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Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
UAB Barcelona Summer School

Contemporary Challenges in International Relations

UAB
  1. Introduction to International Relations (lecturer: J.P. Soriano). Students will review major characteristics of the current international scenario and be introduced to some of the critical elements of the analytical toolbox of international relations, including three examples: levels of analysis (factors influencing state behaviour), polarity (international power distribution), and leader's personality traits.

  2. Geopolitics (lecturer: Blanca Camps-Febrer). What is the relation between geographic factors and politics? How have geography and the physical elements of a country influenced its position in international relations? How have these elements influenced the rise of imperial and national narratives? In these sessions, we will work on understanding the origin of geopolitics as a discipline and learning about the usefulness of the tools and concepts it developed. We will also critically tackle how geopolitics has become a buzzword in the last decade and discuss the political implications of looking at the world through that prism.

  3. Gender and Armed Conflicts (lecturer: B. Camps-Febrer). This session aims to introduce the relevance and impact of gender within all the phases of armed conflicts. Following the work of feminist scholars and activists, we will approach the gendered nature of conflict, from the gendered knowledge production about conflict to the everyday practices of violence and how they are traversed and reproduced by different gender relations. We will learn how the inclusion of gender is an indispensable analytical category that improves the potential for transformation of armed conflicts, from the agency of local women and civil society groups to the global Women, Peace and Security Agenda and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

  4. "Northeast Asia's regional dynamics: contemporary challenges" (lecturer: Patricia Aguado). In this session, students will discuss and analyze the dynamics of Northeast Asia, identifying the contemporary challenges to the region. This bloc will be divided into three sessions, in which students will focus on regional asymmetries, the North Korean nuclear question and the security dilemma in the Korean peninsula, and the post-colonial impact on the Northeast Asian region in terms of identity and nationalism. Students will gain a multidimensional understanding of the key challenges and their implications for the region.

  5. Latin America: regional and international challenges in an emerging international order (lecturer: J.P. Soriano). Students will identify and analyze contemporary regional and international challenges for Latin America and the Caribbean. This will be done from a multidimensional perspective, but special attention will be given to political and economic regional integration, regional security, Latin America’s relations with the United States, the European Union, and China, and the impact of the geopolitical technological race on Latin America.

  6. The Sustainable Development Goals: development, peace, and security challenges” (lecturer: P. Aguiar). In 2015, the United Nations General Assembly approved the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which included 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Its implications are not only focused on the international dimension. It calls for a substantial change in public policies at all levels. The subject will analyze the origins of the 2030 Agenda and then will make an overview of how SDGs are being implemented. Furthermore, a process of building indicators of concepts such as Development, Peace, or Security has been done and will be reviewed.

  7. Polarization: the endemic problem of contemporary democracies (lecturer: P. Aguiar). Conflicts are part of human nature. They must be managed peacefully and constructively to transform them and move forward.  This requires dialogue, debate, and the confrontation of ideas. This exchange of ideas can occur based on extreme positions: this is polarization and part of democratic culture. However, for some time now, we have been encountering a perverse dynamic by which dialogue and debate have lost part of their meaning.  It is a growing phenomenon in many consolidated democracies, affecting coexistence and social cohesion. It is what we call “toxic polarization.” In addition, we are going to learn why it is happening, how we can identify it, and different ways to tackle it.

Courses generally have little or no prerequisite knowledge required for a given topic, however if students face any doubts, we recommend they contact course professors to clarify.

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