Theories and concepts, U-Now OpenCourseWare

The University of Nottingham,
King's Meadow Campus,
Lenton Ln, Nottingham NG7 2NR, United Kingdom,

Course Description,
The purpose of this module is to make students aware of the diversity of approaches to international theory. Within International Relations (IR) theory there exist highly divergent interpretations and applications of key concepts (e.g. power, the state, agency, structure, and world order) as well as contested views about the practical purpose underpinning theories of world politics. The overall aim of the module is to provide students with a solid theoretical and conceptual grounding of this diversity. As a result, it will be possible to recognise not only how international theory informs policy-making and practice but also, perhaps, how truly contested the underlying assumptions of world politics are.

This is a module framework. It can be viewed online or downloaded as a zip file

As taught in Autumn Semester 2009/10