MRes Politics and International Relations

Title:

Advanced Academic Skills

Code:

PIM1

Convenor:

DR Kerry Goettlich

Summary:

This module will introduce new students, especially those studying in the UK for the first time, to the academic expectations associated with postgraduate study.  It will identify common challenges, suggest strategies for overcoming them, and facilitate the development of advanced study skills.  In particular, it will focus on the requirements for successful academic writing at postgraduate level.  It will also identify the key sources of support available to postgraduate students at the University of Reading.

Assessment Method:

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

Title:

Dissertation

Code:

PIM12

Convenor:

PROF Alan Cromartie

Summary:

To develop students' capacity for independent research and critical analysis; to deepen their knowledge of a specialised topic within their programme of study; to develop their ability to write an extended piece of analysis; to develop their ability to generate and complete an extended piece of research.

Assessment Method:

Dissertation 100%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

Title:

Philosophical Issues in the Social Sciences

Code:

PIM54

Convenor:

PROF Alan Cromartie

Summary:

A research training module for doctoral students and MA students equipping themselves for future doctoral study.  This module provides training on research design alongside theoretical and philosophical perspectives on research in the social sciences.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 60%, Report 40%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

Title:

Introduction to Qualitative research methods in Politics and International Relations

Code:

PIM85

Convenor:

DR Joseph O' Mahoney

Summary:

This module covers the basics of research design and focuses attention on a range of widely used qualitative research methods in the study of politics and international relations. The main topics covered normally include case studies and within-case analysis or process-tracing, small-n comparative analysis, historical approaches, archival research, interview technique, critical discourse analysis, ethnographic methods and qualitative comparative analysis. 

Assessment Method:

Assignment 60%, Portfolio 40%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

Title:

Introduction to Quantitative research methods in Politics and International Relations

Code:

PIM86

Convenor:

DR Jonathan Golub

Summary:

The purpose of this module is to introduce students to the basics of research design and a number of the principal quantitative methods used in political science and international relations. The course discusses the best practice for the collection and analysis of information about human behaviour and institutions. To help students understand and apply research methods, the discussion and many of the examples used in the module will be taken from existing quantitative research in international relations, comparative politics and public policy. Students are then required to test hypotheses using the methods they have learned in the course. 

Assessment Method:

Assignment 50%, Class test 50%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

Title:

NATO Strategy during and after the Cold War

Code:

PIM100

Convenor:

Summary:

This module focusses on NATO’s Strategic Concepts which have developed since NATO was formed in 1949. Defence against the Soviet Union was the stated aim of NATO during the Cold War, but how has that aim changed with the dissolution of the Soviet Union? What were the consequences of the ‘New World Order’ for NATO following the Soviet Union’s break-up? The validity, applicability and practicality of the strategic concepts will be analysed in the context of the prevailing security environments. The current remodelling of NATO’s security concept will be considered in light of the renewal of immediate threats to it border in Eastern Europe. Where necessary the module draws on historical examples to illustrate the concepts and their applicability.

Assessment Method:

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

Title:

Politics of Public Policy

Code:

PIM49

Convenor:

DR David Marshall

Summary:

This module introduces students to the nature of the processes through which policy decisions are made and implemented. It considers how these vary across policy areas and policy-making venues.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 40%, Oral 10%, Report 50%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

Title:

International Relations Theory

Code:

PIM63

Convenor:

DR Amanda Hall

Summary:

The module introduces students to the advanced study of International Relations through a survey of the principal theoretical approaches employed in the academic discipline of International Relations.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

Title:

International Security Studies

Code:

PIM64

Convenor:

DR Andreas Behnke

Summary:

This module introduces students to concepts and issues of international security with a particular focus on the changing logic of security in the post-cold war era.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

Title:

Strategic Studies

Code:

PIM65

Convenor:

DR Kerry Goettlich

Summary:

This module is a graduate-level introduction to Strategic Studies, the study of the relationship between political aims and organized violence, covering both the tradition and current debates. With an eye to the latest developments in contemporary warfare, it asks fundamental questions about the nature and purpose of war. Is war purely a means to an end, or does it have its own nature? Is there such a thing as a ‘just war’? How does warfare change historically? Is counterinsurgency a strategy or an ideology? What, if anything, do technologies such as airplanes, nuclear weapons, and cyberweapons really change about war? Is grand strategy possible, and does it offer anything to a post-Brexit UK?

Assessment Method:

Assignment 50%, Oral 10%, Project 40%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

Title:

Contemporary Diplomacy

Code:

PIM66

Convenor:

DR Sarah Von Billerbeck

Summary:

This module aims to provide students with an understanding of concepts and practices of contemporary diplomacy. It introduces key concepts in international diplomacy, shows the evolution of diplomatic practice since the Second World War across a range of actors, including states, international organisations, and non-state actors, and the application of different types of diplomacy, including public diplomacy, digital diplomacy and coercive diplomacy. The module aims to provide an understanding of ideas and concepts relating to diplomacy, the way diplomacy relates to the complex process of policymaking, both domestic and international, and how these measure up against actual diplomatic practice, explained by practitioners. Students will become familiar with key academic works on the subject, to give them the conceptual analytical tools to study international diplomacy. The course will also normally have an input from current and former diplomats or other civil servants  and includes a practical section in which students get to ‘be the diplomats’ by engaging in a series of hands-on exercises and simulations.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 50%, Practical 20%, Oral 30%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

Title:

Terrorism in a Globalising World

Code:

PIM74

Convenor:

DR Christina Hellmich

Summary:

This course examines central issues and theoretical dimensions in the study of terrorism in a globalising world, including the complex nature of asymmetrical conflict, the evolution of different terrorism types, the internationalisation of terrorism, the phenomenon of suicide attacks, challenges to counter-terrorism and the ongoing war against terror. Particular emphasis is placed on developing interdisciplinary perspectives and critical approaches to the issues discussed.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

Title:

Worlding International Relations

Code:

PIM93

Convenor:

DR Andreas Behnke

Summary:

This module is directed to students interested in the history and current development of International Relations. It addresses the challenges formulated in diverse parts of the world to the Western dominance of the field of International Relations. Focusing on how central concept of IR are understood in different parts of the world, the module investigates how scholars from around the world think about central concepts such as sovereignty, the state, war, peace, religion and ‘the international’. Highlighting the conceptual differences in non-Western approaches, the module casts light on their implication for IR and the study of world politics.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 90%, Oral 10%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

Title:

Building Peace

Code:

PIM94

Convenor:

DR Sarah Von Billerbeck

Summary:

Building peace in fragile and conflict-affected states is one of the major challenges of contemporary security and development policy. Donor states, UN peacekeepers, and multilateral institutions are not only engaged in a growing number of fragile states, but their involvement also extends deeper into the domestic politics of these states than in the past.

In this module, we will evaluate different approaches to building peace in fragile and conflict-affected states, and examine the record of peace- and statebuilding operations. We will look both at different approaches to and elements of peacebuilding, such as post-conflict institution building or security sector reform, the different actors involved in these activities, and particular cases of peace- and statebuilding, such as Kosovo, DR Congo, or Liberia. 

Assessment Method:

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

Title:

Challenges to Global Order

Code:

PIM97

Convenor:

Summary:

This module covers key contemporary issues in international politics and how they relate to global order. Using the concept of global order as a starting point, students will discuss how issues such as climate change and environmental politics, nationalism and the rise of the far right, international conflicts, cyber security and warfare, the rise of non-Western powers, pandemics and public health, and political economy and financial crises challenge different conceptions of global order and shape and reshape it over time (the exact topics are subject to variation). This module is team-taught and draws on expertise from across the department to provide students with the opportunity to critically examine some of the most pressing issues facing the world today, as well as how various state and non-state actors in the international system have responded to them and what this means for the possibility and likelihood of cooperation at the international level. 

Assessment Method:

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

Title:

New Perspectives on War

Code:

PIM98

Convenor:

Summary:

The goal of this module is to critically engage with current discussions and debates about war and warfare. On the one hand recent developments in the conduct of war seem to suggest a return to historical patterns of violent territorial conquest. But on the other hand, these developments seem to emerge in ways never seen before, from new uses of digital media further separating the spectacle of war from actual experience, to the increasing involvement of women in warfare. Does war have an inner ‘nature’ or must we reject the search for fixed definitions? 

Assessment Method:

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

Title:

Law of Armed Conflict (International Humanitarian Law)

Code:

LWMTAC

Convenor:

DR Saeed Bagheri

Summary:

The law of armed conflict (LOAC) (also known as ‘international humanitarian law’) concerns a major substantive area of public international law (the jus in bello). It examines issues including the legal protections for injured or captured combatants and civilians, the rules as to how warfare is to be conducted, such as the prohibition of or restrictions on the use of certain weapons and rules on targeting, and the law of occupation. It also offers introductions into cutting-edge areas including displacement and complex emergencies in armed conflict. The module offers a unique insight into some of the most controversial and fundamental aspects of the modern international legal order and their manifestations in practice (such as the law applicable to so-called ‘modern’ conflicts between States and transnational non-State armed groups or the occupation of the Palestinian Territories). The module essentially asks how – in what manner – war must be fought in the modern world. This question is assessed through both abstract examination of the law and through detailed real world case studies. This module is designed to complement the LWMTUF International Law and the Use of Military Force module, which considers the rules of international law applicable to initial uses of military force in the international sphere, prior to an armed conflict emerging (the ius ad bellum). However, the modules can also be taken wholly independently.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.