| Code | Name of the Course Unit | Semester | In-Class Hours (T+P) | Credit | ECTS Credit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| POL450 | CURRENT ISSUES IN WORLD POLITICS | 8 | 3 | 3 | 8 |
Objectives and Contents |
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| Objectives: | This course provides an opportunity to gain an analytically deeper understanding and reflect critically upon some of the most topical issues that currently confront international relations and which shape the development of the contemporary international order. These include but are not limited to violent conflict in the Middle East; international terrorism; the rise of China; tensions between Russia and the West; North Korea and the challenge of nuclear proliferation; US foreign policy under President Donald Trump; challenges to multilateral cooperation and liberal internationalism; human rights; humanitarian intervention; financial crises; poverty and global inequality; climate change and environmental security; migration and refugees. The course encourages students to engage in debating the nature of, and possible responses to, contemporary challenges and crises in international politics. The course applied policy focus while emphasizing the need for critical analytical depth when reflecting on the origins, nature and implications of current affairs. Students will develop an awareness of the relationship between the discipline of International Relations as a field of knowledge and the practices of world politics. |
| Content: | This course will provide an overview of the major conflict and security related issues in world affairs since the end of the Cold War. The events and issues we are going to discuss will be analized through the lenses of the major International Relations (IR) theories (realism, liberalism, and constructivism), thus it is essential that students who take this course have a firm grasp of these theories. Our main focus will be how the concepts and theories we learn in the course apply to current international events. In the final weeks of the course, we will be debating Turkey’s “grand strategy” by taking reference five very recent articles written by leading Turkish IR scholars. |