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International Relations (SPS-RESGUZ-IR-23)

SPS-RESGUZ-IR-23

Purpose

This field course surveys the state-of-the-art in international relations (IR) theory. Theorising IR takes place in different domains (meta-theory, normative and political theory, empirical theory both in the interpretivist and naturalist tradition, ontological theorising / frameworks of analysis) and with different purposes (instrumental theorising where theory is the result of knowledge and constitutive theorising where theory is the condition for the possibility of knowledge). Recent decades have seen
(1) a widening of the research fields beyond its classical concerns with war, diplomacy, and world order / global political economy (e.g. emotions, environment, big data),
(2) new meta-theoretical inspirations (e.g. new thinking on causality, uncertainty, relational and process ontologies, new materialism) and
(3) an engagement with different theoretical traditions (e.g. feminism, post-colonialism, non-Western IR).
As a result, IR has renewed its theories and theorising, as, for instance, in the study of international norms and institutions, rationalist IR (principal-agent theory; forms of institutionalism), regime complexity and governance, hierarchy in world order, critical security studies, practice theory and the practice turn, as well as in the new field of International Political Sociology.

A theme throughout the seminar will be if all this new IR work is ready for prime time. How do different theories come to understand, select and problematise challenges and opportunities of the 21^st century, including but not limited to global inequality and poverty, the recurrent crises of the global political economy, climate change, post-Western diplomacy, the rise of China, a populist backlash against globalization and a new, deeply national and inward-looking identity politics, and the return of large-scale conflict and societal militarisation in Europe?

Within the limited time frame, the seminar syllabus will introduce the above topics. The ‘Field Seminar - Additional Readings’ list – read outside the seminar and in preparation for the final take-home assessment – will allow researchers to drill down, acquiring in-depth knowledge on all course topics. Register for this course