This degree is offered in collaboration with other departments in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Health. It is designed to provide a strong all-round training in research methods allied to further specialisation in the fields of politics, international relations and security for those intending to go on to register for a PhD. As such, it implements the ESRC research training guidelines for ‘1+3’ PhD students, and includes compulsory elements in a wide variety of techniques, including statistics and quantitative methods, but contains less subject-specific content than the other MA courses in international relations.
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This course enables you to evaluate, in a sophisticated and critical fashion, theories and paradigms within the broad field of politics and international relations, and to draw lessons from empirical studies involving both quantitative and qualitative investigations. It aims to develop your ability to deploy research strategies and methods in an appropriately advanced fashion to critically evaluate research at the current limits of theoretical understanding. It will also equip you with the ability to master complex political concepts and evaluate the significance of major developments in political thought in general as well as international relations theory.
This course provides you with the systematic knowledge and intellectual tools to critically review developments in the theory and practice of international relations. It will enable you to evaluate, in a sophisticated and critical fashion, concepts, theories and paradigms within the broad field of international relations, drawing lessons from empirical studies involving both quantitative and qualitative investigations. You will develop your ability to deploy research strategies and methods in an appropriately advanced fashion, to critically evaluate current research and advanced scholarship. The course covers both theoretical and empirical aspects to the study of international relations, including overviews of the history of the field, as well as in-depth study of the major international organisations that contribute to the global order. Throughout the course, you will gain an understanding of how the international community has developed and the driving forces shaping its development.
This course provides you with the systematic knowledge and intellectual tools to critically review developments in the theory and practice of international relations. It will enable you to evaluate, in a sophisticated and critical fashion, concepts, theories and paradigms within the broad field of international relations, drawing lessons from empirical studies involving both quantitative and qualitative investigations. You will develop your ability to deploy research strategies and methods in an appropriately advanced fashion, to critically evaluate current research and advanced scholarship. Each study route aims to provide advanced knowledge and understanding of the dynamics, including cultural and local political and ideological factors, which shape the contemporary international relations of the area.
You will develop your ability to deploy research strategies and methods in an appropriately advanced fashion, to critically evaluate current research and advanced scholarship. Each study route aims to provide advanced knowledge and understanding of the dynamics, including cultural and local political and ideological factors, which shape the contemporary international relations of the area. The course also provides an opportunity for studying international relations in comparative and historical perspective, taking account of regional political and economic factors.
This course enables you to evaluate, in a sophisticated and critical fashion, concepts, theories and paradigms within the broad field of international relations, drawing lessons from empirical studies involving both quantitative and qualitative methods. You will develop your ability to deploy research strategies and methods in an appropriately advanced fashion, to critically evaluate current research and advanced scholarship. Each study route aims to provide advanced knowledge and understanding of the dynamics, including cultural and local political and ideological factors, which shape the contemporary international relations of the area.
The MSc is intended to provide rigorous, research-driven, interdisciplinary, education and training. The course is designed to establish a cadre of exceptional researchers, with skills and knowledge sufficient for the conduct of research in and on the Arab world. You will be trained in research methods and methodologies, to provide a foundation in a broad range of social science research methods, as well as gaining transferable skills as appropriate for Economic and Social Research Council recognition. You will develop the knowledge, skills and understanding to undertake research for a doctoral degree and which may be required of a professional researcher. You will also be instructed in the Arabic language, in order to utilise the language in your subsequent research in employment in the Arabic-speaking world.
You will gain theoretical and empirical knowledge of the complex areas of peacebuilding, including conflict analysis, prevention, resolution and transformation, community-driven reconstruction, and peace processes in the context of contemporary conflicts and broader international (humanitarian) interventions. Whilst the academic and applied focus of the MSc comes through a peace and conflict studies analytic lens, course material will also draw from traditional strategic/security and development studies, enabling cross-fertilisation between different perspectives. It allows the exploration of unique and new paradigms and practices in the fields of conflict, peace, security, defence, diplomacy, development and humanitarian intervention. The course is attractive to both graduates and mid-career practitioners.
With conflicts becoming increasingly drawn-out, asymmetric wars of attrition, or normalised into states of no peace-no war, our understanding of conflict and conflict intervention is shifting. Conflicts are rarely determined by military victory, diplomacy or long-term development, but require securing populations through a comprehensive approach that sees to their political, economic and security-related needs. Their outcome will be determined by how well the different arms of government and civil society, both locally and internationally, can work together – and how well they understand each others’ perspectives. This interdisciplinary and custom-designed MSc is aimed at graduates with a career in government, the armed forces, inter-governmental organisations, NGOs or academia, and at practitioners looking to enhance their practical skills while placing these within a broader theoretical perspective.
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