This course is not currently offered, please contact the school or faculty of your program.

Course description

This course is concerned with the development of critical approaches to the study and practice of security in International Relations. It encourages students to reflect on the analytical and ethical assumptions that shape security conceptions and practices in contemporary global politics. After locating debates about the meaning of security in historical context, it explores different theoretical approaches to security from a range of critical perspectives (from Critical Theory to securitization, post-structuralism, feminist approaches and post-colonialism). These insights are then examined in a series of empirical case studies, from warfare to WMD proliferation, climate change, poverty and terrorism (See proposed learning activities at the bottom of this document)