POLS 701 - Theories of International Relations: This course introduces students to the theoretical approaches to the study of International Relations. The course mainly focuses on the theoretical schools which have been developed throughout the evolution of the discipline. In this context, the course focuses the literature on the mainstream theoretical schools of the discipline; but not limited to them. It also examines the critiques of the mainstream theories. The course will start with an in depth examination of Realist and Liberal schools and will unfold with the English School. Following these, Constructivism, Marxist and Critical theories will be studied. The course also will examine newly rising theoretical schools such as Feminism, Post-structural and Post-colonial theories.
POLS 702 - Contemporary Problems in Global Politics: The phenomenon of globalization, which is the other pillar of this program, will be examined within the scope of this course. The approaches of Political Science, International Relations, Sociology and Social Anthropology to the globalization will be used throughout the semester. The course mainly focuses on the definition of globalization and different theoretical explanations of the globalization, along with contemporary issues emerging with the impact of globalization. In this regard, topics such as environment, global culture and ethics, international organization, global governance, global civil society will be covered within the context of the course.
POLS 704 - Global Political Economy: The aim of this module is to provide an introduction to the study of global political economy - the interface between international economics and international politics. The course will help students to understand patterns of interaction between international politics and economics in an integrated manner. The objective is to blend theoretical aspects with practical applications in the processes of production, distribution, circulation and consumption of commodities at national, regional and global levels and to understand the role of the state in those processes. Students will look at economic issues of trade, finance, production and development, but not from the perspective of economic theory. Instead, students will engage with the International Relations concepts, ideas and literatures on the economic relations among states, and between states and non-state actors (such as firms, societal groups and international organisations). The focus is therefore on the political problems that arise as a consequence of the increasing density of international economic relations. Knowledge of economics is not a requirement.
POLS 707 – Graduate Seminar
Taking this course is obligatory for the graduate students according to the Antalya Bilim University Regulation on the Graduate Studies. Students are expected to give a presentation on their thesis subjects within a seminar which is open to outside participation.
POLS 729 Western Powers in Global Governance: This course aims to introduce students to the role of western powers in the construction of the existing liberal world order as well as their responses to the emerging challenges directed to the primacy of western powers in global governance. To what extent have the western powers played a constitutive role in the construction of the current global order, what sets western powers apart from the so-called non-western powers in global governance issues and to what extent they are able to preserve their primacy in global governance are the main questions that this course seeks to answer.
POLS 708 Rising Powers in Global Governance: This course aims to introduce students to the dynamics of the challenges that the so-called rising powers pose to the primacy of western powers in global governance. Who are those rising powers and which claims they embrace in the name of redesigning the existing global order. After highlighting the scope and issues of global governance, this course puts a special emphasis on the demands that the so-called rising powers put on the re-construction of the existing global order. A special emphasis will be put on the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) as well as other noteworthy regional/global groupings.
POLS 712 Statistical Methods in Social Sciences:This course aims to introduce the students the basics of statistical analysis. For this purpose, the course first focuses on topics related to measurement and distribution. Later, it discusses bivariate and multivariate relationships and it introduces the students the basics of linear regression and the logit analyses. The course also teaches the students how to use STATA software and it presents them different data sets. This course is designed as a hands-on course and the students are expected to utilize statistical analysis for their own research at the end of the semester.
POLS 719 Foreign Policy Analysis: This course focuses on the theoretical approaches and methods of analysis in the field of Foreign Policy Analysis which emerged as a sub-discipline of the International Relations. In this context, the course’s main focus is on the foreign policy decision-making processes. These processes are analyzed in three levels of analysis, namely the individual, state and systemic levels. Then specific theories and methods such as Operational Code Analysis, Leadership Trait Analysis, Prospect Theory, Role Theory and Rational Actor Model will be emphasized.
POLS 713 Advanced Readings in Comparative Politics: This course allows students to discuss the methods and the issues of comparative politics at an advanced level. It has two significant components. The first component focuses on the logic of comparison in political science. The second component discusses the major issues in the field such as the processes of state formation, political regimes, institutions, actors, as well as the governance performance. Both course components rely on a variety of sources such as case studies and cross-country research drawn from different parts of the globe, as well as data sets, which allow students to conduct their own comparative research.
POLS 717 Peace and Security Studies: This course is about the theoretical conceptualization of peace and security studies in the academic disciplin of International Relations, as well as the empirical application of such concepts to real time events. How peace and security have been defined in International Relations in the context of different time periods and in relation to different theoretical glances constitutes the main rationale of this course. Peace, war and security are core of International Relations and they are conceptually intermingled with other. Another goal of this course is to approach these concepts from the perspective of major global players, such as the United States, the European Union, Russia and China.
POLS 714 Advanced Readings in African Politics: This course introduces the theoretical and empirical basics of the sub-Saharan African politics. It aims to introduce students the tensions, problems and general functioning of the government and politics in sub-Saharan Africa and offer them a portfolio of readings at graduate level. In this regard, concepts such as “order”, “disorder” and “development” will be focused with specific reference to the African context. The lenses that we will use throughout the semester are analytical as well as being critical. In other words, the course also aims to acquaint students to critical approaches to the theoretical explanations attempting to make sense of the African politics. Within the context of the course, some of the topics that will be focused are order, authoritarianism, civil-military relations, nation-state and sovereignty in Africa, civil wars and ethnic conflict, intervention, development and peace nexus.
POLS 721 Readings in Political Thought: This class will focus on understanding the interdisciplinary social science foundations existing between Political Thought and Political Science --at an advanced level-- through in-depth reading and analytic examination of selected subject matter expert texts in the discipline of Political Philosophy. Subsequently, it will aim at developing a hermeneutic or interpretaive perspective in the student relative to modern global issues associated with the basic tenets of Political Thought historically shown in the texts.
POLS 716 Global Ethics: Contemporary Debates: This course will focus on understanding the central issues of contemporary debates in Global Ethics. It will focus on reading and interpreting the seminal essays in the field relative to those issues including\but not limited to-- famine- just war theory- human rights- patriotism as virtue- national self-determination- population control- distributive responsibility and cosmopolitanism.
POLS 706 European Union Foreign and Security Policy: As a union of 28 member states and over 500 million citizens, the European Union has over recent decades become an increasingly important actor within the international system. Although originally founded as an economic union, today the EU’s policy scope ranges from asylum and immigration, to foreign and defence policy, and democracy and human rights promotion. This course provides students with the necessary theoretical grounding to analyse and explain the development of the EU’s role and power, its policy capabilities, external identity, and weaknesses on the international stage, including the complex interplay between its members’ foreign policies. Particular emphasis will be placed on acquiring competences in the use of different theoretical approaches and concepts drawn from the fields of IR and European Union studies.
POLS 728 Political Communication:
This course aims to familiarize students to the concepts and issue areas on political communication, which can be very briefly defined as the creation, shaping, and dissemination of politically relevant information. The course will start with a brief introduction of the history of mass communication in politics and then continues with discussions on fundamental theories on the subject area such as agenda setting, framing and priming. Utmost importance will be paid to relevant technological developments creating new media and their impacts on political behavior and social movements on national and global scale. Detailed discussions are made on the basis of the essential and recent scholarly work on the subject area. After becoming familiar with the theories and relevant concepts, students are expected to develop questions for their own research and propose projects to answer them. Several short presentations and assignments will be given throughout the course. Upon the successful completion of this course, students are expected to have a sophisticated understanding of political communication in international and national level, explain theoretical perspectives on the notion, asses the relevant concepts and be able to evaluate the impacts of political communication in current international and domestic politics.
POLS 727 Introduction to Development Studies: This course focuses on the political and economic factors that have affected developing countries around the globe. The course examines and discusses a number of theories and concepts that inform our understanding of development and it explores political decisions and policies that have shaped the trajectory of developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Through an examination of comparative historical experience, the course explores the role of states and markets in development and/underdevelopment, colonial legacies and path dependencies and the political economy of growth, poverty and freedom. In the course students will also analyse current cutting edge policy issues and challenges in the developing world. At the end of the course students will have a comprehensive idea of the main theories that inform development; they will be able to identify the characteristics of developing nations and explain the different trajectories of the political and economic systems of developing countries.
POLS 711 Migration Politics: This course aims to familiarize students to the concepts and issue areas on the phenomenon of migration on the one hand and provide necessary theoretical and historic background on the other hand. Political, economic and social actors and processes will be discussed by paying particular importance to the revisions they go through migration and their influence on human movements. Detailed discussions are made on the basis of the essential and recent scholarly work on the subject area. Active participation is expected from the students by the means of weekly written reaction papers and research papers in the end of the course. Upon the successful completion of this course, students are expected to have a sophisticated understanding of (international) migration, explain theoretical perspectives on the notion, and asses the related concepts and evaluate (international) migration by taking political, economic and social aspects into consideration.
POLS 718 Topics in Political Sociology: This course focuses on understanding and analyzing a series of classical problems in political sociology from a Global perspective. İncluding but not solely focusing on state formation, the social development of global political regimes and their organizations, the intersection of social political beliefs and the economy, global political group behavior, challenges to political institutions from social groups as well as other problems of a socio\political nature. Many subject matter experts have written on these issues this course focuses on a group of these experts and their seminal works and concentrates on in-depth readings of these compositions relative to the aforementioned issues from a global, analytic and comparative perspective.
POLS 723 Republicanism: Past and Present: This course offers a comparative study of the political concept of Republicanism with Neo-or-Civic Republicanism. It will review the tradition of republican thought from a western perspective focusing on a selection of writers including: Machiavelli; the English republicans such as Montesquieu and Blackstone; and the Americans of the founding era including Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. These writers focused on the importance of civic virtue and political participation-the dangers of corruption-the rule of law and the benefits of a mixed constitution. They present their arguments with evidence from the Latin historians and Cicero. The course compares these ‘modern’ writers with the present day interpretation of their work via the historical and analytic program of Quentin Skinner and Philip Pettit and counter positions it against the perspectives of modern political Liberalism.
