International Relations MA

The MA in International Relations delivers stimulating teaching about the international system. It covers critical issues, crucial actors and alternative methods of analysis and interpretation.

You will gain a deep and well rounded appreciation of volatile global dynamics, before specialising in the Asia-Pacific region of the world.

International Relations graduates progress to rewarding careers in government and politics, UN organisations, the Foreign Office and humanitarian organisations.

Why International Relations at Swansea?

Swansea University has a widely respected name for the teaching of international relations. 

Based on our energising Singleton Park campus, in parkland overlooking Swansea Bay, we have the expertise and full range of modern facilities to ensure your learning is right up to the minute.

The Graduate Centre of the College of Arts and Humanities is designed to promote international standard individual and collaborative research activity. 

It offers a supportive environment for postgraduate research and taught masters study, as well as training to enhance academic and professional development.

Your International Relations experience

You will study four compulsory 20-credit international relations modules, and a further two optional modules before taking a 60-credit dissertation project of your choosing in the second part of the International Relations course.

The compulsory modules are: approaches to international relations, international security in the Asia Pacific, conceptual issues of social sciences, and postcolonialism, orientalism and eurocentrism. Key historical and policy concepts are also covered.

A compelling selection of optional modules span from war and space to politics in contemporary Britain, and from cyber governance to democracy and constitutional design.

International Relations employment opportunities

You will develop a deep level of knowledge around international relations, as well as excellent oral and professional writing skills.

Graduates of the MA in International Relations go on to careers in UN organisations, government and politics, humanitarian organisations, business, media and PR.

International Relations modules

You will study four compulsory 20-credit international relations modules, and a further two optional modules before taking a 60-credit dissertation project of your choosing in the second part of the International Relations course.

Modules on the International Relations course may include:

• Conceptual Issues In the Theory and Practice of Social Sciences
• Approaches to International Relations
• Postcolonialism, Orientalism, Eurocentrism
• Analysing Politics and International Relations
• Digital War
• Human rights, Humanitarian Intervention and Global Justice: Moral Problems International Politics.
• Critical Security Studies: Issues and Approaches in Contemporary Security
• Rights-based Approaches to Development
• Violence, Conflict and Development
• The Policy Making Process
• Gender, Society and Politics in the Middle East and North Africa
• War, Identity and Society

How you're taught on the International Relations course

The full-time International Relations course structure is split across the year with three modules taken in each academic semester (a total of six modules) and then a dissertation over the summer.

International Relations students study four compulsory modules, the research process module and one optional module.

The dissertation is written on a specialist research topic of the student's choosing in International Relations.

Welcome to Politics and International Relations

Politics and International Relations, based in the Department of Political and Cultural Studies, is one of the leading research-led units at Swansea University. We challenge our students to investigate the wide and complex issues arising from how our societies are currently organised in political terms, both domestically and internationally, and how they should or could be better organised in the future.

Politics and International Relations Research

Research in Politics and International Studies at Swansea has a history going back over 50 years, and Swansea is one of the few universities to have hosted the annual conference of the UK Political Studies Association twice, in 1994 and 2008. Research draws on disciplinary expertise in politics and international relations, as well as research at the inter-disciplinary boundaries in the Department of Political and Cultural Studies with philosophy, media studies, development studies and policy studies. 

The 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF) considered seventy per cent of our research to be world leading or internationally excellent, and all but two percent as of internationally recognised quality. We rose sixteen places in the UK rankings to be placed 21=, scoring particularly highly for the quality of our research publications and the impact of our research on a wide variety of economic, social and political organisations. We have 18 research active permanent staff, including Professor Mark Bevir (California, Berkeley), as distinguished research professor. External research funding more than doubled for the REF 2014 assessment and we are on target to at least double income again for the expected REF2020.  

We have two research groups: political analysis and governance (PAG); and International Studies, Conflict and Security (ISCAS). These are complemented by a research centre, the Global Drug Policy Observatory, externally funded by the Open Society Foundations. 

We have a strategy for research impact that has led to major global, national and sub-national impacts on public policy and professional organisations. Postgraduate research students' training is conducted through the politics and international relations, and language-based area studies pathways of the Wales ESRC Doctoral Training Centre. Currently our postgraduate research school has twenty five research students, including students funded by ESRC, University and Nawal Al Sharif studentships. 

Researchers in politics and international studies at Swansea are very active in organising conferences and panels, and the department as a whole has a regular series of departmental seminars. Individual staff are also highly active in leading national and international research networks and collaborations.  

You may also be interested in:

• Development and Human Rights, MA
• International Development, MA by Research
• International Relations, MA by Research
• International Relations (Extended), MA
• International Security and Development, MA
• International Security and Development (Extended), MA
• Politics, MA
• Politics, MA by Research
• War and Society, MA
• War and Society, MA by Research

Visit the International Relations MA page on the Swansea University website for more details!