do we understand the events of WWI? Why was that war fought and how are these causes reflected in IR?

This Week’s Required Reading: The reading for this week’s course is located on the extranet.

Week 8) WWII and Decolonisation

WWI is often heralded as the End of Empires in that most of the traditional empires such as the Austro-Hungarian, Russian and Ottoman Empires collapsed as a direct result of the war. WWII on the other hand is often seen as the final ‘nail in the coffin’ of empires such as the British, French, Italian and German empires. WWII resulted in the birth of unprecedented numbers of nation states. Throughout Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and South America nation states emerged. This session examines WWII and its international socio-political outcomes.

This Week’s Required Reading: The reading for this week’s course is located on the extranet.

Week 9) International Institutions

In addition to decolonisation, WWII affected the very notion of international society and how it was to be governed. Although political interactions occurred in a Cold War context, the period is also exceptional for the level of institutionalisation which occurred concurrently. This institutionalisation was meant to be the spine of post WWII international order and many of the institutions that were developed at the time are still features of contemporary IR. Applying the theory of neoliberal institutionalism we will assess the depth of international institutionalism and weigh the pros and cons of such an enterprise. Ultimately this session ask, institutionalism, to what ends?

This Week’s Required Reading: pp. 312-330.

Week 10) Explaining the Cold War

Decolonisation and international institutionalisation were by-products of changing international norms. Those norms and values were heavily dependant on the nature and complexities of the Cold War. The essence of Cold War international interactions will be explored and critiqued during this session.

This Week’s Required Reading: The reading for this week’s course is located on the extranet.

Week 11) The Post Cold War Era

The Cold War ended abruptly, much to the surprise of America and NATO on one side, and the USSR and Warsaw Pact on the other. The events and democratic revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe in 1989 had a profound effect on international society. By 1991 the world was a different place; the USSR had imploded and a new world order was emerging. Yet, what kind of international order or society do we presently live in? This session aims to investigate the current state of affairs.

This Week’s Required Reading: The reading for this week’s course is located on the extranet.

Week 12) International Order, 11 September and the War on Terror

With the demise of the USSR and the Cold War much of the world spoke and acted as though a great victory for democracy and liberal free market economics had taken place. In the “west” there was a high degree of confidence that democracy was the most flexible, reflective and stable political system in the world. The belief in winning the Cold War resulted in a high degree of mythmaking, particularly over who shared in such democratic fantasies. On 11 September 2001 it became abundantly clear that a large chunk of the world despised the western model of society and loathed its global impact. Globalisation, it seems, was viewed in many parts of the world as a type of neo-colonisation. This session attempts to make sense of 11 September through a critical narrative of international society before and after the attacks.

This Week’s Required Reading: The reading for this week’s course is located on the extranet.

Week 13) International Relations Beyond the War on Terrorism

While the preceding weeks provided students with insights into international relations theory and history as they have already unfolded, this week is more anticipatory and examines clues as to the trends currently gathering pace and those petering out.

This Week’s Required Reading: There are no readings for this week.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-16