Undergraduate Course: Peace and International Order (PLIT10194)
Course Outline
| School | School of Social and Political Science |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course explores present-day geopolitical challenges like war, inequality, and climate change through the work of Immanuel Kant and other key figures in international political thought. Students will be introduced to key texts, contexts, and interpretations of Kant's political thought and their relationship to issues like climate change, race, gender, colonialism, cosmopolitanism, war, and migration. Students will learn key concepts that shape contemporary political action like autonomy, hospitality, progress, and critique and develop a sense of the way these concepts both enable and constrain possibilities for political order on a world scale today. |
| Course description |
This course explores present-day geopolitical challenges like war, inequality, and climate change through the work of Immanuel Kant and other key figures in international political thought. Kant's articulation of the ultimate end of human political organisation on earth, a global international system, is the starting point for theorizing about world order today and remains a touchstone of contemporary debates across realist, liberal, and critical approaches in international relations. This account is premised on hierarchies of race, gender, and civilization that still shape contemporary world politics.
Students will be introduced to key texts, contexts, and interpretations of Kant's political thought and its relationship to issues like climate change, race, gender, colonialism, cosmopolitanism, war, and migration. Students will learn key concepts that shape contemporary political action like autonomy, hospitality, progress, and critique and develop a sense of the way these concepts both enable and constrain possibilities for political order on a world scale today. Course delivery will be a mix of lecture and seminar-style class discussion. Assessments will include reading reflections, a concept analysis, and an essay.
|
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | Visiting students should have at least 4 Politics/International Relations courses at grade B or above (or be predicted to obtain this). We will only consider University/College level courses. |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Closely read and interpret critically key texts in international political thought.
- Identify, understand, and apply key theories, concepts, and debates related to peace and international order through key thinkers in international political thought, and explore their implications for present-day international politics.
- Critically evaluate and reflect on these theories, concepts and debates by understanding their historical contexts and contemporary significance.
- Make written and spoken contributions to discussions and debates on key questions and problems international relations theory.
|
Reading List
Kant, Immanuel. Kant: political writings. Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Waltz, Kenneth N. "Kant, liberalism, and war." American Political Science Review 56, no. 2 (1962): 331-340.
Flikschuh, Katrin, and Lea Ypi, eds. Kant and colonialism: historical and critical perspectives. OUP Oxford, 2014.
Hutchings, Kimberly. Kant, critique and politics. Routledge, 2013.
Franke, Mark FN. Withdrawal from Immanuel Kant and International Relations: The Global Unlimited. Taylor & Francis, 2023. |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Research & Enquiry:
identify and analyse the strengths and challenges of different international systems, and develop processes for promoting international political progress;
evaluate, critique, and build on the work of IR scholars;
Personal & Intellectual Autonomy:
be independent learners who take responsibility for their own learning and are committed to continuous reflection, self-evaluation and self-improvement;
be able to sustain intellectual interest by remaining receptive to both new and old ideas, methods, and ways of thinking;
Communication:
make effective use of oral, written and visual means to critique, negotiate, create and communicate understanding |
| Keywords | international relations theory,geopolitics,peace,order,Kant |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Regan Burles
Tel:
Email: rburles@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | |
|
|
University Homepage