Course description
Programme description
- The Department of War Studies is unique in the UK and one of very few university departments in the world devoted exclusively to the study of war as a human phenomenon.
- The unrivalled location in the heart of London beside the River Thames brings outstanding advantages. Students enjoy excellent academic, social and cultural opportunities. The department is close to the seat of Government, the City, the Imperial War Museum, the National Maritime Museum, the Royal Courts of Justice and the Inns of Court.
- Students have access to visiting academics, serving officers, government ministers and other experts who give regular public lectures and seminars.
This programme provides students with generic social science foundation training and subject specific training in War Studies.
Students will pursue research training that meets the particular needs of their research and achieve the wider learning outcomes for the PhD set down by the UK research councils. These may be achieved through prior training and professional experience, by completing courses in the appropriate social science/ESRC or humanities/AHRC research training stream or a combination of both. The programme is recognised by the Economic and Social Research Council.
MRes students must take all of the following core research training elements: Quantitative Research Methods;
heory and Methodologies of Social Sciences;
Applied Social Science: Research Design and Project Management; Qualitative Research Methods.
MRes students must choose one of following elements:
Approaches to War; Intelligence in Peace and War;
Security and Development; Theories of International Relations and Concepts & Methods in International Relations;
Violence, the State & Global Politics and Concepts & Methods in International Relations; History of Warfare.
MRes students are also required to complete a 15,000 word dissertation.
Pathways
Social science or historical pathways.
Programme format and assessment
Students take core research training modules, War Studies components and complete a dissertation. Students will be assessed by essay, examination and dissertation.
Programme modules for MRes War Studies
Applied Social Science: Research Design and Project Management (Core Module)
The course develops your skills in applying social science methodologies and concepts to the design and implementation of actual research. Through the use of active learning techniques, you will be introduced to a range of skills and activities necessary to carry out high quality research. This course is taught by the Department of War Studies.
Approaches to War (Core Module)
War is a key aspect of human experience, and people have long sought to understand it from a diverse range of perspectives. Students of war are drawn from the ranks of historians, social scientists, philosophers, jurists and artists. Practitioners of war find instrumental value in its study. These, and others, have brought their particular insights and concerns to bear on the subject, with the result that many aspects of war are now understood from a variety of highly specialised standpoints. However, the study of war from any single standpoint, or through the lens of any one academic discipline, inevitably produces a narrow perspective which cannot accommodate war’s complexities. Individual issues are elucidated, but we remain a long way from understanding war ‘in the round’. Such a goal demands a different, more holistic, approach. This course is designed to meet such a demand by introducing a multi-disciplinary approach to the study of war. It will provide an intellectual ‘toolbox’, whose contents are drawn from a variety of disciplines associated with the humanities and social sciences. Students will not be trained as specialist historians, philosophers, sociologists, etc., but they will be introduced to those aspects of their disciplines which are most germane to war studies. Another important function of this course is to introduce students to the substantive concerns which comprise war studies. War studies is not simply strategic studies or military history by another name. Its concerns include the strategic and historical dimensions of war, but they encompass much else besides. Given the broad-ranging nature of war studies, and the correspondingly wide range of concerns that might conceivably merit attention, it is important that students gain a feel for those issues which have made it onto the war studies ‘agenda’ in practice. To this end, much of the course is organised around a selection of ‘key’ texts which are broadly representative of the larger literature encompassed by war studies. Familiarisation with the field of war studies will be greatly facilitated by a close engagement with these texts, a number of which enjoy classic status. Note, however, that none of them was selected because it contains the ‘truth’ about any particular aspect of war studies. Students are encouraged to engage with them critically: accepting whatever stands up to reasoned argument, and rejecting whatever does not. In short, this course provides an introduction to what war studies is and how to practice it. As such, it also provides an excellent foundation for the sustained study of substantive issues which are associated with the option courses and dissertation element of the MA/Diploma programme.
Concepts and Methods in International Relations (20 Credits) (Core Module)
This course in advanced theories of International Relations considers the major established approaches to the subject as well as the most important debates and innovations in IR theory over the past three decades. The course covers classical and neo realism, liberal IR theory, and Marxian structural approaches, as well as more contemporary debates stemming from critical international relations theory, feminism, and postmodernism. The overall thrust of the course will be interpretive, normative and critical. Throughout the course, the theories being examined will be used to advance our understanding of key developments in contemporary international affairs that have resulted from the end of the Cold War and the process of globalisation.
History of Warfare (Core Module)
This core course is designed to develop the intellectual, historiographical and methodological skills necessary to study the History of Warfare at the Masters level and beyond. Taught through a series of linked lectures and workshops, it combines an examination of significant debates in the study of the history of war from the medieval period to the present day with practical workshops on the broad variety of sources, methods and issues central to the study of warfare in the past. Its portfolio assessment, comprising a book review, an individual research project and a personal statement reflecting on their work, is designed to allow students to develop and practice the skills of the research historian. Particular attention is paid to developing students' critical engagement with source material, and the nature and limitations of historical knowledge.
Intelligence in Peace and War (Core Module)
The course provides a thorough grounding in the conceptual, historical and contextual themes in the study of intelligence including its development and role within the domains of international security. A particular emphasis will be placed on the way that issues of intelligence permeate general themes of warfare and international relations. While attention will be given to intelligence methods, structures, institutions and processes, the course will not analyse intelligence merely as a discrete information gathering exercise but seeks to place the phenomenon in its widest setting by providing a framework to understand key ideas and dilemmas in international security.
Qualitative Research Methods (Core Module)
The objective of this course is to equip students with qualitative methodological skills. It is designed to introduce students to a range of qualitative methodologies and analytic techniques. It will also provide experience of qualitative interviewing, ethnographic observation and qualitative data analysis. The course is split into two parts: the first part of the course covers intersubjective methods such as in-depth interviews, focus groups, and ethnography. The second part focuses on methods of qualitative analysis, including textual and discourse analysis, archival scholarship, and computer-based qualitative data coding, using packages such as NVIVIO NUD*ist and AtlasTI. Please contact the lecturer responsible for further information on the content of the course.
Security and Development (Core Module)
The core course, Security and Development, provides a comprehensive, analytical and empirically-informed treatment of the linkages between issues of security and development in contemporary international relations. To this end, the course covers four key areas: · The Process of Development, War and Social Violence. This part of the course introduces students to the major debates within the fields of Sociology, Development Studies and International Relations concerning the process of development and its relationship to violent conflict and change. In particular, it explores competing claims regarding the causal connections between processes of socio-economic change and the incidence and patterns of violent conflict in the developing world. · Security and Development Issues During Conflict. The course is also centrally concerned with the impact of violent conflict on development and, conversely, how different levels or states of development influence the nature and character of contemporary armed conflict. Issues covered in this part of the course include, inter alia, state failure and war; the political economy of civil wars; food security, famines and war; and natural resources, scarcity and armed conflict. · Security and Development Issues in Transitions from War to Peace. This part of the course explores the linkages between issues of security and development in the aftermath of violent conflict. Detailed attention will be given to areas of outside involvement – e.g. the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration of combatants – where historical and contemporary experience suggests that security and development need to be thought of as mutually dependent, not distinct and separate, fields of policy intervention. Special attention is also given to contemporary forms of international administration of war torn societies. · Policy Making for Development and Security. This component focuses on the manner in which questions of security and development have been addressed by policy-makers within and among donor countries, by global and regional organisations, and by non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Particular emphasis is placed on the UN “system” and the role of the Bretton Woods institutions (the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund).
Theories of International Relations (20 Credits) (Core Module)
This course in advanced theories of International Relations considers the major established approaches to the subject as well as the most important debates and innovations in IR theory over the past three decades. The course covers classical and neo realism, liberal IR theory, and Marxian structural approaches, as well as more contemporary debates stemming from critical international relations theory, feminism, and postmodernism. The overall thrust of the course will be interpretive, normative and critical. Throughout the course, the theories being examined will be used to advance our understanding of key developments in contemporary international affairs that have resulted from the end of the Cold War and the process of globalisation.
Theory and Methodologies of the Social Sciences (Core Module)
Through seminar discussions, students will consider a range of philosophical approaches to the social sciences, from positivism and empiricism, to hermenuetics, marxism, and post-structuralism, and discuss the relationship between theoretical debates in particular disciplines to those within the wider social sciences. Each seminar will begin with student-led discussion of readings and then end with a more formal presentation from the instructor to introduce the material for the coming week.
Violence, the State and Global Politics (20 Credits) (Core Module)
The course provides an understanding of the place of violent conflict in human society. It familiarises students with major sociological, philosophical, and political approaches to the subject of violence and how violence relates to political practice at state and global levels of interaction. The course enables students to critically engage with the literature on political violence, including its relationship to language, the construction of identity, the politics of exclusion, global exceptionalism and the use of warfare, the role of the state in political violence, and the implications of transnational violence for the changing role of the state in an era of globalisation.
Duration
One year FT, two years PT, September to September.
