Undergraduate Module Descriptor

POL3282: World Orders: Past, Present, and Future

This module descriptor refers to the 2022/3 academic year.

Module Content

Syllabus Plan

Whilst the precise content may vary from year to year, it is envisaged that the syllabus will cover all or some of the following topics:

 Part I: Key Concepts

  • Grand Theories and Narratives
  • World Order
  • Power
  • Time and Progress

Part II: World Orders: Past and Present

  • Pre-Modern Orders
  • Rise of ‘the West’ and the Making of the Modern World
  • Westphalian States-System
  • Liberal World Order
  • Capitalist World System
  • Globalisation and Neo-Medievalism
  • Empire, Colonialism, and Race
  • Regions and Civilizations

Pat III: World Orders: Future

  • Thinking about the Future
  • Utopias and Dystopias
  • Case Studies: Scenarios of Future World Orders

Learning and Teaching

This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:

Scheduled Learning and Teaching ActivitiesGuided independent studyPlacement / study abroad
442560

...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:

CategoryHours of study timeDescription
Schedule Learning and Teaching Activity4422 x 2 hour seminars
Guided Independent Study256Weekly preparation for class, preparing for group presentation, essay research drafting and writing.

Online Resources

This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).

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.

Acharya, Amitav (2018), The End of American World Order (2nd edn.; Cambridge: Polity).

Bull, Hedley (2012), The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics (4th edn.; London: Macmillan).

Buzan, Barry and Lawson, George (2015), The Global Transformation: History, Modernity and the Making of International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

Cooley, Alexander and Nexon, Daniel (2020), Exit from Hegemony: The Unraveling of the American Global Order (New York: Oxford University Press).

Dalby, Simon (2020), Anthropocene Geopolitics: Globalization, Security, Sustainability (University of Ottawa Press).

Deudney, Daniel (2020), Dark Skies: Space Expansionism, Planetary Geopolitics, and the Ends of Humanity (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

Getachew, Adom (2019), Worldmaking after Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press).

Huntington, Samuel P. (1996), The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon and Schuster).

Ikenberry, G. John (2011), Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and Transformation of the American World Order (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press)

Mearsheimer, John J. (2014), The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (Updated edn.; New York: WW Norton & Company).

Phillips, Andrew and Reus-Smit, Christian (2020), Culture and Order in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

Sassen, Saskia (2008), Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages (Updated edn.; Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press).

Spruyt, Hendrik (2020), The World Imagined: Collective Beliefs and Political Order in the Sinocentric, Islamic and Southeast Asian International Societies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

Tickner, Arlene B. and Smith, Karen (eds.) (2020), International Relations from the Global South: Worlds of Difference (London: Routledge).

Wallerstein, Immanuel (2004), World-systems Analysis: An Introduction (Durham, NC: Duke University Press).

Zarakol, Ay?e (2022), Before the West: The Rise and Fall of Eastern World Orders (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).