UCL - Geopolitics and the International contemporary System

[SPRI2020]

[30h] 5 credits

Teacher(s): Claude Roosens

Language: French

Level: Second

Aims
Main themes
Content and teaching methods
Other information (prerequisite, evaluation (assessment methods), course materials recommended readings, ...)

Aims

We will study the actors, the challenges, the deep forces and the ideas that characterize the international life of the contemporary world, through the analysis of the contemporary international system. Therefore we will rely on the main concepts and approaches of geopolitics and of international relations.
At the end of the course, the student will have a good knowledge of international relations since 1945 and will be able to analyse current diplomatic, geopolitical and security issues.

Main themes

The course provides a general view of the evolution of the contemporary international system. It does not pro-vide a detailed analysis of every event but stresses the continuities and break-downs that marked international relations, mainly via the spatial variable (geopolitical) and the time dimension (long run) affecting them.
Even though the diversity of factors conditioning this evolution will not be neglected, the course gives a certain priority to the politic.

Content and teaching methods

Taking today's international system as a point of departure (the configuration of today's international relations, as it is perceived), the course locates it in the progress achieved since 1945. It examines
(a) The East-West balance period (cold war ; with its geopolitical, ideological, strategic, security data ; the role of the non alignment strategy on the North-South relations and its articulation in the East-West),
(b) The transition introduced by the collapse of the Eastern bloc and its consequences for the whole planet
(c) The " system " that affected or determined the World since the beginning of the 21st Century.

Other information (prerequisite, evaluation (assessment methods), course materials recommended readings, ...)

Geopolitics and the International System

Written or oral exam (option)

" C. Roosens, Relations internationales de 1815 à nos jours, vol. 2, Louvain-la-Neuve, 2002
" Written material (texts)