Graduate Course Catalog

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Course Catalog (Graduate)

TOPICS IN LAW (LW5091)

Topics change each semester- see the current Academic Schedule for current course descriptions.

CAPSTONE PROFESSIONAL THESIS (LW5095)

This 6 credit capstone provides students with opportunity to test their theoretical knowledge of Human Rights and Data Science in a professional situation (NGO, private company, public administration, international institutions or other relevant bodies). The thesis should follow a 4-credit internship or relevant professional experience approved by the program director and the thesis supervisor.

INTERNSHIP (LW5098)

Internships are commonly pursued in law firms, non-governmental organizations, international development networks or research institutes, but can also be completed in a variety of other institutions. The University cannot guarantee placement in an internship, but will provide assistance with the internship search. Students must have completed their first semester of MA studies and should contact the Internship Office early for registration purposes.

MODULES (PO5002)

The module topics change each semester and are taught by working professionals in the fields of international affairs, conflict resolution and civil society development. Each semester four or more different modules are offered. May be taken twice for credit.

CULTURAL DIVERSITY & GLOBALIZATION (PO5003)

The course will explore the ways in which cultural difference is mobilized – socially, politically and economically – by individuals and groups and the ways in which current discourses and practices of cultural difference interact with globalization. The course will analyze the combined processes of homogenization and fragmentation that result from this encounter. It will examine how affirmations of cultural distinctiveness are joined by yearnings for negotiations and ‘translations’ between them. As different actors deploy divergent understandings of ‘culture’, questions of cultural ‘identity’, access, agency and power come to the fore. The actors in question range from academic cultural theorists to officials in governmental agencies; they also include international organizations, cultural entrepreneurs, NGO activists and artists. Against the backdrop of globalization, the course will analyze how these actors articulate ‘cultural’ discourses and strategies and practices as well as how the media re-articulate and reflect the latter. Two particular discursive formations will be emphasized: i) those of ‘cultural diversity’ that focus on cultural goods and services and ii) those inspired by the notions of inter- or trans-cultural communication and dialogue.

PHILO. FOUND. OF INTERNAT'L RELATIONS (PO5005)

Articulated within the emergence of the European nation-state and born in the context of the First World War and its aftermath, the discursive field of International Relations is organized around the constitutive concepts of conflict, anarchy, power, system, rule, law, and justice, and the practices of civil society and political economy. These concepts and practices organize, in turn, both the major schools of International Relations theory and contemporary methodological pluralism. This course interrogates these founding concepts from a philosophical perspective within the historical and discursive context of each major school: 1) from classical liberalism to international liberalism; 2) from classical realism to modern realism; 3) the ‘English School’ of IR theory (Bull); 4) Marxist tenets within international relations (from Karl Marx to international political economy); 5) Modern and Contemporary Critical Liberalism (Polanyi and Held); 6) The philosophical grounds of contemporary Constructivism.

GLOBALIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS (PO5006)

This course of offers graduate students a comprehensive conceptual and factual treatment of historical globalization, from the Industrial Revolution in the late-modern period to the universalization of capitalism and the ICT revolution in the late-twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

CIVIL SOCIETY: INTERNAT'L & COMP. PERSP. (PO5012)

“Civil society” is one of the more elusive entries in the social science lexicon, and not a few have argued that we could do well without it. In a critical but appreciative spirit, this seminar introduces to the various meanings and uses that have been attributed to, or made of, civil society across time and national contexts. A constant in its various meanings is the reference to an elementary capacity of social self-organization beyond states and markets. This has made civil society an attractive alternative to diminished states and unfettered markets in the era of globalization, interestingly for the political left and right alike.