Professor Jens Meierhenrich

This course is available on the MSc in International Relations, MSc in International Relations (LSE and Sciences Po) and MSc in International Relations (Research). This course is not available as an outside option.

This lecture course introduces students to critical international theory, i.e., to modes of thinking that question, challenge, or repudiate conventional approaches to the study of international relations. It is a course about the conduct of inquiry—about alternative ways of seeing. Critical approaches to be discussed range from Marxism to post-structuralism and from feminism to critical race theory. By thinking critically about the study of international relations, the course raises––and answers––thorny questions about the promise—and limits—of international politics.

10 hours of lectures and 15 hours of seminars in the Autumn Term.

Students on this course will have a reading week in Week 6, in line with departmental policy.

Students will be expected to produce 1 essay in the AT.

Students are required to submit one formative coursework (2,000-word essay). All students are expected to prepare for and participate in seminar discussions.

• Richard Devetak, Critical International Theory: An Intellectual History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018). 
• Patrick Jackson, The Conduct of Inquiry in International Relations, (London: Routledge. 2010);
• Christian Reus-Smit and Duncan Snidal (eds, 2010), The Oxford Handbook of International Relations, (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

Blog post (15%) in the AT.
Take-home assessment (85%) in the WT.

Blog component (15%): Students will, via sign up, compose one blog post of up to 500 words applying the concepts (and readings) of the week to analyse and understand a contemporary event or phenomenon in international politics. This component is worth 10%. Students will also comment upon and engage with one (via sign up) of their peers’ posts, for a completion grade of 5%.

Take-home assessment (85%): due in the January Exam Period: Students will compose two (2) 2000 word answers to questions from the take-home assessment paper.