This course examines the creation, decision-making procedures, effectiveness, and contestation of international organisations. Theoretically, it draws on major International Relations theories. Empirically, it covers a broad range of international organizations from diverse issue areas, such as environmental protection, global health, international economic affairs, the protection of human rights, and collective security.

Lecture: one hour per week, for 10 weeks

Tutorial: one hour per week, for 10 weeks

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The summative assessment consists of two parts:

1. Essay of 3000 words (60%)

2. Three quizzes taken via Moodle which aim at testing students' knowledge and comprehension of the material covered in the lecture, the seminar, and the essential readings. Only the two best results count towards the final mark (20% each, 40% in total).

The course aims to familiarise students with the significance of international organisations for international relations. More precisely, it seeks to empower students to develop answers the following questions: What are international organisations and why should we study them? Why do states create international organisations? How are decisions taken within international organisations? What difference do international organisations make (if any)? Why are international organisations contested? To that end, it will familiarise students with core concepts and key theoretical approaches developed in the field of International Relations to study international organisations. Crucially, the course aims to enable students to fruitfully apply those concepts and theoretical approaches to a broad set of international organisations from a wide range of issue-areas. 

By the end of this course students will be able to:

■ Critically analyse the creation, decision-making, effectiveness, and contestation of international organisations by drawing on an encompassing conceptual and theoretical apparatus.

■ Apply core International Relations (IR) concepts and theoretical approaches to international organisations in an analytically fruitful way.

■ Systematically compare the creation, decision-making, effectiveness, and contestation of key international organisations in a wide range of issue areas (such as the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organisation).

■ Develop analytically significant and factually supported claims about the creation, decision-making processes, effectiveness, and contestation of international organisations.

■ Critically assess the relevance and validity of different theoretical arguments in concrete empirical cases.    

Students must submit at least 75% by weight of the components (including examinations) of the course's summative assessment.