Undergraduate Course: China in Global Politics (PLIT10195)
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 provides an overview of China's rise and (re)emergence as a global actor, and its evolving role in shaping global politics. We will not only critically engage with some of the main issue areas and theoretical approaches towards China's rise and role in global politics but also think about how it has and continues to change the ways we understand and study global politics, as well as International Relations as a discipline. |
| Course description |
China's rise and its increasing weight and role in global politics has been and continues to be one of the most studied phenomena in the discipline of International Relations (and beyond). In this course, students will critically engage with some of the main issue areas relating to China's rise and evolving role, for example, in connection to questions of great power/rising power relations, regional and global governance, economic and security implications, technology and environmental policies.
We will look at these issues through the lenses of some of the main theoretical and conceptual approaches commonly applied when studying China in Global Politics in the field of IR. While doing this, we will, throughout the course, pay particular attention to if, how, and with what consequences these approaches have changed over time, and if/how that has affected the discipline on a broader scale beyond the study of China. For example, in relation to questions on great power/rising power relations, (how) has China's rise changed/had an impact on the ways we theorise and think about these more generally? When it comes to economic questions, has China's rise changed the way we think about, for example, interdependence? We will link these kinds of questions to the respective topics throughout the course, to reflect on what this tells us about knowledge production in IR as an evolving discipline.
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Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | Visiting students should have at least 4 Politics/International Relations courses, one of which is security themed, at grade B or above (or be predicted to obtain this). We will only consider University/College level courses.
** as numbers are limited, visiting students should contact the Visiting Student Office directly for admission to this course ** |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Evaluate and critically reflect on China's (re)emergence as actor in Global Politics
- Critically reflect on and evaluate IR theory in light of the study of China in Global Politics
- Use IR theory to identify, analyse, and understand various phenomena related to China in Global Politics
- Present clear, analytical, and robust arguments about the contributions and limits of diverse approaches in the study of China in Global Politics to IR as a discipline
- Identify and critically reflect on areas where the study of China in Global Politics has affected knowledge production in the discipline of IR
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Reading List
Breslin, Shaun (2021), China Risen? Bristol University Press.
Franceschini, Ivan and Nicholas Loubere (2022), Global China as a method. Cambridge University Press.
Ling, L.H.M. and Payal Banerjee (2025), Between India and China: An Ancient Dialectic for Contemporary World Politics. Rowman & Littlefield.
Pan, Chenxin and Emilian Kavalski (2022) Eds., China's Rise and Rethinking International Relations Theory. Bristol University Press.
Summers, Tim (2025), Global China. Bristol University Press. |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Ability to critically engage, appraise, and synthesize a range of diverse academic literature.
Enhanced ability to deploy complex theoretical literature to empirical issues.
Improved communication skills to present complex theoretical arguments in verbal and written form.
Enhanced research skills developed during tutorials to identify and develop a research question. |
| Keywords | China,global politics,IR theory,IR discipline,knowledge production |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Nicola Nymalm
Tel:
Email: mnymalm@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | |
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