IR327 Half Unit
World Orders in Historical International Relations
This information is for the 2025/26 session.
Course Convenor
Dr Martin Bayly
Availability
This course is available on the BSc in International Relations, BSc in International Relations and Chinese, BSc in International Relations and History, BSc in Politics and International Relations, Erasmus Reciprocal Programme of Study and Exchange Programme for Students from University of California, Berkeley. This course is not available as an outside option to students on other programmes. This course is available with permission to General Course students.
This course has a limited number of places (it is capped).
Requisites
Additional requisites:
Students should have completed International Relations: Theories, Concepts and Debates (IR100) and International Political Theory (IR200), but exceptions to this will be considered.
Course content
What is ‘world order’, how has it changed historically, and what sort of world order shifts are we living through today? These are some of the biggest questions in International Relations. This course approaches world order through two avenues: theory and history. First the course offers a focused introduction to theorising world order, revisiting topics of anarchy, hierarchy, and the practices of world order making. Second, and in parallel with this theoretical element, the course will cover historical instances of world orders and world order making. We will consider interstate orders, civilizational and cultural orders, imperial orders, ‘liberal’ orders, anti-colonial and insurgent orders, as well as orders of capital, knowledge, and ’non-human’ orders.
By the end of the course, students will be able to (1) theorise order from different theoretical standpoints; (2) speak knowledgeably about recent works on international order in IR; (3) identify and describe the historical evolution of international order on a global scale; and (4) critically assess the contemporary international/world order and its possible futures.
Teaching
15 hours of classes and 10 hours of lectures in the Winter Term.
This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Winter Term.
This course is delivered through a combination of classes and lectures totalling a minimum of 25 hours in the Winter Term. Each week, in preparation for their classes, students will consider a practical example of world order and engage with a recent substantial text in historical International Relations and world order studies. Complementing this, a weekly lecture will offer intellectual scaffolding – supplying the theoretical tools and conceptual criteria associated with a particular approach to the theory and history of international and world order.
Formative assessment
This course adopts a ‘students as producers’ approach to formative coursework. Students will make a minimum of five regular contributions to an individual blog that they will manage and curate throughout the course. In addition, at the start of the course, students will be assigned to one of the weekly topics in agreement with the course convenor. In this week they will be required to submit a contribution to a shared class blog. This will form a key element to classwork, serving as part of the class conversation for that week. Collectively the students will thereby produce a shared course archive that will provide a core resource for their summative assessment.
The formative blogs should demonstrate engagement with the set texts, and wider application to ‘real world’ examples within the individual posts. Students will receive feedback on their formative work in preparation for the summative Essay Blog.
Indicative reading
Adler, Emanuel. World Ordering: A Social Theory of Cognitive Evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019.
Allan, Bentley B. Scientific Cosmology and International Orders. Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2018.
Getachew, Adom. Worldmaking after Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination. Princeton Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2020.
Ikenberry, G. John. A World Safe for Democracy: Liberal Internationalism and the Crises of Global Order. Yale University Press, 2020.
Phillips, Andrew. How the East Was Won: Barbarian Conquerors, Universal Conquest and the Making of Modern Asia. Cambridge ; New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2021.
Sharman, J. C. Empires of the Weak: The Real Story of European Expansion and the Creation of the New World Order. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2019.
Spruyt, Hendrik. The World Imagined: Collective Beliefs and Political Order in the Sinocentric, Islamic and Southeast Asian International Societies. Cambridge New York: Cambridge University Press, 2020.
Zarakol, Ayşe. Before the West: The Rise and Fall of Eastern World Orders. New edition. Cambridge New York, NY Melbourne New Delhi Singapore: Cambridge University Press, 2022.
Assessment
Course participation (20%)
Essay (80%, 1800 words) in January
Essay Blog (80%, 3000 words) in the January Assessment Period. Students will submit three of their best blog entries for assessment, up to a combined maximum word limit of 1800 words.
Key facts
Department: International Relations
Course Study Period: Winter Term
Unit value: Half unit
FHEQ Level: Level 6
CEFR Level: Null
Total students 2024/25: Unavailable
Average class size 2024/25: Unavailable
Capped 2024/25: NoCourse selection videos
Some departments have produced short videos to introduce their courses. Please refer to the course selection videos index page for further information.
Personal development skills
- Leadership
- Self-management
- Team working
- Problem solving
- Application of information skills
- Communication
- Specialist skills