Introduction to Politics and International Relations
Democracy in Comparative Perspective
DCP will be your first contact with comparative politics in your Politics/ IR degree. The course looks at the basic features and operations of three different states, focusing thereby on their different stages of democratisation. In the course you will learn in what way different conditions and features of a state, condition and shape its contemporary politics and political institutions. The three states of study will typically be a European democratic state (e.g. the UK or Germany), a non-EU democratic state (e.g. South-Africa or Mexico) and a non- or semi-democratic state (e.g. Russia).
The course is structured as followed: First, you will be introduced to the study of comparative politics, its tools and objectives. The main part of the course will then dedicate an equal amount of lectures (6) on each country of study. In these lectures you will be covering such broad topics as the respective country’s historical background, constitutional framework, current party and electoral system, as well as election outcomes, domestic and foreign policy.
The great challenge of the course is twofold. On the one hand, the topics you discuss are very wide and you need to filter out the information which is important for you in your essay and exam. The second difficulty is the comparative task that you will be doing in both the essay and the exam. While the lectures only provide you with information on the single states, you will be asked to compare 2 or 3 states and draw conclusions on, for instance, the links between a state’s historical background and its current party system, or between a state’s s electoral system and the pace of its democratization. In order to do well in your assignments you will have to define the concepts referred to in the exam/ essay questions and, in the case of broad concepts, to narrow down your answers to a few representative factors. A good way of practicing that skill is through participation in the discussions in your tutorial groups. If you are uncertain about how to answer the essay questions, you should make use of the option of sending your essay-outline to your tutor who can give you a general comment on it.
Overall, DCP is a rather interesting course, giving you insides into the histories and current political realities of three, in many ways, very different countries. As the course covers broad topics in a very short time, students need to do a lot of independent research (means: as in IPIR, there is a long reading list!).
Valerie Greitens
International Law (IR)
International Cooperation in Europe and Beyond
This is the first course at Edinburgh, which is solely focused on IR. The first segment covers familiar ground – IR theory. While the material on Realism and Liberalism is largely the same as IPIR, you do cover some new ground - Feminism and Critical Theory. Both are fascinating and should trigger some reflection on the implicit assumptions of Realism and Liberalism. Unlike IPIR, ICEB allows you to apply IR theory to concrete issues more substantively. Topics discussed in the first segment include the UN, humanitarian intervention, peace-keeping and peace-building.
The second segment of the course introduces you to a sub-discipline of IR known as International Political Economy (IPE). While you are introduced to a new batch of theories, they (roughly) reflect mainstream Realism, Liberalism and Marxism and are therefore straightforward to understand, and then apply to the main topical issue of this segment – the World Trade Organisation. One word of advice would be to have a (very basic) understanding of the economic theory underpinning trade. It contextualizes these issues, thereby highlighting their importance. You may find this useful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage
The final segment of the course introduces you to yet another batch of theory – European Integration Theory. This will feature unfamiliar schools – (Neo)Functionalism, Intergovernmentalism, Multi-Level Governance and Institutionalism. Moreover, you are introduced to the various branches of the European Union, and are expected to address the arising issues (e.g. how democratic is the EU, EU foreign policy etc..) in light of the theory and organizational structure. The volume of knowledge required for this section is quite a lot and requires (in my experience) more time and effort than the other two sections. I would also suggest that some issues regarding EU foreign policy might be more relevantly discussed with standard IR theory, rather than integration theory.
Overall, I found this course harder but more interesting than IPIR. As should be evident from above, each stage of the course focuses on applying theory to the issues concerned. This should help mitigate the frustratingly abstract impression that one is given of theorizing by IPIR. By way of advice, I would stress that one should not underestimate the amount of revision required for the exam. The main challenge of this course is coping with the volume of content as opposed to having difficulty in understanding it.
------ Raphae Barlas
Social and Political Theory
The content of this course varies a lot from year to year so I’ll keep my discussion as general as possible. Firstly, while it is called Social and Political Theory, it is not concerned with empirical theories of Social Science. In fact, the focus is on a contrasting approach; Political Philosophy. This is also known as Normative Theory and is intimately related to Ethics, a sub-discipline of Philosophy. In order to contextualize the debates covered in this course, you might find the following links useful; http://www.rep.routledge.com/article/S099 , http://www.iep.utm.edu/ethics/
In 2011, this course began by discussing the concept of freedom. This is likely to be a recurring feature of the course as freedom is undoubtedly one of the central topics within Political Philosophy. While the term is usually associated with Liberalism, or perhaps the American Right, the concept manifests itself in various ways across the ideological spectrum, so it is important to have a rigorous understand of the debates surrounding this issue – they will also be of relevance to your Honours years.
The fourth and final segment of the course concerns itself with critiquing views in the previous three. There are various schools of thought that you may cover including Freudian Psychoanalysis, Feminism or Orientalism. The main point to remember is that such views question the implicit assumptions of Political Philosophy that is premised on Enlightenment (and more specifically Kantian) accounts of the autonomous individual.
Prior to reading Political Philosophy, the concept of an ‘autonomous individual’ might seem a bit vague. Rather than divulging too much in this review, my advice would be to do your own research on debates surrounding this issue prior to sitting the course. It is not only central to Political Philosophy, but is relevant to Western Intellectual History as a whole. Familiarity with this aspect of Intellectual History will help you understand the importance of this course to issues in IR – particularly the assumptions underpinning Positivist (Liberal and Realist) theories.
My second main piece of advice would be to remember that the style of argument in Political Philosophy is different to anything in the previous core courses. More so than empirical Social Science, there is a focus on abstract academic debates (although, strictly speaking, it isn’t entirely limited to them – especially if you cover JS Mill and J Bentham – government policy can be discussed to a limited extent). This in turn will result in a focus on the primary texts of the course. It may initially seem very difficult to write about such a small quantity of literature at length – the trick is to focus in (almost pedantic) detail on the logical fallacies of the arguments purported. You may find this useful: http://www.jimpryor.net/teaching/guidelines/writing.html#Stages
Also, check out the section on Academic Advice for some useful tips (once it’s finished!).
----- Raphae Barlas
Social and Political Enquiry
This is a course that many Second Years dread. In my view, it certainly isn’t the most exciting course you’ll do at Edinburgh; however, if you take the time to understand the issues being addressed, it will be very fruitful. SPE is primarily concerned with Research Methods, and by way of association, some of the philosophical questions which crop up when trying to study the social world. In this sense, the course really gets to the heart of some of the problems in Social Science. These issues include a consideration of what is the best way to acquire knowledge about the social world - this subject is known as Epistemologyhttp://www.iep.utm.edu/epistemo/ . Another related topic is that of Metaphysics, this concerns the various implicit assumptions researchers make about what actually constitutes the social world, please note that the following link can only be accessed through the University’s internet; http://www.rep.routledge.com/article/N095.
In my view, the most interesting part of the course comes at the very end, when the possibility of a Value-Free Social Science is discussed (and therefore, the possibility of objective, scientific study of the social world). This debate incorporates issues of both Epistemology and Metaphysics, and is also one of the great fissures within Social Science. That is to say, your position in this debate determines whether you are (very roughly) ‘Positivist’ or ‘Postmodernist’. If you aren’t sure what these two terms mean in an IR context, read Chapter 1 (not the intro) and 11 of ‘International Relations Theories: Discipline and Diversity’
The discussion so far has been about the end of the course; however, prior to that you will focus (quite a lot) on various research methods that do not seem relevant to IR. This is somewhat true, but it is important to remember that IR is a very multi-disciplinary field, incorporating aspects of Politics Economics, Sociology, History and even Anthropology. It is perfectly feasible that your interests in the subject will require you to read literature from many other fields in the Social Sciences, I would therefore argue that it is particularly important for students of IR to have a basic awareness of the methods used in these subjects. Some of the slightly more obscure methods (from an IR point of view) will include interviews, surveys and participant observation.
Two other methods covered will be Case Studies and Causation – both of these are of direct relevance to IR. By way of example, the first one could easily pan out in IR if one wanted to compare the dynamics of foreign policy formation in two different states – you would do comparative case studies. The second one (‘Causation’ - which sounds quite vague) actually requires you to read some famous IR literature – Michael Doyle’s work on Democratic Peace Theory (DPT). This section on ‘Causation’ also includes discussion on whether or not it is possible to establish ‘Laws’ within Social Science (laws akin to Newton’s theory of gravity etc…).
All in all, this course really is what you make of it. I would recommend doing a lot of secondary reading for your own benefit and understanding, however, for the exam, the assigned reading is certainly enough for a pass (in second year, this means a 50 not a 40), and probably even for a Grade B. I don’t know anyone who received a Grade A, so I’m not really in a position to give you advice on how to achieve that!
------ Raphae Barlas
Pre-Honours Courses Relevant to IR
European History 1
Morality, Rationality and Value
Knowledge and Reality
Philosophy of Science
Honours Courses
Approaches to Politics and IR
Theories of International Relations
Global Justice and Citizenship
International Security
International Political Economy
Realism in IR
War and Justice
