Upon successful completion of this course, students should be able to:
1. Have a clear understanding of the international humanitarian system in its geopolitical context with an emphasis on the power relations between actors
2. Be familiar with the main approaches and concepts of international relations and geopolitics
3. Have a demonstrated capacity to identify the root causes of conflicts and complex emergencies in a particular case
4. Have the ability to apply certain key concepts of International Relations and Geopolitics to concrete disaster situations.
5. Have the ability to transfer acquired knowledge to other humanitarian situations
6. Have adequate capacity for (self-) reflection on academic argumentation
7. Have the basic skills for acting in and reacting in intercultural contexts

The module has four components. The first component looks at the evolution of humanitarian assistance within contemporary world politics. Humanitarian action has evolved from essentially a philanthropic exercise (voluntary, sporadic citizen’s response to the absence of State authority in a crisis) to a multi-billion-dollar humanitarian system involving more than 400,000 professionals, the UN agencies, the Red Cross Movement, State actors, regional organizations, nongovernmental & community-based organizations, private sector and many more. This component will use key theoretical perspectives in International Relations to analyze the evolution of humanitarian action and interrogate contemporary humanitarian interventions and their efficacy. The second component of the module uses tools from critical geopolitics and human security approach to analyse frameworks for mapping the operational environment in vulnerability and capacity. This section also deals with frameworks for conflict analysis. In doing so, students will come face-to-face with power dynamics between actors, the impact of competing agendas on humanitarian outcomes, and determinants of humanitarian space. The third component of the module is theme based. Guest Lecturers from the School of Politics and International Relations will provide an in-depth analysis of key issues, namely poverty and human rights, the Responsibility to Protect, and Conflict in the Middle East. The fourth and final component of the module relates to area studies and as such is achieved through a group project and seminar-style presentations on analysing the geopolitical context of a humanitarian crisis.

Not applicable to this module.

• Feedback individually to students, on an activity or draft prior to summative assessment
• Feedback individually to students, post-assessment
• Group/class feedback, post-assessment
• Online automated feedback
• Peer review activities
• Self-assessment activities

Not yet recorded.