The International Relations Theories course is designed to introduce students to the theories of international relations (IR) as defined within the disciplinary studies of international politics for intermediate and advanced courses at the undergraduate level. The central aim is to provide a comprehensive and in-depth overview of major scholarly traditions as well as the major debates in IR Theory. Through this venture, it seeks to familiarize students with debates over the key concepts and themes (i.e., sovereignty, war, power, security, equality, law, order, and justice among others).
This course aims to:
- to introduce students to different perspectives or intellectual frameworks for making sense of what conventionally has been called international relations (though many prefer terms like international, transnational, global, or world politics) and to cultivate skills in applying perspectives in aid of understanding events, processes, and/or practice
- to examine the basic assumptions, conceptual and theoretical insights offered by theories of IR, relating these both to contemporary events and historical processes, and assess their contributions as well as their shortcomings
- Enable students to develop a critical understanding of how the subject/object of the discipline of IR—the international—is constructed as a field of study
- Probe the theory/practice relation and grapple with the disciplinary, political stakes in theorizing “the international”
- in sum, the lessons learned from the class will be (a) sociological/theoretical, in that we will better understand how the world works; (b) practical, in that we will think about how we are to live in the world as it is and might be.
At the end of the course, students are expected to: 1.
Name
and identify the main theories of International Relations, 2.
Define and understand international relations
theories, 3. Explain the main arguments
of different theories in academic discussions, 4. Define
and analyze concepts of power, security and order and approaches of theories
towards these concepts. 5. Explain
the role of ideology in shaping the political, security and economic
understanding of states, 6. Write
critically about key debates in contemporary IR theory, 7. Explain
different frameworks for thinking about international politics, 8. Discuss
a range of ideas, concepts, and texts in international political theory and the
historical contexts in which they arose, 9. Evaluate
the strengths and weaknesses of alternative ways of explaining, understanding
and judging contemporary international politics
- Teacher: Assist. Prof. Dr. Afet Pulhan