Syllabus
see the syllabus in the attached pdf.
Annotation
This seminar focuses on liberalism as one of the main contemporary theoretical approaches to international relations. It concentrates on the question of how liberal approaches grasp some of the main phenomena of the modern international relations. More specifically, the phenomena that we will address include peace, war, international negotiations, international institutions, and the involvement of non-state actors in world politics.
Throughout the course, we will get gradually familiar with the ideas of the specific research programmes and frameworks that are associated within the liberal tradition and deal with the above-mentioned issues (such the interdependence theory, the democratic peace theory, two-level games, neoliberal institutionalism, or the transnational relations framework). Our exploration of the selected issues will typically start with a discussion of a selected liberal model and later proceed to an important case to which we will apply the given model.
At the same time, the course puts a particular emphasis on comparing liberalism with its main theoretical alternatives, namely realism and constructivism.