Key Issues in International Relations

This module will give final year students an opportunity to explore major theoretical and empirical debates in the discipline of International Relations (IR). Much of the scholarship in IR is concerned with the process and practice of institutions or with understanding international events and crises such as wars and acts of terrorism. In the process of accounting for these empirical processes and events, the intersection of international relations with theory and research can be overlooked. Since the end of the Cold War, methodological issues have returned to centre-stage in IR. This module will explore the role of theory and research approaches in how we read about and understand international relations. Students will become familiar with significant debates in IR about explaining and understanding, ontology and epistemology, agency and structure and levels of analysis. The first part of the course will examine the theoretical research paradigms in International Relations and will apply theories of realism, liberalism and constructivism to international relations issues and events. The second part of the course will consider the positivist and post-positivist divide in IR scholarship and will compare and evaluate examples of both types of research.