This course provides an advanced grounding in the key concepts and ideas employed in the analysis of international relations. The specific aims of the course are:

• To explore the ways in which the international system in which we live is
not a timeless reality, but rather a particular, socially and historically
constructed,way of organizing human affairs;

• To acquaint you with the key concepts, problems and theories of
International Relations and how they inform our normative understanding
of world politics;

• To see how far these ideas measure up to the historical and
contemporary events and processes which they claim to describe and
explain;

• To enable you to assess for yourself the claims made concerning current
trends of change in world affairs..