Modules

Core Modules

Your core module will be determined by the MA route you choose (see individual course entries for details). However, you may choose a further two core modules from those below to act as two of your option modules.

• The Politics of Human Rights
• Post Cold-War Order
• International Security

The Politics of Human Rights

This module discusses the major approaches to classifying rights and human rights. It covers the main political and philosophical accounts of the origins of rights, and encourages students to engage critically with current political controversies surrounding the idea of human rights. It has a focus on the relationship between the state, politics and human rights, and introduces students to the advanced ways in which human rights are quantified and measured in today’s world.

Post-Cold War World Order

This module critically examines the means by which the West maintains its concept of Order. It will begin by considering the relationship between order and justice in international relations before moving on to consider the idea of a 'New World Order' and assessing its originality. The position of the United States as the sole superpower after the Cold War will be examined and the ability of the US to imprint its model of Order globally will be evaluated. The module will analyse the way Western interests are upheld through concepts of security, the international economic system and international institutions such as the United Nations. A variety of challenges to this Western concept of order will be examined, including those from other parts of the world as well as from various parts of the academic community.

International Security

Issues of security and insecurity are central to international relations, as the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the Iraq War of 2003 underline. This course provides you with a thorough grounding in the theory and practice of international security in the contemporary era. It examines the main theoretical and conceptual approaches to the study of international security, before considering a range of contemporary security issues including: the emergence of a zone of stable peace in Europe; the violent break up of Yugoslavia; 'New Wars' in the South; terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; the Iraq War and the future of the Middle East; and the prospects for peace and security in the Twenty-First Century. This module thus provides you with the analytical tools to think Module Descriptions Core Modules critically and independently about the nature of contemporary international security, focusing on developments since the end of the Cold War.