Selected Issues: International Security

URL study guide

https://studiegids.vu.nl/en/courses/2024-2025/S_SIIS

Course Objective

Learning outcomes: A. Knowledge and understanding
- The student has acquired knowledge and understanding of: (1) the core debates in international security; (2) key issues, approaches and main theories in international security, including the security dilemma, liberal peace theory, and postcolonial theory; (3) have an advanced understanding of selected topics, including ethnopolitical conflict and security institutions; (4) have a thorough understanding of how international security is affected by the deepening interaction between national and international politics. B. Skills
- The student is able to: (5) critically examine issues of international security at a high level of conceptual abstraction as well as translate them into terms understandable by a wider public; (6) summarize, evaluate, and synthesize research results from political science and related fields and assess the policy relevance of these results; (7) carry out in-depth academic theoretical and empirical research on a topic of international security; (8) learn, collaborate and communicate in an intercultural context. C. Attitude
- The student displays: (9) intellectual integrity and a willingness to self-assess and take responsibility for their own learning process; (10) a critical attitude towards advanced literature in international security and political science more broadly; (11) an open, reflexive and independent attitude towards prevailing views on politics and their societal context.

Course Content

The course introduces students to the field of international security, its main concepts, and debates. We begin with an overview of how the field has developed and how international security has been defined. We discuss the merits and problems of broadening the notion of international security. We then introduce the security dilemma as a useful approach to analyze security in the international system (as well as in weak and civil war-torn states). We will discuss the role of international norms, international institutions, and a range of non-state groups in mitigating the security dilemma and managing security issues. Furthermore, we will examine the impact of domestic politics on international conflict, particularly how government policy is influenced by public opinion and by a state’s political system. We also critically reflect on the field of security studies and the question of how ‘Western’ the field’s concepts and approaches are and what de-colonization or decentering of the field would imply.

Teaching Methods

This course will be taught in a series of interactive lectures.

Method of Assessment

One or two written assignments and a group video presentation.

Literature

A selection of articles and book chapters, to be announced on Canvas.

Target Audience

Students in the specialisation International Relations, Security and Global Order (IRSGO). Elective course for students in the other specialisations.