The seminar introduces students to the most influential International Relations theories of the past fifty years. It does so by providing a critical overview of the approaches and concepts from the third and the fourth of the so-called ‘Great Debates’ in the study of world politics. It will be discussed, for each of these theoretical frameworks, which actors are perceived to be influential in international relations, how these interact with institutions, and how this interaction brings forth global governance. Particular attention will be paid to why it was deemed necessary to replace the theories and concepts from the third Great Debate with those from the fourth, and whether these later frameworks are satisfactory. Although the seminar focuses on theory, empirical applications and examples will be offered and discussed every week, including some of the most pressing international issues of today, such as climate change, development aid, and European integration. Finally, the students will be introduced to a theory that has been developed in anthropology and political science, and will critically assess whether this approach can help overcome some of the alleged weaknesses of the approaches from the fourth Great Debate.

The seminar traces the origins of modern internationalism and the emergence of modern international relations from (European) Early Modern Times to the contemporary period. It links the study of political and social movements trying to reform society and politics through transnational cooperation to the process of internationalizing cultural, political, and economic practices. The historical perspective reveals the increasing, yet ambivalent transnational linking of societies. The tension between globalization and fragmentation will be studied in various areas, including the formation of states, colonialism, consumer culture, peace movements, governmental organizations, and transnational corporations. The seminar provides students with a critical understanding of the making of today’s international world. A secondary objective is to familiarize students with some main schools of thought in history as an academic discipline such as social history, conceptual history, and global history.

The purpose of the seminar is to learn from classic and contemporary texts of modern social theory. By studying those texts, we can elaborate concepts concerning fundamental characteristics of social developments and adapt them for the analysis of contemporary societal problems. By combining distinguished and contradictory perspectives, we will focus on those achievements which prepare a better understanding and explanation of long-term developments that are of extreme importance also for challenges of governance and social change in the 21st century. Topics for discussion include the methodological status of social theory, different characterizations of modern society (in particular capitalist society), the relation of agency and structure, power and hegemony, the critique of certain features of modern society, and the relevance of the categories of race and gender. The seminar will serve as a general introduction to modern social theory – it does not require any previous knowledge of this field, but the willingness to engage with theoretical texts and their sometimes complex arguments.

The seminar aims to introduce students to the logic of inquiry in International Relations (IR) and other social sciences and thus to help prepare the ground for subsequent, more advanced modules in the methodology component of the program. The focus of the seminar is on learning about and discussing methodological principles and rules the purpose of which is to help students of international relations plan, structure, and organize their research endeavors, particularly in the area of “theory-oriented research”. (“Theory” in this context will refer almost exclusively to “positive” rather than “normative” theory.) The seminar deals with questions such as the following: What are the features of a good research design? Which research questions are worth studying? What is a theory? How can we build and test theories? What is a scientific explanation? In addition, the seminar looks at some problems of the philosophy of social science, especially the debate between “naturalists”, who argue that social science is about explaining collective human behavior in an “objective” manner, and “interpretivists”, who argue that social life can only be understood from within the social world.

The seminar discusses the most salient issues in war and peace studies. We deal first with theories on the causes and conduct of war and peace, ranging from classics to recent contributions. We also look at war and peace from the perspective of different IR theories. We then proceed to issues of research, and both quantitative and qualitative methods. Another major topic is what happens during contemporary wars and conflicts. We discuss military organization, political economies, identities, state formation, and violence. The last few sessions are dedicated to peacemaking in theory and practice. As an option, the seminar can also include case analyses of ongoing major armed conflicts. An emphasis is put on the discussion of methods and theories. In term papers, students shall link their own thematic interest with common ideas and debates in IR and conflict studies. Generally, our sessions will consist of structured discussions of the mandatory readings. These debates will be supplemented by short inputs by the instructor as well as students’ presentations.

The purpose of the seminar is to explore the place of legislation in international law within the context of global governance. Questions the seminar wants to explore are: Where does international law come from? Who were the main actors of public international law in the past? Who are the main actors today? To what extent does public international law contribute to the solution of international conflicts? The first part of the seminar looks at interpretations of the role and function of public international law as offered in scholarly reflections of public international law and by theories of international relations. The second part focuses on the different makers of public international law. The third part is devoted to special areas that illustrate international law-making as part of international political processes: The development of international trade law within the framework of the World Trade Organization, the call to legalize so-called third generation human rights, and the attempts to translate sustainability into law are examples for analysis.

The seminar deals with the ethical dimension of world politics. At the beginning, students are introduced to moral and political philosophy as well as to the most important schools of thought in international ethics. Next, we will look at human rights, which are often viewed as guiding principles for international action and institutions, addressing both their (in)compatibility with broader views in contemporary political theory and the clash between the claim to universality inherent in human rights and the fact of cultural diversity. Subsequently, the seminar focuses its attention on a range of more specific problems, each viewed from a normative perspective: the ethics of force and coercion (including intervention) in international politics; the nature and scope of distributive justice at the international and transnational levels (including the problem of intergenerational justice that comes into play in such issues as climate change); and the moral requirements of the global polity. In conclusion, the seminar will deal with the fundamental question of the proper scope of morality in international relations.

The seminar will give an overview of qualitative research methodology and methods, and it will also provide students with hands-on knowledge of techniques they may want to apply in their own research. The social sciences have come into existence as a distinct field of scientific enquiry at the beginning of the 20th century. Since then, the qualitative/quantitative distinction has become a productive methodological divide. In this seminar students will be introduced to the assumptions underlying qualitative research, issues of design and sampling, the case study as a qualitative empirical methodology, methods for data collection and analysis, and criteria for evaluation. Special attention will be paid to data collection (participant observation, interviews, focus groups, and working with visual materials) and data analysis (coding, frames, computer-assisted qualitative analysis, causal mechanisms, process tracing, qualitative comparative analysis). Discourse and content analysis will be discussed as major approaches in qualitative research. Finally, one section of the seminar will review recent trends in qualitative analyses of International Relations, such as operationalizing narratives, political ethnography, and mixed methods.