World in Crisis? Global Order and Disorder in the 21st Century

Session: Two
Prerequisites: At least one introductory course in either social science (e.g. political science, international relations, sociology, economics), history, law or any other cognate subject in the Arts or Humanities

Professor Michael Cox

In the year 2000 most experts assumed that the world stood on the eve of a golden age of world peace, international prosperity and great power harmony. Eleven years later and the same experts are predicting a very different kind of future in which a combination of terrorism, shifting power balances, state collapse, weapons proliferation, and now deep economic crisis are creating a very different - and altogether more unsettled - kind of international politics. Why have we arrived at this point after a decade long period of optimism following the end of the Cold War? What does the future hold? And how well will the main international actors - most notably the United States under Barack Obama - deal with what one writer recently called an emerging new world disorder?  

This innovative course will seek to explore these questions and many more besides in an in-depth, extensive three week programme that will not only look at the current economic slump and its global implications but with the war on terror so-called (and why we might be losing it), the possibility of American decline (and where this might lead), the rise of China (and why it has been much exaggerated), the crisis currently facing Europe after enlargement (and whether or not Europe can hold together) and whether or not Russia is causing a 'new Cold War' with the West (and why the West bears some of the responsibility for the situation). In the last sessions the course will look at possible global scenarios for the next five years and ask whether or not the international community can maintain global stability when confronted with such multiple challenges.
Texts
Parag Khanna, The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order, Random House (2008).
Bill Emmott, Rivals: How the Power Struggle Between China, India and Japan Will Shape Our Next Decade, Allen Lane (2008).
Martin Wolf, Fixing Global Finance, Yale University Press (2009).
Fareed Zakaria, The Post-American World: And the Rise Of The Rest, Allen Lane (2008).  

Lectures: 36 hours    Classes: 12 hours
Assessment: Written work and one written examination

Inscripción

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