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2008/09 Undergraduate Module Catalogue

PIED2555 International Organisations and World Order

20 creditsClass Size: 110

Module manager: Dr Dan Jones
Email: D.L.Jones@leeds.ac.uk

Taught: Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) View Timetable

Year running 2008/09

This module is approved as an Elective

Module summary

This module analyses the work of the international organizations in historical and contemporary contexts across a range of policy areas including: global security, international law, human rights, economic management, social policy and disarmament. The course makes use of up-to-date text books, electronic journals and web-sites. The course begins with developments in the late 19th Century and moves on to cover the League of Nations, the United Nations Security Council, the IMF and WTO, international courts, the Chemical and Biological Weapons Conventions and new policy areas such as risk and disaster and disaster management. The course emphasizes the changing nature of global security, the control over new technologies and the role and place of the individual as well as the state. For further information see the School of Politics and International Studies website. If you cannot find the answer to your question then email D.L.Jones@leeds.ac.uk

Objectives

On completion of this module, students will be able to:
- demonstrate familiarity with the internal functioning and purposes of a set of international organisations;
- demonstrate an awareness of how the growth of international organisations is linked, historically, to the expansion of power at the level of an underlying world order;
- identify core features of the contemporary international order;
- demonstrate the ways in which the work of international organisations is shaped by underlying mechanisms of power.

Syllabus

This module examines the growth of supranational mechanisms of government in the international system, especially since 1945, and links the growth of these organisations to macro-shifts in the underlying structures of world power. The course begins and ends with the idea of US hegemony in the world order as a whole. The module begins by linking the birth of international organisations to the expansion of American capitalism at the end of the 19th century and it ends by tracing the link between global governance and the globalisation of American capitalism. It links the rise and fall of the League of Nations to the fortunes of the US hegemony and demonstrates how central international organisations in the level of security and economics were established after WWII - the period when the world's first superpower ended its historic isolationism. The module looks at the United Nations, NATO and the Bretton Woods system in this world order, focusing particularly on the issues of economics and security; but also examines possible counter-hegemonic blocks in this world order, such as the European Union.

Teaching methods

Delivery typeNumberLength hoursStudent hours
Lecture111.0011.00
Seminar111.0011.00
Private study hours178.00
Total Contact hours22.00
Total hours (100hr per 10 credits)200.00

Opportunities for Formative Feedback

Mid term essays

Methods of assessment


Coursework
Assessment typeNotes% of formal assessment
Essay3,000 words50.00
Total percentage (Assessment Coursework)50.00

Normally resits will be assessed by the same methodology as the first attempt, unless otherwise stated


Exams
Exam typeExam duration% of formal assessment
Standard exam (closed essays, MCQs etc)2 hr 00 mins50.00
Total percentage (Assessment Exams)50.00

Normally resits will be assessed by the same methodology as the first attempt, unless otherwise stated

Reading list

The reading list is available from the Library website

Last updated: 03/04/2009

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