Kursinformation

The seminar aims to provide in-depth knowledge about the emergence of multipolarity in world politics. It deals with puzzles on the challenges international organizations have been facing on various global issues (e.g., security, trade, development, and climate change), and the establishment of club governance as a response to those challenges. It therefore concentrates on formal international organizations, the United Nations (UN) and the Bretton Woods institutions, and informal country clubs, such as the G7, the G20, the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), and the MIKTA (Mexico, Indonesia, Korea, Turkey and Australia). Accordingly, students are familiarized with (i) the rise of multilateralism and informality in global governance, (ii) the recent challenges to the Liberal International Order resulting from systemic power shifts and anti-establishment movements in Western societies, i.e., in the United States, Britain, and the European Union, as well as (iii) diverging/converging positions of both emerging economies and established powers within international organizations. The learning outcome of the seminar is gaining theoretical knowledge on the key International Relations theories (namely, neorealism, institutionalism, constructivism, and liberalism/domestic politics approaches) and implementing them on empirical case studies, such as, of the UNSC, the G20, the WTO, the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC), as well as the Paris Climate Agreement. Through this, the seminar aims to uncover functions and benefits of international organizations in the era of multilateralism, the role of informal arrangements in global governance, as well as the main challenges that they bring about.