The foundational course in Global Governance and Diplomacy explores the sources, mechanisms, processes, and practices of global governance at the subnational, national, international, and transnational levels, focussing on issues such as globalisation, regional integration, international organisation, and multilateralism. It also provides students with a thorough knowledge of the institutions and processes of international diplomacy, including key themes of diplomatic thought, paradigms of international negotiation, ethical boundaries of diplomatic engagement, and transformative implications of digital technologies.

Designed for students who have limited introduction to diplomatic and public international law, the course aims to give students a practical understanding of how international law informs, regulates and constrains the conduct of diplomacy. The seminar will focus on the following central questions: What principles and instruments underpinning the international legal order are most relevant for the practice of diplomacy? Under what conditions states may be held responsible for their actions under international law? What are the main tensions between theory and practice in the application of diplomatic law? By the end of the course, students are expected to be well conversant about how diplomats practice and ought to practice international law in global affairs.

The past decade has been witnessing the fast adoption by Ministries of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and International Organizations (IOs) of a broad spectrum of digital technologies ranging from social media, data analytics dashboards, video-conferencing platforms, to AI-powered chatbots and decision-making applications. Whilst still in its initial phases, social VR applications – a term which refers to navigable virtual environments where individuals meet and interact through their avatars – have been also experimentally used for organising virtual events, including for diplomatic and humanitarian purposes.

The main objective of this course is to offer students the theoretical knowledge and practical competencies necessary for understanding the new role of virtual reality (VR) platforms in the conduct of diplomacy. To this end, the option examines the scope of application, functional effects, and adaptation challenges to follow from the integration of VR platforms to multiple diplomatic areas: humanitarian affairs, crisis management, public diplomacy, and international negotiations.  The overall aim of the course is to establish theoretical benchmarks for understanding and comparing diplomatic engagement impacted by the adoption of new digital technologies by MFAs and IOs.

The aim of this seminar is to introduce students to the crucial topic of religion in world politics. Accepted wisdom has it that religion is resurgent and matters, but it is less clear what exactly this entails and precisely how religion matters. The seminar helps students expand their knowledge and advance their understanding by covering important issues from public religion to secularization and de-secularization, and from the influence of religion on US foreign policy to Islamist visions of order. In doing so, the seminar discusses some of the most topical trends in contemporary world politics and possible approaches to dealing with them.

This course examines the many dilemmas that are associated with contemporary processes of peacemaking, peacebuilding, and post-conflict statebuilding. We open by considering the concepts of conflict, violence, and peace, and we evaluate the post-Cold War view that democracy and a liberal market constitute the best institutional environments in which to foster peace. In the second section of the class, we explore international responses to ongoing armed conflicts. Particular attention is given to ethical and practical dilemmas that are associated with the provision of humanitarian assistance in conflict zones. We also consider the changing role of peacekeeping forces and peace support operations in the post-Cold War era, before going on to examine the dynamics of peace negotiations and the reasons for which particular peace agreements hold, while others fail. In the next section of the course, we turn our attention to post-conflict reconstruction. Specifically, we examine processes of statebuilding and regime-building that have taken place over the past twenty years, under the auspices of the “liberal peace” project. Issues associated with securing a post-conflict space and demobilizing combatants are first considered. We then move on to discuss regime- and institution-building, by looking at dilemmas associated with attempts to install electoral democracy and a market economy in a post-conflict space. The course concludes with an examination of various processes of transitional justice that may be implemented in the wake of armed conflict.

This course covers the theory of nonviolent resistance, explanations of social mobilization, repertoires of nonviolent protest, technologies of protest, and transitions from nonviolent resistance into violence. The aims are to understand the normative foundations of nonviolent resistance and develop an empirical framework for explaining the causes, dynamics, and outcomes of such resistance.  The course is divided into four sections, each two weeks long. The opening section covers theories and approaches to the study of nonviolence. In the first class, we explore contrasting understandings of social and political power, and consider how those varying approaches give rise to contrasting understandings of resistance. In the second class, we then look at two broad ways of studying nonviolent resistance; prescriptively, and empirically.  The next section of the course focuses on processes of social mobilization that underwrite and sustain nonviolent resistance movements. One class explores the framing of collective motives to mobilize, and the other looks at the development of political opportunities that facilitate protests, as well as availability of the kinds material and human resources that actors need to realize a nonviolent protest, in practice. In the third section of the course, we explore the strategies and dynamics of nonviolent resistance; first at the domestic level, and then at the transnational level. And the course closes by considering the relationship between violent and nonviolent resistance; we first consider how and why violent insurgents may give up their arms and turn to nonviolence, and we then look at why nonviolent resistance sometimes fails, and collapses into violence. Throughout the course, we consider the above themes across a diverse set of historical and contemporary cases of nonviolent resistance, including the US civil rights movement, the anti-Apartheid struggle, the ‘Coloured Revolutions’ in post-communist countries, and the Arab Spring revolts.

This course is designed to introduce the emerging field of political economy of institutions and development, and to deepen understanding of how domestic institutions shape economic development in a globalized world. It engages students with the intellectual frontiers of institutions and development, highlighting the theoretical, empirical and public policy aspects of this literature. Beginning with an overview of leading perspectives on new institutional economics, the course will develop and critically assess key topics in the field, to include: the economics of property rights, of rent seeking and corruption, of institutions. It will also examine the process of economic change (especially the role of institutions in shaping governance and development paths), and the colonial origins of institutions and their impact on development. This course will be taught in a comparative and international context, and will furnish relevant evidence and examples from developing societies.

Globalisation has brought its opportunities for economic growth and development, but also its challenges. This course engages in this critical discourse by unpacking key concepts and debates in Global Trade and Finance, including ‘free trade’, ’financial/trade liberalisation’, ‘globalisation’, ‘neoliberalism’ and ‘financialisation.’. It critically examines its implications for international relations, diplomacy and economic development. The course begins by setting the conceptual tools to enable students to use theories and frameworks to engage in these debates, followed by a more in-depth look on the global trade architecture, including institutions and actors, and how they engage to influence the proliferation of capitalism. The course then looks at the integration of both developed and developing countries in this global capitalist framework, by engaging with research on multinational corporations and global value chains, and its relation to economic diplomacy and development. The course then explores financialization, its impacts on countries and people. Finally, against these overwhelming structures, we examine the resistance and counter-movements this has given rise to at local, national and international levels, and how these may yet have implications in the future.

Environmental institutions, actors and concerns converge today towards an established area of global governance, that is complex for the wealth of its – too often polarised - debates and its demand for urgent responses. This course builds students’ understanding of environmental global governance’s discourses and practices by drawing on literature in Global Governance, International Relations and Politics and also Anthropology, Economics, Earth Science and Ecology. It first introduces key concepts and debates, and available theoretical frameworks in global environmental governance. Second, it explores the international architecture of environmental governance, including its dedicated international organisations and agreements. The course then moves on to debating climate change, and particularly how science and politics intersect and shape one another in this issue area. Next, it discusses existing approaches to sustainable resource development - including how they speak to the challenge of biodiversity conservation - and the ideas of earth overshoot and resilience. To that follows a session on energy transition, its geopolitical implications and the limits and opportunities of renewable resources. Then, students familiarise themselves with approaches to studying the spatial dimension of environmental change as it relates to urbanisation, or migration within and across national borders. Finally, the course examines environmental movements and activism at local, national and international levels and its effectiveness in bringing about change.