Dr Martin Bayly

Dr Jasmine Gani

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 available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit. This course is not available to General Course students.

This course has a limited number of places (it is capped).

Pre-requisites:

Students must have completed IR100 before taking this course.

What are the ideas that have shaped and continue to underpin world politics? Where do those ideas emerge from, how do they travel, and how do they evolve from the intellectual level to policy and practice? This course explores the impact of ideas in the real world, from statecraft to revolution, from fascism to democracy, and from empire to decolonisation. In turn, students will consider how those ideas are adopted, altered, or suppressed by governments, institutions, the ‘markets’, or social movements. The course engages with influential thinkers and their critics; and traces the implications or contestations of their ideas in contemporary and historical global political events. Students will take away from the course a strong understanding of the enduring relationship between knowledge, policy, and practice in the 21st Century.

10 hours of lectures and 9 hours of classes in the Autumn Term.
10 hours of lectures and 10 hours of classes in the Winter Term.

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

Students are required to write two essays of a maximum length of 1,500 words each to be set and marked by class teachers. They are also expected to give at least one class presentation. The formative essays will help students develop a deep understanding of key readings on topics likely to appear in the summative e-Exam.

• E. Said, Representations of the Intellectual
• H. Arendt, On Violence
• F. Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth
• E. Keene, International Political Thought: A Historical Introduction
• R. Shilliam, International Relations and Non-Western Thought
• B. K. Sarkar, The Futurism of Young Asia
• B. Bliesemann de Guevara et al, Knowledge and Expertise in International Politics

Exam (80%), duration: 180 Minutes in the Spring exam period.

Course participation (20%).