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.

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 contemporary 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, and we look at how those practices have evolved in recent years as existing approaches to peacebuilding have been challenged. 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 investigates the political functions and impacts of the arts -- in contexts of state power, conflict, peacebuilding, and reconciliation. The course is driven by a recognition that the visual arts provide lenses through which individuals and communities perceive and interpret the world around them, thereby shaping understandings of power, perceptions of conflict, and possibilities of peace. Equally, the performative arts (particularly music) can provide an aural filter through which actors hear, perceive, and process political messages, in a way that contributes to their political preferences, responses to power, conflict dynamics, and potentials for peace. Although the arts can, as such, play key roles in defining the discursive and perceptual bases for political interactions and confrontations, they have received relatively limited attention in the fields of political science, global governance, and peace and conflict studies. This course aims to partly redress that limitation by introducing students to: (a) the actors that create and/or deploy art for political purposes in contexts of state power, conflict, and peacebuilding; (b) the diverse political functions, uses, and abuses of the arts in those contexts; (c) the intended and unintended impacts of the arts on political outcomes; (d) various (critical and positivist) methods and approaches to studying the above within the framework of the social sciences.

While a range of arts will be discussed through the course, the emphasis will be on political functions of the visual arts and music, in particular. Throughout the course, we will retain a critical perspective, noting structures of power and resources that underwrite the production, diffusion, and deployment of these arts for political purposes. We will also retain a ‘realist’ perspective on the limitations of the arts as political tools, recognizing that visual arts, music, and other forms of creative expression may shape perceptions that inform political outcomes, but they sit alongside -- and interact with -- other (material and discursive) factors to inform political dynamics in contexts of state power, conflict, and peacebuilding.

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.

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 witnessed the rapid integration of emerging digital technologies into diplomatic practice. Ministries of Foreign Affairs (MFAs), International Organizations (IOs), and other international actors increasingly rely on artificial intelligence, immersive virtual environments, advanced data analytics, secure digital infrastructures, and automated decision-support systems to conduct diplomacy, manage crises, negotiate international agreements, and engage foreign publics. At the same time, technological competition over AI, quantum technologies, digital platforms, and critical infrastructures has become a central feature of contemporary geopolitics, reshaping the strategic environment in which diplomacy operates.

The main objective of this course is to provide students with the theoretical foundations and practical competencies necessary to understand how emerging digital technologies are transforming diplomacy. The course examines the opportunities, strategic implications, and governance challenges arising from the adoption of artificial intelligence, virtual and mixed reality, quantum technologies, data-driven infrastructures, and platform ecosystems across a range of diplomatic functions, including public diplomacy, humanitarian affairs, crisis management, international negotiations, and global governance. Particular attention is devoted to the interaction between human diplomats and AI systems, the implications of hybrid digital environments for diplomatic agency, and the ethical, normative, and security challenges associated with technological transformation. The overall aim of the course is to establish a comprehensive analytical framework for understanding and evaluating diplomacy in an era increasingly shaped by interconnected emerging digital technologies.

Global Governance has been on a trajectory of increasing institutionalisation, yet international institutions today are the object of repeated attacks and permanent scepticism. The course takes issue with the current climate of crisis in which international institutions operate, and the empirical and normative urgency to assess their relevance. A review of definitions, historical accounts, concepts and competing theories of international institutions is followed by a presentation of a typology of crises they face. The course then examines endogenous and exogenous sources of crisis affecting distinct international institutions – norms, practices, bureaucracies – using different empirical examples: the nuclear taboo, humanitarian response, and the International Civil Aviation Organization, respectively. The course concludes by bringing together the study of international norms, practices and bureaucracies in the context of a specific migration crisis, and by charting the overall prospects of international institution.