84526 - INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Learning outcomes

The course deals with some basic themes, concepts and thinkers in international relations. The purpose is to provide students with essential conceptual and linguistic tools for understanding the underlying structure and fundamental features of international politics, as well as its material and immaterial changing aspects. The objective is to explain the dynamics through which men and women understand international politics as well as on achieving a coherent capacity of thinking international life, both in its theoretical and practical dimension.

Course contents

The course is organized in lectures and seminars, as detailed in the following program. Lectures (28 hours in remote on MS TEAMS) aim to introduce students to the core tenets of the discipline. Seminars aim to provide occasions for in-depth discussions of class materials and exercises. The division into lessons and seminars is specified in the program that follows. For the seminar section, students will be divided into 2 groups according to their preferences and according to rules concerning the current pandemic emergency: one group will do the seminar in classroom (16 hours) and one group will do the seminar remotely on MS TEAMS (16 hours). Therefore, a total of 44 classroom hours are scheduled for each student. Students are required to carefully read the assigned material before the session and - in the case of seminars - active participation through presentations of existing scholarship and case studies will also be expected. Regardless of the health-related conditions and the specific organization of the course, students will be able to follow the lessons of the entire course remotely on MS TEAMS

Readings/Bibliography

Lectures:

1) Introduction

-Simon Leys, 2013, "The Idea of the University", in S. Leys, The Hall of Uselessness, New York Review of Books, pp. 461-464.

2) International Relations Theory as an Academic Discipline

- Jack Snyder, 2004, “One World, Rival Theories,” Foreign Policy, Nov., 52-62.

- Lorenzo Zambernardi, 2016, “Politics is too important to be left to political scientists,” European Journal of International Relations, 22, 1, 3-23.

3) Classical realism I

- Thucydides, “The Melian Dialogue,” History of the Peloponnesian War, V, 84-116.

4) Classical realism II

- Machiavelli, The Prince, Ch. 8.

5) Classical realism III

Hans J. Morgenthau, "Six Principles of Political Realism", in Politics Among Nations. 

- Lorenzo Zambernardi, 2016, “Politics is too important to be left to political scientists,” European Journal of International Relations, 22, 1, 3-23.

6) Structural realism

- Kenneth N. Waltz, 1977, Theory of International Politics, capp. 1, 3, 4, 5.

7) Balance of power

- Kenneth N. Waltz, 1977, Theory of International Politics, cap. 6

- Paul Schroeder, 1994, “Historical Reality vs. Neo-Realist Theory,” International Security, 19, 1, 108-148.

8) Hegemony

- Robert Gilpin, 1988, “The Theory of Hegemonic War,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 18, 4, 591-613.

9) Classical liberalism

- Michael Howard, War and the Liberal Conscience, London.

10) Contemporary liberalism

- Andrew Moravcsik, 1997, “Taking Preferences Seriously: A Liberal Theory of International Politics,” International Organization, 51, 4, 513-553.

- Michael W Doyle, 1983, Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs, Part 1 & 2, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 12, 3, 4, 205-235, 323-353.

11) The problem of cooperation

- Robert Axelrod, Robert O. Keohane, 1985, “Achieving Cooperation under Anarchy: Strategies and Institutions,” World Politics, 38, 1, 226-254

- Joseph M. Grieco, 1988, “Anarchy and the limits of cooperation: a realist critique of the newest liberal institutionalism,” International Organization, 42, 3, 485-507

12) Constructivism

- Antonio Gramsci, 1917, The Revolution against "Capital".

https://www.marxists.org/archive/gramsci/1917/12/revolution-against-capital.htm, Avanti!, 24 November.

- Alexander Wendt, 1999, Social Theory of International Politics, capp. 1, 3.

13) Social theory of international politics

- Alexander Wendt, 1999, Social Theory of International Politics, capp. 6, 7.

14) Foreign Policy Analysis

- Graham T. Allison, 1969, “Conceptual Models and the Cuban Missile Crisis,” The American Political Science Review, 63, 3, 689-718.

Seminars Group 2 (online):

1) Armed conflicts in the current world

Pettersson, Therese; Stina Högbladh & Magnus Öberg (2019). Organized violence, 1989-2018 and peace agreements. Journal of Peace Research 56(4).

2) Inter-State Wars

- Geoffrey, Blaney, The Causes of War, New York, The Free Press, Ch. 8, 9.

- Azar Gat , “The Changing Character of War”, in Hew Strachan and Sibylle Scheipers (eds)

The Changing Character of War, Ch. 1; available at http://www.oxfordscholarship.com.ezproxy.unibo.it/view/10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199596737.001.0001/acprof-9780199596737-chapter-2

3) Civil Wars

- Francesco N. Moro "Civil Wars", in Paul Joseph ed., The SAGE Encyclopedia of War: Social Science Perspectives, Sage 2017.

- Stathis N. Kalyvas, “The Changing Character of Civil Wars, 1800–2009”, in Hew Strachan and Sibylle Scheipers (eds) The Changing Character of War, Ch. 11; available at http://www.oxfordscholarship.com.ezproxy.unibo.it/view/10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199596737.001.0001/acprof-9780199596737-chapter-12

4) Insurgency and COIN

Lorenzo Zambernardi, "Counterinsurgency's Impossible Trilemma", Washington Quarterly, 33, 3, pp. 21-34.

5) Terrorismo

Isabelle Duyvesteyn, 2010, How New Is the New Terrorism?, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 27:5, 439-454.

6) The War in Afghanistan

Pettersson, Therese; Stina Högbladh & Magnus Öberg (2019). Organized violence, 1989-2018 and peace agreements. Journal of Peace Research 56(4).

7) The Trump Presidency and the final crisis of the US hegemony?

Parnreiter, C. (2018). America first! Donald Trump, the demise of the US hegemony and chaos in the capitalist world-system. Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftsgeographie, 62(1), 1-13.

Nye Jr, J. S. (2019). The rise and fall of American hegemony from Wilson to Trump. International Affairs, 95(1), 63-80.

8) The rise of China as the new global hegemonic power?

Danner, L. K., & Martín, F. E. (2019). China's hegemonic intentions and trajectory: Will it opt for benevolent, coercive, or Dutch‐style hegemony?. Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies, 6(2), 186-207.

Allan, B. B., Vucetic, S., & Hopf, T. (2018). The distribution of identity and the future of international order: China's hegemonic prospects. International Organization, 72(4), 839-869.

 

Seminars Group 1 (with G. Montalbano in presence)

Hegemony: the dialectic between consensus and force

Lebow, R. N., & Kelly, R. (2001). Thucydides and hegemony: Athens and the United States. Review of International Studies, 593-609.

Machiavelli, N., The Prince, cap. 17.

Gramsci, A., Prison Notebooks, Q. 13, 37

2) The concept of “Imperialism” and the International Relations

Arrighi, G., The Geometry of Imperialism, chap. 1.

Harvey, D. (2004). The new imperialism: Accumulation by dispossession. Socialist register, 40(1), 64.

3) Dependency Theory, World System Analysis and Global Capitalism

Namkoong, Y. (1999). Dependency theory: concepts, classifications, and criticisms. International Area Review, 2(1), 121-150.

Wallerstein, I. 2004. World System Analysis. An Introduction, chap. 2, 3.

4) The theory of hegemonic stability

Kindleberger, C. P. (1981). Dominance and leadership in the international economy: Exploitation, public goods, and free rides. International Studies Quarterly, 25(2), 242–254.

Keohane, R. O. (1984). After hegemony: Cooperation and discord in the world political economy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 31-46.

Gilpin, R. (2001). Global political economy: Understanding the international economic order. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 93-102.

5) Neo-Gramscianism and Transnational Hegemony I.

Cox, R. W. (1983). Gramsci, hegemony and international relations: an essay in method. Millennium, 12(2), 162-175.

Gill, S. R., & Law, D. (1989). Global hegemony and the structural power of capital. International studies quarterly, 33(4), 475-499.

Arrighi, G. (1990). The three hegemonies of historical capitalism. Review (Fernand Braudel Center), 365-408.

6) Neo-Gramscianism and Transnational Hegemony II.

Van der Pijl, K. (1989). Ruling classes, hegemony, and the state system: Theoretical and historical considerations. International Journal of Political Economy, 19(3), 7-35.

Overbeek, H. (2004). Transnational class formation and concepts of control: towards a genealogy of the Amsterdam Project in international political economy. Journal of international relations and development, 7(2), 113-141

Robinson, W. I. (2005). Gramsci and globalisation: from nation‐state to transnational hegemony. Critical review of international social and political philosophy, 8(4), 559-574.

7) Current debates on the concept of international hegemony

Joseph, J. (2008). Hegemony and the structure-agency problem in International Relations: a scientific realist contribution. Review of International Studies, 109-128.

Pass, J. (2018). Gramsci meets emergentist materialism: Towards a neo neo-gramscian perspective on world order. Review of International Studies, 44(4), 595-618.

Ikenberry, G. J., & Nexon, D. H. (2019). Hegemony studies 3.0: The dynamics of hegemonic orders.

8) Germany as a hegemonic power in the wake of the eurozone crisis?

Matthijs, M.; Blyth, M. (2011), Why only Germany can fix the euro: Reading Kindleberger in Berlin. «Foreign Affairs».

Bulmer, S.; Paterson, W. E. (2013) Germany as the EU's reluctant hegemon? Of economic strength and political constraints, «Journal of European Public Policy», 20, 10, 1387-1405.

 

 

Teaching methods

Lectures and seminars

Assessment methods

written exams

Teaching tools

Teams, Power point, video

Office hours

See the website of Lorenzo Zambernardi

See the website of Giuseppe Montalbano