War and Security in North/South Perspective (761M9)

30 credits, Level 7 (Masters)

Spring teaching

This module seeks to revitalise the concepts of militarism and the world military order as fruitful means of understanding and explaining organised violence and its preparation in contemporary international politics.

Historically, we will examine colonial and Cold War legacies, and theoretically we will address the problem of Eurocentrism and questions around how to conceptualise the world military order, drawing on theoretical resources from within and without the discipline of IR as we do so.

Empirically, we will challenge the new wars and failed/fragile states argument through cases such a Sudan and the DRC, explore the gendered distinction between war and domestic violence through a focus on the gender dynamics of gun violence, and re-read the War on Terror through the international politics of drone warfare in the Middle East.

Through these and other cases we will seek to connect up seemingly disparate cases of violence and weaponry in a single analytical frame of militarism and the world military order.

Contact hours and workload

This module is approximately 300 hours of work. This breaks down into about 24 hours of contact time and about 276 hours of independent study. The University may make minor variations to the contact hours for operational reasons, including timetabling requirements.

We regularly review our modules to incorporate student feedback, staff expertise, as well as the latest research and teaching methodology. We’re planning to run these modules in the academic year 2023/24. However, there may be changes to these modules in response to COVID-19, staff availability, student demand or updates to our curriculum. We’ll make sure to let our applicants know of material changes to modules at the earliest opportunity.