Flashpoints in Global Security

• Credit value: 15 credits at Level 7
• Convenor and tutor: Professor Alex Colas
• Assessment: a 3500-word essay (90%) and seminar log (10%)

A multidisciplinary survey of different regional conflict zones across the world, this module uses concepts like ‘hegemony’, ‘world order’ and ‘emerging powers’ to explain the dynamics of contemporary international security. It also explores world-wide, planetary security challenges such as global heating and structural inequalities in the global political economy.

Indicative module syllabus

• The Ending of US Hegemony?
• The Indo-Pacific Pivot: China and the West
• The Transatlantic Alliance: Autonomy or Decline?
• The Lonely Bear: Russia in World Politics
• War and Order in the Greater Middle East
• The Belt and Road Initiative
• Latin America: Emerging Powers?
• The Globalisation of Africa
• Global Environmental Change and Climate Justice
• Global Value Chains: Gender, Race and Class

By the end of this module, you will:

• understand and be able to evaluate key concepts, theories and debates regarding global security
• be able to critically assess the historical impact of global security in the international system today
• have knowledge on the interactions of states, social forces and multilateralism global politics
• have developed skills of critical thinking, enquiry, synthesis, analysis and evaluation that can be employed on other modules studied at this level.