Module POL3264 for 2021/2
- Overview
- Aims and Learning Outcomes
- Module Content
- Indicative Reading List
- Assessment
Undergraduate Module Descriptor
POL3264: International Relations in Global History
This module descriptor refers to the 2021/2 academic year.
Module Aims
This module aims to broaden students’ understanding of international relations in global history, with a particular focus on the different ways of doing and thinking about relations across different times and places. It also encourages students to think critically about the ontology of IR and the epistemology of the discipline by exploring the international and its constituent parts in different temporal and spatial settings. Its research-led content introduces students to interdisciplinary approaches across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, to better appreciate the mutually-constitutive influence of complex systems on actors and processes in international relations. Finally, its range of assessment methods and in-class exercises aim to foster multimedia delivery and research skills, thereby equipping students with the skills to communicate and critically engage across multiple deliberative spaces.
On successfully completing the programme you will be able to: | |
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Module-Specific Skills | 1. critically appreciate the practices and key actors of international relations across time; 2. demonstrate a critical understanding of alternative ways of doing international relations across time and space. |
Discipline-Specific Skills | 3. critically reflect on the breadth of history traditionally covered by the discipline; 4. demonstrate a critical understanding of the international in relation to other social spaces; 5. display awareness of a range of conceptual frameworks to understand the complex and changing interaction between and across polities; 6. demonstrate an ability to problematize settled truths and assumptions about actors, processes, and narratives; 7. demonstrate awareness of contingency in historical socio-political processes. |
Personal and Key Skills | 8. study independently and manage time and assessment deadlines effectively; 9. communicate effectively in speech and writing; 10. demonstrate proficiency in the use of the internet, online journal databases, and other IT resources for the purposes of tutorial and assessment preparation; 11. demonstrate effective applied writing. |
Module Content
Syllabus Plan
Whilst the module’s precise content may vary from year to year, it is envisaged that the syllabus will cover all or some of the following topics:
- What is history in IR?
- Actors and relations in IR
- Beginnings: the emergence of the international
- The international & ecosystems
- States, empires, & international systems
- Actors beyond the state, such as pirates
- Warfare in global history
- The ‘rise of the West’ & the non-western international
- Capitalism
Learning and Teaching
This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:
Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities | Guided independent study | Placement / study abroad |
---|---|---|
20 | 130 | 0 |
...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:
Category | Hours of study time | Description |
---|---|---|
Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activity | 20 | 10 x 2-hour seminars |
Guided Independent study | 50 | Private study reading and preparing for seminars |
Guided Independent study | 80 | Preparation for coursework (essay) and take-home exam including researching and collating relevant sources; planning the structure and argument; writing up the essay |
Online Resources
This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).
How this Module is Assessed
In the tables below, you will see reference to 'ILO's. An ILO is an Intended Learning Outcome - see Aims and Learning Outcomes for details of the ILOs for this module.
Formative Assessment
A formative assessment is designed to give you feedback on your understanding of the module content but it will not count towards your mark for the module.
Form of assessment | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
---|---|---|---|
Individual essay plan | 500 words | 1-11 | Verbal |
Summative Assessment
A summative assessment counts towards your mark for the module. The table below tells you what percentage of your mark will come from which type of assessment.
Coursework | Written exams | Practical exams |
---|---|---|
100 | 0 | 0 |
...and this table provides further details on the summative assessments for this module.
Form of assessment | % of credit | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
---|---|---|---|---|
Essay | 50 | 2,000 words | 1-11 | Written |
Time-limited essays | 50 | 2 x 750-words; 7 days to complete from release date of questions | 1-11 | Written |
Re-assessment
Re-assessment takes place when the summative assessment has not been completed by the original deadline, and the student has been allowed to refer or defer it to a later date (this only happens following certain criteria and is always subject to exam board approval). For obvious reasons, re-assessments cannot be the same as the original assessment and so these alternatives are set. In cases where the form of assessment is the same, the content will nevertheless be different.
Original form of assessment | Form of re-assessment | ILOs re-assessed | Timescale for re-assessment |
---|---|---|---|
Essay | Essay (2,000 words) | 1-11 | August/September reassessment period |
Time-limited essays | 2 x 750-words; 7 days to complete from release date of questions | 1-11 | August/September reassessment period |
Indicative Reading List
This reading list is indicative - i.e. it provides an idea of texts that may be useful to you on this module, but it is not considered to be a confirmed or compulsory reading list for this module.
ABU-LUGHOD, JANET. 1991. Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250-1350. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
ACHARYA, AMITAV. 2014. Global International Relations (IR) and regional worlds: a new agenda for international studies. International Studies Quarterly 58(4): 647-659.
BHAMBRA, GURMINDER K. 2014. Connected Sociologies. London: Bloomsbury.
BUZAN, BARRY, AND RICHARD LITTLE. 2000. International Systems in World History: Remaking the Study of International Relations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
COHEN, RAYMOND, AND RAYMOND WESTBROOK editors. 2000. Amarna Diplomacy: The Beginning of International Relations. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
CUDWORTH, ERIKA, AND STEPHEN HOBDEN. 2011. Posthuman International Relations: Complexity, Ecologism and Global Politics. London: Zed.
FRANK, ANDRE GUNDER AND BARRY K. GILLS editors. 1996. The World System: Five Hundred Years or Five Thousand? London: Routledge.
GO, JULIAN, AND GEORGE LAWSON editors. 2017. Global Historical Sociology. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
HOBSON, JOHN M. 2007. Reconstructing International Relations through world history: oriental globalization and the global–dialogic conception of inter-civilizational relations. International Politics 44(4), 414-430.
JACKSON, PATRICK THADDEUS, and DANIEL H. NEXON. Relations before states: Substance, process, and the study of world politics. European Journal of International Relations 5(3): 291-332.
KAUFMAN, STUART J., RICHARD LITTLE, AND WILLIAM C. WOHLFORTH editors. 2007. The Balance of Power in World History. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
MANN, MICHAEL. 1986[2012]. The Sources of Social Power, Volume 1: A History of Power from the Beginning to AD 1760. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
PHILLIPS, ANDREW AND J.C. SHARMAN. 2015. International Order in Diversity: War, Trade, and Rule in the Indian Ocean. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
SPIER, FRED. 2015. Big History and the Future of Humanity, Second edition. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
WATSON, ADAM. 1992. The Evolution of International Society. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.