POST GRADUATE DIPLOMA IN GEO-POLITICS, GLOBAL GOVERNANCE AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

The central objective of the course is to equip learners with conceptual and empirical
knowledge as well as research skills necessary to understand and analyze contemporary
issues pertaining to Geopolitics, Global Governance and International relations for
balanced and globalized development.

This is an interdisciplinary as well as multi-disciplinary post graduate course that places
particular focus on socio-economic development issues of global concern to the such as
poverty, conflicts, governance, human rights, climate change, and global inequality,
security and ideology .

SPECIFIC COURSE OBJECTIVES
 This course accords the learners an opportunity to examine development
processes, interventions, theories, policies, and geo-political structures in the
global arena. It is expected that the learners will be able to better understand a
number of salient issues in Global Governance. The learner is also expected to be
able to apply concepts learned in class to the analysis of important issues in global
Governance.
THE COURSE IS STRUCTURED AROUND SOME KEY QUESTIONS INCLUDING:
 An introduction to International Relations: the origins and changing agendas of a
discipline , Perspectives on the study of international politics, Emergence of the
International state System, Power and mechanisms in Interstate relations
 International Relations Theory in an Age of Critical Diversity with focus on the ;
necessity of theory, Ontology, epistemology and the science question in
international relations , theory , Mainstream international relations theory ; The
era of critical diversity

 Realism with focus on; who are the realists? Genesis of a tradition of thought, what
is realism? Synthesizing theory and practice
 Liberalism ; introduction to Introduction to Liberalism ; The historical–political
context of liberalism ; Contemporary liberal IR theory
 Marxism and Critical Theory of International Relations ; Historical and
intellectual context: Marx and the critique of capitalism ; Marxism as historical
materialism , Marx and Marxism in IR ; Critical Theories of IR
 Feminism; International relations meets feminism, the feminist IR agenda, tracing
feminist international relations: challenging the masculine bias, where are the
women? , Reconstructing international relations: examining the differences
between, sex and gender, Progress towards gender equality in the academy and
the, policy world, Men have genders too, Feminist theories of international
relations, what does feminism add to our study of international relations?
 Postmodernism ; Postmodernity as a new historical period , Postmodernism as a
critical way of understanding modernity , The emergence of the third debate in IR
scholarship , The polemical nature of debates about postmodernism
 Constructivism; what does constructivism do? Identity and international
institutions , Constructivism’s understanding of change in the international
system
 Theories of Global Justice; Justice and international relations, why justice is global,
what is a just global order?
 The Modern State; what is a state? , Origins of the modern state, the idea of the
sovereign state, the triumph of the sovereign state: state-building as war making,
whither the sovereign state?
 Nations and Nationalism, Terminological debates , How nationalism shaped
modern states and international society , Understanding nations and nationalism
in IR , Appeals to ‘the people’ in the New World Order
 Security ; Four crises , Defining international security , Key theories and concepts
of international Security

 Arms Control; what is arms control? Why do states engage in arms control

practices? , Cold War arms control, why is arms control still important in the post-
Cold War period? , New initiatives in arms control: small arms and conventional

weapons, Arms control and international relations theory, Nuclear weapons: a
special case? , Disarmament and international security , Initiatives to strengthen
the nuclear non-proliferation regime,
 The Causes of War; War, sovereignty and sociability, Necessary causes of war? ,
Regular causal paths to war, Contributory causes of war , The Changing Character
of Warfare , The diversity of warfare , Digital battlespaces and virtual media wars,
War as violence, War as organized violence , War and politics , War as a case of
between , War as large-scale , The Ethics and Laws of War , When is it right to
fight? (jus ad bellum) , How should war be waged? (jus in bello), Jus ad bellum
dilemma: preemptive self-defense
 International Law; Contemporary development of international law Institutions,
Sources of international law , Major areas of international law, Contemporary
controversies
 International Society and European Expansion ; International society, The nature
of international society , The limits of international society , European expansion
 Diplomacy; defining diplomacy: what is diplomacy and who are the diplomats?,
The evolution of diplomacy , Trends, Diplomacy and the study of IR 265
 Great Powers; what is a great power? , The great powers in historical perspective,
The great powers in the theory of international relations , The great powers after
the Cold War
 The Cold War ; The beginnings of the Cold War, The Cold War spreads, Détente
and the ‘second’ Cold War, The end of the Cold War, The Cold War and
International Relations
 The United Nations; The UN in the Charter , The UN’s principal organs , The UN
as actor, forum and resource , Non-State Actors: Multinational Corporations and

 International Non-Governmental Organizations, MNCs: transnationalised
material power , INGOs: transnationalised normative power
 Religion and Secularism ; Religion and international relations , History of a
concept: secularism , Secularism and world politics , The politics of secularism in
the Middle East and North Africa
 Global Economic Institutions ; Global governance and the global economy, Global
economic institutions and the management of the global economy, Legitimacy,
democracy and global economic institutions
 Global Trade; Free trade and the international trading system, an imperfect
system, preferential trade arrangements, Reform of the trading system? The
Global Financial Crisis and trade ,Prospects for recover
 Global Finance ; Death of the last great financial globalization, The rise and fall of
the Bretton Woods system, Domestic stagflation and international over-lending,
Debt crises at home and abroad, Talking about architecture, Promises, promises:
credit booms and liquidity busts,
 Global Poverty, Inequality and Development; Background to understanding
poverty and inequality , A relational approach to global poverty, inequality and
development , From the Washington Consensus to the Millennium Development
Goals , Perspectives on the Millennium Development Goals and global poverty
 Globalization and Its Critics; Understanding globalization, The anti-capitalist
movement, Scholarly critiques of globalization
 Global Terrorism; what is terrorism? Some secondary warnings for the unaware
Contemporary terrorism in context , The globalization of terrorism , Some final

misperceptions , The rise of post-conflict state-building ; The post-conflict state-
building agenda, The politics of contemporary post-conflict state-building , Critics

of the current agenda , Impacts of post-conflict state-building , The future of post-
conflict state-building?

 Humanitarian Intervention ;The origins of humanitarianism, A short history of
humanitarian intervention ,The responsibility to protect , Responsibility to protect
(R2P) and prevention of mass atrocities
 Human Rights ;The historical development of an idea; The human rights idea
today, The politics of liberal universalism, The future of human right
 Migration and Refugees , States, refugees and immigrants , Controlling migration:
a brief history , The origins and purposes of refugee law , The distribution of
refugees around the world, The present situation
 Global Environmental Politics ; The rise of the environment as a global political
problem ;The post-Cold War context , Theories of global environmental politics,
The US as the reluctant environmental state
 Climate Change ; A brief history of climate change politics ; Explaining the global
politics of climate change
 Geo-global political thought in the current world; rethinking Greek Civilization,
Egyptology of political thought, rethinking Europe, rethinking Russia and the
Soviet Union, Rethinking the American Dream, rethinking pre-colonial Africa,
rethinking African nationalism and Pan-Africanism, China in global Politics ,
Rethinking Cuba, Israel and World Politics, Political Islam, the Church and the
modern State, rethinking the United Nations and other inter-governmental
organizations, Rethinking Slavery, rethinking colonialism,
This course is good for the persons and organizations involved in; political academia and
research, humanitarian governance and leadership, political journalism, corporate
governance, political leadership, global governance, Donor organization leaderships,
Project leadership, programme monitoring and evaluation, Non-governmental
Organization (NGO) Leaderships, Independent researchers , Security Managers, Church
leaders, Islamic Scholars, Hindu religious scholars, Lawyers, Parliamentarian, Devolved
government leaders and commercial attaches, consulates , commissioners as well as
diplomatic Service workers.