IR4A2      Half Unit
International Relations: Global Applications

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

Availability

This course is a graduate-level introduction to global applications of international relations. It provides an opportunity to gain an analytically deeper understanding of the issues that shape the development of the contemporary international order and reflect critically on the empirical applications of the discipline. The course encourages students to engage in debating the nature of, and possible responses to, contemporary challenges in international politics, while emphasising the need for critical analysis. The course complements IR4A1 with a more applied theory focus. Students will develop an awareness of the relationship between the discipline of International Relations as a field of knowledge and the practices of world politics. 

This course will use Cadmus for submitting assessments. This platform is currently being evaluated by LSE for AI-resilient assessment. For more information, visit Cadmus Assessment Edit Tracking - Guidance for Students.

10 hours of lectures and 13.5 hours of seminars in the Autumn Term.

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

A 3-hour online simulation exercise will replace the lecture and classes in Week 10. 

Students deliver one seminar presentation and write one 2,000-word essay proposal for their seminar teachers. The essay proposal offers students an opportunity to develop the research design for the summative essay. The essay proposal is due Week 7 of the Autumn Term. 

• John Baylis, Steve Smith and Patricia Owen (eds), The Globalization of World Politics 8th ed (OUP: 2020)
• Chris Brown, Understanding International Relations 5th ed (Palgrave: 2019)
• Jenny Edkins and Maja Zehfuss (eds), Global Politics: A New Introduction (Routledge: 2019)
• Mary Kaldor and Iavor Rangelov (eds), The Handbook of Global Security Policy (Wiley-Blackwell: 2014).

Essay (100%)