IR203      One Unit
International Organisations

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

Availability

Requisites

Additional requisites:

Students should have a background in International Relations. Prior familiarity with international relations theory is an advantage, but not necessary.

International organisations abound, ranging from the World Trade Organization to the United Nations. These institutions are forums for international cooperation and global problem solving, and they often have profound effects on the everyday interactions of states, with ultimate consequences for the lives of people worldwide. At the same time, the contemporary liberal international institutional order is increasingly challenged domestically and internationally. This course draws on theories of international institutions to explain comparatively the role of International Organisations in international politics. These questions include why states create International Organisations, why states transfer certain powers to them, how decisions in International Organisations are made, what impact they have, why they have become increasingly contested, and how they have adapted to such challenges. The course explores these questions across a wide-range of issues, including international peace and security, international economic relations, global environmental politics, human rights and infectious diseases. International organisations to be discussed include the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization, NATO, the International Criminal Court and regional organisations like the European Union, the African Union, and ASEAN.

15 hours of lectures and 10 hours of classes in the Winter Term.
15 hours of lectures and 10 hours of classes in the Autumn Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn and Winter Term.

It also includes an one-hour online Q&A sessions for the two assessments (in weeks AT11).

Students are expected to produce 1 essay in the AT, 1 essay in the WT and 1 presentation in AT.

Formative essays are 1,500 words. Class teachers will mark the essays and provide feedback on student presentations.

The formative essays and presentations are primarily aimed at preparing students for the summative essay in ST (see below). Formative work that prepares students for the e-Exam in the January exam period (see below) takes the form of optional weekly quizzes on Moodle.

• Ian Hurd (2024): International Organizations: Politics, Law, Practice, 5th edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press);
• Volker Rittberger, Bernhard Zangl and Andreas Kruck, and Hylke Dijkstra International Organization: Polity, Policy, Politics, 3rd ed. (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2019).

Exam (25%), duration: 120 Minutes in the January exam period

Exam (75%), duration: 120 Minutes in the Spring exam period

The January exam will take place on campus as an 'e-Exam' (Multiple Choice Test).