Module Information
Course Delivery
Delivery Type | Delivery length / details |
---|---|
Lecture | 14 hours (14 x 1 hour) |
Seminars / Tutorials | 8 hours (8 x 1 hour) |
Assessment
Assessment Type | Assessment length / details | Proportion |
---|---|---|
Semester Assessment | Seminar performance | 10% |
Semester Assessment | 1 x 2,500 word essay | 40% |
Semester Exam | 2 Hours exam | 50% |
Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of this module students should be able to:
On completion of the module, students should be able to:
- Critically assess the literature on the causes of war
- Discuss a range of key concepts and historical and contemporary events in relation to the evolution of war
- Understand the role of legal and moral restraints on war
- Assess the conflicting theories on whether force can be controlled or abolished as a tool of inter-state relations
Brief description
This module provides an analytical foundation to the critical study of war, politics and strategy. The study of the inter-relationships between war, politics and strategy has been at the heart of academic international relations. Both the subject-matter and the approaches adopted, however, have attracted considerable controversy. The module covers a range of key concepts, theoretical explanations and historical events/trends insofar as they relate to important questions about war, peace, politics, security, force, military power and strategy. The understanding of this material is the basis for examining pressing questions of international security in the world today.
Content
1. Introduction to the module
2. What is war?
3. Political philosophy of war
4. How to study war in international politics
5. Balance of power
6. Cooperation under anarchy
7. Collective security
8. Peacemaking
9. The obsolescence of war
10. Militarism
11. The military-industrial complex
12. Civil-military control
13. Defense expertise vs. democratic politics
14. Conclusion: Every war must end (?)
Aims
By introducing a wide variety of intellectual traditions and contemporary ideas about the subject, it is the aim of this module to provide students with a comprehensive basis (concepts, theories and some, especially intellectual, history) for understanding and explaining the most salient issues of war, politics and strategy in the contemporary world.
Transferable skills
10 ECTS credits
Reading List
Should Be PurchasedVon Clausewitz, Carl (1832) On War Various translations & editions in print. Recommended editions: Everyman's Library, 1993 or Princeton University Press, 1989 Primo search Waltz, Kenneth Neal. (1959.) Man, the state and war :a theoretical analysis. Any reprint is good. Columbia U.P.; Primo search War, Politics and Strategy study pack. (to be purchased from InterPol office) Primo search
Notes
This module is at CQFW Level 6