This module will provide an advanced understanding of Security Studies as a subfield of both International Relations and International Security. The module will explore the meaning and use of security in international relations and engage with mainstream theoretical approaches of the discipline and newer conceptions of security, such as gender and post-colonial security. Students will apply these theoretical frameworks to a range of empirical case studies with a particular focus on the changing logic of security since the end of the Cold War. The module will examine security in relation to cooperation and conflict between states and interrogate a number of issue areas, including terrorism, intra-state violence and post-conflict peacebuilding, and energy security.

1,000 word Briefing Report 25% [Learning Outcomes 2, 3 and 4]
2,500 word Essay 75%[Learning Outcomes 1-4]

Key Information Set Data:
100% Coursework

The Briefing Report will require you to focus precisely and concisely on a narrow topic, analyse it and communicate your conclusions in a report format (not an essay format).
Briefing reports are an effective way of putting students in the middle of a challenging problem that forces them to grapple with its many facets and to require students to respond to the problem; and to equip students with the ability to apply their knowledge to similar problems—past, current, and future.

One of the key skills essays are testing is the ability to make your arguments within specified word limits. This assessment will also provide you an opportunity to persuade by reasoned discourse and develop critical thinking and academic writing skills.

Context is provided in weekly in lectures on various themes with thin the field of Security Studies, detailed analysis in mandatory weekly readings is an important part of discussion sessions held in weekly seminars where students can engage with and share their own ideas and thoughts. The first half of the module is designed to introduce and familiarise the students with the key theoretical approaches of the Security Studies. The second, is designed to interrogate key themes and issues by applying the theoretical frameworks introduced in the first part of the module.

Student research their Briefing Report topics in class time to prepare students for the Briefing Report assessment. Discussion and debate in class time into both specific details of theoretical approaches and empirical cases and issues will provide students with the formative tools so that critical and comparative analysis can then be deployed in the critical analysis components of the main essay.

1. DEMONSTRATE AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE KEY THEORETICAL APPROACHES AND DEBATES OF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY AND SECURITY STUDIES.

Knowledge and Understanding

2. CONDUCT FURTHER RESEARCH INTO KEY ISSUES AND DEBATES IN THE DISCIPLINE OF SECURITY STUDIES.

Enquiry

3. UNDERSTAND CRITICALLY AND APPLY THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS AND APPROACHES TO THE ANALYSIS OF KEY THEMES AND ISSUES IN SECURITY STUDIES.

Analysis

4. PROVIDE WELL RESEARCHED PIECES OF WORK IN AN APPROPRIATE ACADEMIC STYLE.

Communication

Teaching space with digital projection, library and electronic resources, journal subscriptions, eBooks, etc.

Baylis, Wirtz, Cohen & Gray (ed) Strategy in the Contemporary World, (6th ed) OUP, 2018

Collins, Alan (ed) Contemporary Security Studies, (5th ed) OUP, 2018

Peoples, C., Vaughan-Williams, N., 2014. Critical Security Studies: An Introduction, 2nd edition.

Routledge, London¿; New York, NY.

Smith, D.M.E., 2017. International Security: Politics, Policy, Prospects 2nd edition. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, Hampshire England¿; New York.

Snyder, Craig A (ed) Contemporary Security and Strategy (3rd ed), Palgrave, 2012.

Williams, P.D. (ed.), 2018. Security Studies: An Introduction, 3rd edition. Routledge, London¿; New York.