As a member of the prestigious Russell Group, our School of Politics and International Relations is world-renowned as a major school for the study of global politics, and is led by a team of industry-leading researchers providing thought leadership and unique insights in local and global politics.

The team is committed to developing, maintaining and supporting teaching and research excellence and innovation amongst its faculty, and to fostering independent learning and critical thinking amongst its students.

It’s this team of leading academics that will teach and support you throughout your studies – ensuring you’re well-equipped with the in-depth knowledge and skills you need to understand and confidently contribute to public policy-making.

• As an International Public Policy student with QMUL online, you’ll benefit from:

• An innovative approach to policy-making within the field of international politics

• The freedom and flexibility to study when and where it suits you and to choose from a wide variety of optional modules

• World-class teaching from industry-leading experts in cutting-edge areas such as the politics of global health, World Bank policy, and the rise of emerging powers in the developing world
• Our close links to leading practitioners in UK politics 
• The opportunity to attend networking events at our Mile End Institute – a major policy centre at QMUL bringing together policymakers, academics and diverse local communities to address major political challenges in the UK.

Committed to developing, maintaining and supporting excellent and innovative teaching and research amongst its faculty, the School fosters independent learning and critical thinking among our students. Its research strengths include: 

• International security
• Conflict and war
• Political economy of North-South relations
• International political theory
• Middle East politics
• Transition from the Cold War to the contemporary post-Cold War world
• Migration and transnational mobility

For more information about the School please visit politics.qmul.ac.uk.

The PGDip in International Relations is available for part time study over four semesters (two academic years). During that time, you will undertake four compulsory modules. For each module, you will be awarded 30 credits each. In order to receive your PGDip you must have accrued 120 credits, which involves completing every aspect of the modules and passing all relevant assignments.

The PGCert in International Relations is available for part time study over two semesters (one academic year). During that time, you will undertake two compulsory modules. For each module, you will be awarded 30 credits each. In order to receive your PGCert you must have accrued 60 credits, which involves completing every aspect of the modules and passing all relevant assignments.

This module is designed to provide you with a command of key concepts and theoretical traditions in international relations and an understanding of their relevance to contemporary themes in world politics.

We will evaluate political developments and statements and analyse critical themes in world politics. Through a close reading of advanced theoretical texts, you will expand your conceptual and theoretical knowledge and begin to think critically about competing interpretations of events, and longer term developments in international relations.

Online discussions will encourage you to compare and critically evaluate theoretical knowledge and to express your arguments effectively.

Violent conflict and the use of force remain salient issues in contemporary international relations. While some have theorised that the advent of globalisation and spread of liberal democracy would make the use of force and violent conflict less relevant to the world, war and conflict have remained an integral part of the international system, forming an obstacle to providing stability and security for many states.

In this module, we will examine how force is used by states and other actors, and how it is managed in world politics. Together, we will survey a variety of perspectives on the causes of war and peace in order to better examine the roots of violent conflicts and security problems in the present day.

A major theme of the module looks at war in a global context, not only in terms of integrating contemporary concerns with globalisation, but also by looking at interconnections between north and south, and war and society. We will also explore the responses of the international community to violent conflict, looking broadly at the contested notion of ‘Just War’, international law, and the role of the United Nations.

Overall, the module will provide you with a broad perspective on the place of armed force in contemporary international relations.

In this module, we will consider the principal forms in which US foreign policy has been practised and interpreted since the foundation of the Republic. Amongst these are American Exceptionalism and Anti-Americanism, ‘spheres of influence’, liberal interventionism and protectionist isolationism, Cold War containment, the ‘War on Terror’ following 9/11, and the strains on uni-polarity in the early 21st century.

Case studies linked to these themes will allow us to consider the role of Native Americans and immigration, the war of 1898, gunboat diplomacy in the Caribbean, the ideas of Woodrow Wilson, the Vietnam War, the consequences of the 9/11 attacks, and the challenges posed by China.

Watch our video on the importance of the Themes and Cases in US Foreign Policy module:

This module provides you with a detailed examination and critique of theories of globalisation, an assessment of contemporary globalising processes, and how these particularly influence the developing world.

We will examine the analysis of contemporary manifestations of ‘globalisation’, including neo-liberalism, US hegemony and contemporary imperialism, capital flows, global commodity chains, state-market relations, patterns of global inequality, international institutions, and questions of cultural homogenisation/imperialism.

The module also looks at the ways in which ‘globalisation’ is resisted, focusing on the rise of transnational social movements and NGOs, and the politics of ‘anti-globalisation’, and how this relates to an ostensibly ‘post-development’ era.

In addressing these issues, the module concludes by asking the most important question: how do we think of ‘development’ in an era of ‘globalisation’, US hegemony, neo-liberalism and imperialism?

The title and subject of your dissertation will be agreed by your assigned tutor. A dissertation is only required if you study the full masters programme.
 

Taking your IELTS English Language test?

Here are top tips from an IELTS examiner on how to prepare for each section and perform at your best on exam day.

4 skills are tested in the IELTS exam:

1. Reading
2. Listening
3. Speaking
4. Writing

Advice for reading

• Read newspapers and academic journals regularly to help improve your vocabulary and reading speed
• Download IELTS practice tests from the ielts.org website to learn how to identify the easiest questions
• During your exam, read through the paper in full initially and identify which questions are easier for you
• Start with the easier questions to guarantee yourself some marks and help you feel confident

Advice for listening

• Listen to the radio, TV and YouTube videos to help you understand various accents
• Practice your spelling of names, numbers and addresses

Advice for speaking

• Speak in English as much as possible in your day-to-day life
• On the day of the exam, see if you can speak in English to another candidate outside the exam hall, to put yourself at ease

Advice for writing

• Practice writing academic papers and get feedback from a teacher or professor if you can
• Get to know the band descriptors IELTS examiners use to mark your writing – you can find these on the ielts.org website
• Identify the areas you need to improve on and practice these before your exam
• During your exam, make sure you answer the question that’s being asked and complete all parts of the task

And finally...

Leave yourself plenty of time to prepare! If you can, try to book your exam at least six weeks in advance to give yourself enough time to practice the different skills. Practice makes perfect with the IELTS exam.

Jef Huysmans is Professor of International Politics. After finishing his PhD at the University of Leuven (Belgium), he took up a lectureship in International Relations and European studies at the University of Kent at Canterbury. Later he moved to the Open University where he taught politics and international relations and was Director of the Centre for Citizenship, Identities and Governance. He joined Queen Mary University of London in January 2016.

He is best known for his work on the politics of insecurity, the securitization of migration, and critical methods in security studies and IR. Currently he is working on security and democracy in times of surveillance, the political life of methods, and the political significance of little nothings.

He was Co-Editor-in-Chief of the ISA journal International Political Sociology from 2012 until 2016.

Full staff profile

Diego joined the School of Politics and International Relations in 2017. He is an alumnus of the United World College of the Adriatic, Italy, and the University of British Columbia, Canada. He completed his PhD in International Relations at the London School of Economics in 2015, with a dissertation on the critical ethics of international development.

In 2015/16, he was responsible for a mainstreaming review of the LSE100 syllabus, which resulted in the largest equalities initiative of its kind in UK higher education. He was awarded departmental teaching prizes in 2014 and 2016.

Diego’s research interests include the ethics of care; human empathy and affect in moral theory; the ethics of international development, and intersectionality mainstreaming practices around the world. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and became DL Programmes Coordinator for SPIR in 2021. He recently completed a co-authored textbook, Global Politics: Myths and Mysteries (Oxford University Press, 2022).

Lisa was awarded her PhD by the University of Johannesburg in 2016, having conducted research on the nexus between natural resource governance and transnational organised crime at sea in the Gulf of Guinea. Since then, she has worked in academia in the United Kingdom and South Africa, teaching in various subjects of Politics and International Relations at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

Her current research interests span themes of non-traditional threats to security, specifically issues in maritime security, as well as diplomacy. Her edited volume Global Challenges in Maritime Security: An Introduction was published by Springer in 2020, and she is currently Co-Editor in Chief of the journal African Security Review.

Nevena Nancheva is a recognised Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and has been teaching International Relations at the Master's level since 2010. Her leading research interest is nationalism in the European context. She has written on European integration, EU security and migration governance, national minorities, refugee migration, and recently, on nationalism and the construction of 'national' food.

Nevena's 2016-17 research project EU Migrants in the UK: Political Community, Identity and Security is funded by the British Academy/Leverhulme Trust. She is the co-founder of an academic research network on EU migration (eu-migrants.net) hosted by the Centre for Research on Communities, Identities and Difference at Kingston University London.

Alice has a PhD in International Relations from the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, Italy, and, jointly, the Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain. Among other publications, she is the author of The UN and Counter-Terrorism: Global Hegemonies, Power, Identity (Routledge, 2021) and co-editor of Encountering Extremism (MUP, 2020).

Her research examines and deconstructs global discourses on security, (counter)terrorism and (counter)extremism, looking into the resulting practices of power and international hegemonies.

She lectures on Critical Security Studies, Critical Terrorism Studies, and, more broadly, International Relations and Global Politics theories.

Before her PhD, she collaborated with the Human Rights Office of the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation.

Larry’s interest in teaching, research and consultancy has developed as a result of 15 years of professional experience within the public sector, private sector and third sector working in different levels of complexity while trouble-shooting and proffering solutions to real-life work problems.

He has worked with the World Health Organisation, UNICEF, Laureate Online Universities, the British Council and Chevening and is a subject specialist in Public Policy, Governance and Strategy Making. He is currently working on an ongoing project (delivered with KRIU-Kazakhstan) funded by the British Council Creative Sparks Award aimed at developing the Enterprise sector in Kazakhstan 

Paul Hayman is a recognised Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, with a PhD in International Theory/Political Philosophy from the School of Government & International Affairs at Durham University. He also holds a Master’s in International Studies from the same department and a Law degree from Northumbria University.

He has lectured at Durham University in political sociology, where he also supervised postgraduate dissertations. He currently holds a senior position at The Open University, managing teaching and learning in Politics and International Studies in the largest academic faculty in Europe. He has a wealth of online teaching experience, supporting students across a range of disciplines and issue-areas, including international relations, political ideas, public policy, social theory, and development studies.

Haro Karkour is a recognised Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and has been teaching online modules at Masters level since 2012. He has completed his PhD in politics at the University of Leicester with the thesis entitled 'Kosovo, Libya, and the problem with depoliticisation in the theory and practice of post-Cold War Humanitarian Intervention.

Haro's research is focused on International Relations (IR) theory. He is currently looking at classical realism and its application to US foreign policy, the liberal international order and the 'Global IR' debate. His research has been published previously in IR journals such as International Relations and Journal of International Political Theory.

Read Haro's blog post on how IR students can interpret the G7 Summit in Cornwall >

At the end of the MA, you should be able to look back at your journal and articulate what skills and knowledge you’ve developed. This can be hugely beneficial when completing job applications or writing reports at work.