93388 - International Security Policy

Academic Year 2020/2021

  • Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
  • Campus: Forli
  • Corso: Second cycle degree programme (LM) in International Relations and Diplomatic Affairs (cod. 9247)

Learning outcomes

The aim of the course is to achieve advanced knowledge of the main contemporary theories of international relations (realism, liberalism, constructivism). At the end of the course, students will command the most important debates within the IR literature, and will have developed the analytical skills necessary to understand the functioning of the contemporary international system.

Course contents

The course is organized in lectures and seminars, as detailed in the following program. Lectures (16 hours in remote on MS TEAMS) aim to introduce students to the core tenets of the discipline. Seminars (12 hours) aim to provide occasions for in-depth discussions of class materials and exercises. For the seminar section of the course, students will be divided in two groups according to their preferences and according to rules concerning the current pandemic emergency: one group will do the seminar in classroom (12 hours) and another group will do the seminar remotely on MS TEAMS (12 hours), for a total of 28 hours 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) Security as a Multi-dimensional Reality

- Emma Rotschild, “What is Security?,” Daedalus, Vol. 124, No. 3, (Summer, 1995), pp. 53-98.

- John Mueller & Mark G. Stewart, “Terrorism and Bathtubs: Comparing and Assessing the Risks”, Terrorism and Political Violence, published online 28 December 2018.

3) Power Politics

- Tucidide, “Dialogo tra gli Ateniesi e i Meli,” La guerra del Peloponneso, V, 84-114.

4) The Current International System

John Ikenberry, "The end of international liberal order?", International Affairs, 94: 1 (2018) 7–23.

John Mearsheimer, "Bound to Fail: TheInternational: The Rise and Fall of the Liberal International Order", Internatioanl Security, Volume 43, Issue 4, Spring 2019, pp.7-50.

5) Hegemonic Rivalry?

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

- G. Allison, “The Thucydides Trap”, The Atlantic, September 24, 2015.

6) Armed Conflicts

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

7) 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

8) 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

Seminars:

1) Terrorism

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

2) Insurgency and COIN

- D., Galula, Counterinsuregency Warfare: Theory and Practice, Westport, Praeger, Ch. 1, 7.

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

3) Drone Warfare

- P.W. Singer, “Robots at War: The New Battlefield”, in Hew Strachan and Sibylle Scheipers (eds) The Changing Character of War, 18; available at http://www.oxfordscholarship.com.ezproxy.unibo.it/view/10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199596737.001.0001/acprof-9780199596737-chapter-19

- G. Chamayou, Drone Theory, London, Penguin.

 

4) Genocide

- Adrian Gallagher, Genocide and its threat to contemporary international order (2013), capitolo 5.

- Martin Shaw, Genocide and International Relations: Changing Patterns in the Transitions of the Late Modern World (2013), capitolo 9.

5) The longest war: La guerra in Afghanistan

- M. Barry, Kabul's Long Shadows: Historical Perspectives, Liechtenstein Institute at Princeton, 2011; available at http://www.operationspaix.net/DATA/DOCUMENT/4371~v~Kabuls_Long_Shadows__Historical_Perspectives.pdf

 

6) Interventi militari

- Martha Finnemore, The Purpose of Intervention, Cornell University Press, capp. 1, 3.


Teaching methods

Lectures and seminars

Assessment methods

written exams

Teaching tools

Teams, Power point, video

Office hours

See the website of Lorenzo Zambernardi