Checking date: 21/05/2025 22:58:50

Versión en español

Course: 2025/2026

Topics in international politics
(16635)
Dual Bachelor in International Studies and Law (2015 Study Plan) (Plan: 351 - Estudio: 321)


Coordinating teacher: HIDALGO TRENADO, MANUEL

Department assigned to the subject: Social Sciences Department

Type: Compulsory
ECTS Credits: 6.0 ECTS

Course: 3º
Semester: 1º



Requirements (Subjects that are assumed to be known)
Comparative Politics, World Politics, Statistics for Social Sciences, Multidisciplinary Research Design in Social Sciences.
Objectives
General Objective: To provide students with advanced theoretical and methodological tools for the empirical analysis of international politics through in-depth case studies. The course aims to integrate Political Science perspectives with insights from related disciplines in the Social Sciences and Humanities, fostering a critical and multidimensional understanding of international phenomena. Specific Objectives By the end of the course, students will be able to: -Critically analyze key cases in international politics, integrating national and international dimensions. -Apply concepts, theoretical frameworks, and methods from Political Science to the empirical study of international phenomena. -Contrast and incorporate interdisciplinary approaches¿such as those from sociology, political economy, history, or cultural studies¿to enrich political analysis. -Conduct applied research, including the formulation of research questions and hypotheses, information gathering, data systematization, rigorous analysis, and the presentation of findings. -Produce critical literature reviews that demonstrate deep understanding and analytical assessment of relevant academic work. -Clearly and effectively communicate research findings in both oral and written formats, promoting informed debate and critical thinking.
Description of contents: programme
This is an advanced class on international politics in which several topics with practical examples will be presented, discussed and analyzed from a political science point of view, but integrating of with views of adjacent fields in social sciences and humanities. The objective of the course is to provide students with adequate instruments for the theoretical and empirical analysis of structures, processes and outcomes in international politics, integrating the national and the international level, and therefore such cases will be studied in great depth, and the standard analytical instruments of political science to study them will be trained and contrasted with the methodologies of adjacent fields. This includes practical research by the students themselves: engagement with existing literature and results, formulating research questions, hypotheses, gathering empirical information, sorting it, analyzing and interpreting it. Presentation and discussion of results in oral and written form.
Learning activities and methodology
Lectures: In the lectures we will discuss the readings and the critical evidence needed to test the main theories. Reduced lectures: Each week we will have presentations, debates based on the readings and discussions of the essays. Students will have to participate actively in class.
Assessment System
  • % end-of-term-examination/test 40
  • % of continuous assessment (assigments, laboratory, practicals...) 60

Calendar of Continuous assessment


Extraordinary call: regulations
Basic Bibliography
  • Ashford, E. . Oil, the State, and War. Georgetown University Press . 2022
  • Bardhan, P. . Awakening Giants, Feet of Clay: Assessing the Economic Rise of China and India. Princeton University Press. 2010
  • Baylis, J., S. Smith and P. Owens. The Globalization of World Politics, 9th ed. . Oxford University Press. 2022
  • Campos, J. E. and H. L. Root . The Key to the Asian Miracle: Making Shared Growth Credible. Brookings Institution Press. 1996
  • Diamond, L. and Plattner, M. F. (eds.). Democratization and Authoritarianism in the Arab World. Johns Hopkins University Press. 2014
  • Elbadaw, I. and Makdisi, S. (eds). Democratic Transitions in the Arab World. Cambridge University Press. 2017
  • Ellner, S. . Latin America's Pink Tide: Breakthroughs and Shortcomings. Rowman and littlefield. 2020
  • Evans, P. . Embedded Autonomy: States and Industrial Transformation. Princeton University Press. 1995
  • Fagan, A., & Kopecký, P. (Eds.). The Routledge Handbook of East European Politics. Routledge. 2018
  • Fraihat, I. . Unfinished Revolutions: Yemen, Libya, and Tunisia after the Arab Spring. Yale University Press. 2016
  • Frankel, F. R. . India's Political Economy 1947-2004, 2nd ed.. Oxford University Press. 2004
  • Guthrie, D. . China and Globalization, 3rd ed. . Routledge. 2012
  • Haggard, S. . Developmental States . Cambridge University Press . 2018
  • Hanssen, J. and Ghazal, A. (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Middle Eastern and North African History. Oxford University Press . 2021
  • Hastedt, G. P. . American Foreign Policy: Past, Present, and Future, Thirteen ed.. Rowman & Littlefield. 2023
  • Levitsky, S. and K. M. Roberts. The Resurgence of Latin American Left. The Johns Hopkins University Press. 2011
  • Lingle, C. . The Rise and Decline of the Asian Century: False Starts on the Path to the Global Millennium. I.B.Tauris. 1998
  • Lynch, G. and VonDoepp, P. (eds.). Routledge Handbook of Democratization in Africa . Routledge. 2021
  • Lynch, M. . The Arab uprisings explained: New contentious politics in the Middle East. Columbia University Press. 2014
  • Morone, James A. and Kersh, R.. By The People. Debating American Government. 7th ed.. Oxford University Press. 2025
  • Norris, P. . Why Electoral Integrity Matters. Cambridge University Press. 2014
  • Norris, P. . Why Elections Fail. Cambridge University Press. 2015
  • Norris, P., R. Frank, F. Martinez i Coma. Advancing Electoral Integrity. Oxford University Press. 2014
  • O'Loughlin, J., & Clem, R. S. (Eds.). Political geographies of the post-Soviet Union. Routledge. 2019
  • Ross, ML.. The Oil Curse: How Petroleum Wealth Shapes the Development of Nations. Princeton University Press. 2012
  • Slater, D. and Wong, J. . The Transformation of Modern Asia . Princeton University Press . 2022
  • Weyland, K, Madrid, R. L. y Hunter, W. (eds.). Leftist Governments in Latin America: Successes and Shortcomings. Cambridge University Press. 2010
Additional Bibliography
  • Alvarez, R.M., T.H. Hall, and S. Hyde (eds.). Election Fraud: Detecting and Deterring Electoral Manipulation. Brookings Institute. 2008
  • Aslanli, K. . Russia's Foreign Energy Policy. Resources, Actors, Conflicts. . Routledge . 2023
  • Auty, RM. . Sustaining Development in the Mineral Economies: The Resource Curse Thesis. Routledge. 1993
  • Birch, S. . Electoral Malpractice. Oxford University Press. 2012
  • Breuilly, J. . The Oxford Handbook of the History of Nationalism. Oxford University Press. 2013
  • Haggard, S.. The Political Economy of the Asian Financial Crisis. Institute for International Economics. 2000
  • Kamrava, M. (ed). Beyond the Arab Spring. The Evolving Ruling Bargain in the Middle East. Oxford University Press. 2014
  • Karl, T.. The Paradox of Plenty: Oil Booms and Petro-States. University of California Press. 1997
  • Noueihed, L. and Warren, A. . The Battle for the Arab Spring: Revolution, Counter-Revolution and the Making of a New Era. Yale University Press. 2012
  • Worth, R. F. . A Rage for Order: The Middle East in Turmoil, from Tahrir Square to ISIS. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 2016

The course syllabus may change due academic events or other reasons.