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European Foreign and Security Policies in a post-Western World (STG-MA-ECM-EFS)

STG-MA-ECM-EFS

Description

This course complements Global Security in Transformation by focusing in an applied and practical way on the challenges of transformation in the context of EUropean foreign, security and defence policy. The term EUropean covers the EU institutions, EU member states and non-member states as well as other institutional frameworks of relevance for security, defence and foreign policy. It complements the course Global Security Transformations taught in the third semester by being focused on European security and foreign policy challenges and policies and by adopting a more hands-on and practical approach of relevance for participants’ future professional endeavours.

The course departs from assumed general knowledge of Europe’s foreign and security policies, institutions, and mechanisms. Our focus is how security and foreign policy in EUrope is influenced by geopolitical conditions outside the EU. It centres on how policies are applied in real-life cases, as well as how they are perceived by selected counterparts outside Europe and outside the liberal international order. The course includes concrete situations in which the instructors have been directly involved. Where relevant, a specific tool and skill will be attached, demonstrated or trained in class.

This course aims to prepare students for real-life assignments within the broad area of foreign, security and defence policies. It will place them in concrete situations where they must analyse, observe, make choices, and solve problems that will likely occur in the professional careers that they might enter in the broad field of foreign and security policy.

Within this context, the course has three main objectives:

- It will provide a perspective from an angle that is unique and yet relevant for any security analysis. The angle is EUropean from the perspective of how policy is perceived, received, and the responses and reactions that it generates.
- It will offer real-life, sometimes extreme cases, in which EUropean foreign and security policy has been put into practice. Wherever possible, we will strive to have the cases told by individuals who have had an active role in relevant areas.
- When relevant, we will attach to the cases a specific skill, tool or task that could be used when policy makers must respond to similar situations. The course will be of benefit to students who plan to pursue a career in policymaking and analysis in areas related to European foreign and security and who wish to train the practical application of conceptual and theoretical knowledge.

 

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