MA in International Relations

Is there any concept of justice in relations between states? Do states remain the dominant actors in the international system with its current profusion of transnational corporations, international organisations, and regional blocs?

Our MA in International Relations is one of the foremost programmes in Britain and Europe for the study of international relations (IR). It will enable you to tackle the big issues facing global decision-makers, from war to poverty, from security to the complexities of environmental degradation, from inequality to the study of global elites. Traditionally, the discipline of international relations has been concerned with issues of war and peace, focused on explaining and understanding the behaviour of states in their relationships with each other in the international states-system. More recently, however, IR has broadened and deepened as a discipline and is now much more than the study of war, peace, and states.

Programme content

On this MA programme, you will learn the key theoretical approaches in IR from Realism to Postcolonialism, making theory accessible and understandable and equipping you to evaluate theoretical positions in the light of pressing issues in contemporary political life. IR also incorporates within its theories an understanding of the role of a range of other actors besides states including NGOs, private enterprise, and international bodies. You will use this pluralist theoretical framework to study international cooperation, identity politics, global governance, ethics, and civil society.

You will also investigate major questions of contemporary international relations such as:

• After the Cold War, after bipolarity, with the United Nations in its sixth decade, where is the world to look for order?
• Is there any prospect of justice in relations between states?
• Do states remain the dominant actors in the international system with its current profusion of transnational corporations, international organisations, and regional blocs?
• How will democratisation, economic liberalism, resurgent nationalisms and religious revivals affect world order?
• And, most importantly, how should we think about these questions?
• What are the alternative perspectives to your own?

Those who work at the highest levels in business, government, or the voluntary sector, increasingly need to tackle these issues, and the Masters in International Relations programme offers you the opportunity to do so.

Visit the MA in International Relations page on the University of Warwick website for more details!