After completing the course, students will understand the unique characteristics of American political system and the role of Congress in it, as well as understand the limits of presidential power in American foreign policy. Students will have a sound understanding of the evolution of American foreign policy institutions and legislative-executive relationship in forming American foreign policy, including the use of American military power. The course will focus on American post-World War II foreign and security policy, and special attention will be paid to American post-9/11 foreign policy and the effects of partisan polarization and domestic politics to legislative-executive relations.

This course is centered on finding political scenarios and debates in fictive texts. Politics is an integral part of many fictive texts, and often used to reflect real world issues, debates, and political scenarios. Many seminal works of science fiction, for example, extrapolate political issues like authoritarianism, surveillance, loss of privacy, ecologism, pacifism, militarism, and so on into contexts where they can be addressed in ways less suited for traditional political science. Indeed, these works often comment on the issues of their time through fiction.

During the course the students will receive weekly readings for analysis and reflection. After the course, the students are expected to better understand how politics can be presented in fiction, and how these fictional politics can be used to make sense of actual political events. The students will be more adept at spotting political scenarios and reconstructing them in various contexts. 

The language of the course is English, so students are expected to be reasonably proficient in reading and writing academic texts in this language. English degree programme students can join students of Political Science on the course for a richer mutual understanding of disciplines and the texts.

Enrollment via email to teacher responsible. Students admitted in order of registering, but political science students prioritized. Optimal group size is 20 students. Deadline for enrollment is 06.09.2017.

Active participation in the seminars, topical presentation in seminar, and essay (9-12 pages) for 5 ECTS.

Indicative Lecture Content 

September 26:  1966. If a Woman Says ‘Perhaps’: The Great Political ‘Seduction’ and Rafael Paasio gets the Centre Party into Bed

Virolainen quotes Lenin but Einari Karvetti is unhappy. The Popular Front years; the ‘liberation of middle beer’; farm amalgamation and the exodus to Sweden and the ‘deep south’. The passing of agrarian Finland? Ämmänsaari 1968; Eero Raittisen ‘vanha holvikirkko’; SALT talks: the US and USSR negotiate whether to negotiate in Helsinki (and Vienna!). Podgorny’s visit and the Soviet’s failure to recognise Finnish neutrality.

October 3: 1970: The Finnish ship sails away from the Nordic Common Market

The ‘V’ linja: Väätäinen, Vasala, Viren and Vennamo. Did Veikko Vennamo really sink Nordek? The electoral ‘earthquake’ and the start of populism as a ‘family business’; Irwin Goodman; the Haukivuori relay; and Kekkonen takes to the television to roast the Communists. TUPO.

October 10: 1977: Why did superman fail to get the job?

The multiple aspects of Finlandisation: patronage, censorship and self-censorship. Westerholm forces a presidential election. The ‘midsummer bomb’ and ‘yleiset syyt’. Did the Kremlin really keep the Conservatives in opposition? Veikko and Manu in Jäähalli. Ilkityö in Kotka. Kekkonen rejects a Soviet approach for joint military ‘manoeuvres’

October 24: 1987 What was in the safe?

Manu and the ladybirds in Vaasa. The ‘Aids election’. Koivisto versus Väyrynen and a non-socialist coalition. From red-green to red-blue cabinets; Schism on the radical left: DEVA, Esko-Juhani Tennilä and the road to Vasemmistoliitto. Gorbachev recognises Finnish neutrality. Esko Almgren’s version of events.

October 31: 1992 Finland at 75: the ‘Kannuksen Kennedy’, a Nieminen gold and the ‘pulla index’

Did Nokia save Finland? From the depths of recession to ‘kännykä Suomi’.  The new liturgy: neutrality is replaced by ‘military nonalignment and a credible national defence’. Soft and hard security. Salolainen flops; Sundqvist implodes and so on to Lipponen

November 7: 1994 The EU Referendum, the ‘no butters’ and guess who?

As I said to Jacques Delors! Esko Aho and the airport taxi. Olli Rehn’s parents; the Estonian ferry disaster; Korhonen and Kainuun Sanomat; cocktails on the Royal Yacht Brittania. The Greens and ‘kyllä, mutta’; LFAs.

November 14: 1998 Onpa kiihkeä kosinta: the Centre beats the competition to sign a former ‘Miss Finland’

Tanja Karpela, celebrity candidates and the increasing mediatisation of politics. Finland becomes a founder-member of EMU and VL has a new chair. Why were ‘rainbow coalitions’ necessary? Uosukainen and her ‘water bed’.

November 21: 2000. What’s the most common word in the Finnish language? Answer: Kekkonen

The new Finnish constitution coincides with the centenary of Kekkonen’s birth. The end of semi-presidential government? The Kekkonen legacy. The first female Finnish president. Johannes Virolainen dies at 86. Iraqgate and the end of the social democratic hegemony

November 28: 2012 Finland According to Paavo Väyrynen: A Prophet in the Wilderness?

Neutrality (the Väyrynen version); Euroscepticism and the post-referendum filibuster; the Nordic Community; the minister, MEP and founder of the Citizens’ Party. Why Väyrynen has been good for Finland! Soini and the Social Democrats

December 5: Finland at 100: Independence, For What, So What?

Why, exactly, should we celebrate on December 6? What is the measure of the Finnish achievement? How independent has Finland really been? Punainen viiva. When electoral turnout is below 1907, how ‘well’ is Finnish democracy? How independent is Finland today? Aalto- Saara not Alvar; Tom of Finland; Vesa-Matti Loiri; the ‘Finland brand’. A marsalkka beer?

Email registration essential by September 20, 2017.

This module consist of lectures, independent reading and a miniconference organized at the very end of the module. Each lecture is dedicated to a particular approach to International Political Economy as an academic field of study. The students are required to familiarize themselves with a set of required pre-readings before coming to the lecture. At the lectures, the relevance of IPE as a field of study is illustrated in the context of contemporary issues within the global economy: international trade agreements, the rise of the BRICS, labor migration, privatization of health care, transformation of the welfare state, etc. The students write an essay on one of these topics and present their essays at a conference organized at the end of the course.

Lectures, independent reading, essay writing and a closing conference with student presentations.

The course offers students a possibility to engage in a participatory simulation of the EU decision-making and legislative process beginning with the suggestion proposed by the European Commission to the adoption of the legislative dossier. In the end, students will be able to understand the differences and operational logic of each major European institution, familiarise themselves with the ordinary legislative procedure, as well as learn in-depth about the functioning of the European Union as a whole.

Mandatory registration also via e-mail by 15.10.2017.

Active participation in the lessons is required from the students. In addition, the students are required to write smaller 400 word papers in preparation for some of the lessons as well as a longer final essay of 2000 words.

The course introduces students to the use of rational choice theory and formal modelling in the study of international relations.  Students are provided with tools from decision theory and game theory and shown how to use them in analysing a wide range of topics related to international relations.

The course follows closely the textbook, beginning with easy examples of decision theory and gradually progressing into more sophisticated game theoretic models. Each stage will include empirical examples of applying the newly introduced analytic methods into current international problems such as armed conflict, trade sanctions, terrorism, global warming and nation-building.

Email enrollment by 20 October (henrikki.heikka@kolumbus.fi). Please include your name and degree programme at UTA.

This course offers a way of analysing European integration as a process, and deepens the participants’ knowledge of the most important theories of European integration and of disintegration. Particular emphasis will be put on the consequences of integration and disintegration on the external relations of the EU and international relations more widely.

The multidisciplinary TAPRI series of workshops on Peace are conducted by visiting teachers from Georgia, Moldova and Armenia with various academic backgrounds. They have research expertise, among other fields, in history, culture, religion, education, media, human rights, gender, security, international relations, migration, economy, and politics. The geographic focus of their researches varies from the former Soviet areas and European Union to Turkey and Middle East. During the workshop, the teacher together with students discuss virtues and challenges of peace by analyzing its manifestations through practices of diverse local communities, state policies, politics of religion, media and education. By the end of workshop, the teacher and students jointly develop a model of understanding how peace is performed and confronted at different scales of social life.

Before each workshop session, the student is required to read literature provided by the teacher and write a short (1-2 pages) discussion paper in which s/he presents his/her view on peace based on the readings. After the session, the student is also required to write a 1-page reflection paper in which s/he critically describes the model for interpreting peace practices and their challenges developed during the class. The workshop teacher considers pre-assignments. Reflection papers are considered by the teacher responsible of the course. The student receives 1 ECTS per workshop and is free to attend as many workshops as s/he wishes.

Teaching

Friday from 10 am to 2 pm

• 17.11.2017 Performing peace in multiethnic and multi-religious village in Georgia (Ketevan Gurchiani, Institute of Philosophy, Ilia State University) Deadline for enrolment: 03.11.2017 Deadline for pre-assignment: 10.11.2017
• 08.12.2017 Moldova Status of neutrality: realities and perspectives for regional Peace(Valentina Teosa, Department of International Relations, Moldova State University) Deadline for enrolment: 24.11.2017 Deadline for pre-assignment: 01.12.2017

Monday from 12 to 4 pm

• 08.01.2018 Politics of Religion and Peace (Lia Evoyan, Faculty of Oriental Studies, Yerevan State University) Deadline for enrolment: 25.12.2017 Deadline for pre-assignment: 01.01.2018
• 22.01.2018 Peace journalism: Mass Media and information policies used to depict international conflict and war (Artur Atanesyan, Faculty of Sociology, Yerevan State University) Deadline for enrolment: 08.01.2018 Deadline for pre-assignment: 15.01.2018

Tuesday from 10 am to 2 pm

• 24.04.2018 Education and Peace (Lilit Mkrtchyan, Faculty of History, Yerevan State University) Deadline for enrolment: 10.04.2018 Deadline for pre-assignment: 17.04.2018

Enrolment

By emailing Vadim Romashov at vadim.romashov@staff.uta.fi

The deadline for enrolment is two weeks before each workshop session.

After sending the email, the student receives further instructions about the course and the enrolment key to the course Moodle webpage from where s/he can access to the required readings. As sooner message sent more time for preparation for the workshop students has. There will be a limited number of students accepted to the course.

IR students: it is possible to compensate part of the "POLKVS40 Workshop in International Relations" by actively participating in the workshops and by writing a learning diary. Please agree about the compensation with Professor Tuomas Forsberg  (tuomas.forsberg@uta.fi) beforehand.

This participatory course begins by choosing an acute international crisis. After a theory lecture, the selected conflict will be interpreted through Edward Said’s ‘contrapuntal reading’. In this type of analysis, a phenomenon is examined on multiple directions simultaneously, with the aim of finding a mutual understanding (‘reading’) of the conflict that takes into consideration the contrasting perspectives.

The course is composed of an obligatory theory lecture, seminar sessions, group work and an extended final seminar where the concluding contrapuntal reading of the conflict will be performed.

In order to pass the course, the participants need to attend the theory lecture, final extended seminar as well as three other seminar sessions. Furthermore, the participants are required to produce a group presentation and an essay. Places are limited in this course (max 15) and filled in the order of registration.

We can still accept a few more students to this course! If you are interested, please send a message to eveliina.permi@uta.fi

After completing the study unit/the course students understand how the international migration system functions today, the push and pull factors of international migration - the questions of emigration, immigration and integration and are able to analyze them critically.

Political and social trust are often seen as important determinants or elements of a functioning democracy and citizens well-being. But what is trust, and how it actually influences citizens and the political system? The purpose of the course is to give students a comprehensive picture of the concept of trust and its relevance in political science. The course starts with a conceptualization of trust, both as a political and social concept. After the conceptualization, measuring trust is analysed, and main results concerning survey evidence on trust discussed. The course goes then on with discussing the relevance and role of trust in international relations, trust in comparative perspective, the relationship of trust to political inequality and its relevance in explaining the rise of right wing populism. The course provides students analytical tools to study trust and an extensive knowledge of the relevant literature.

The course aims to present the key elements to understand French politics.

Why has the election of Macron in 2017 been considered as a cataclysm for the French political class? What happened in 1981 that radically changed the country? Why do we consider the French parliament as a weak legislature? What is the relationship between the president and the prime minister?

The objective of this course is to introduce the students to the politics of France from the foundation of the Fifth Republic in 1958 to the new political class in 2017. This course will thus discuss concepts such as semi-presidentialism, weak legislature, two-party system and many others. The first part of the course will discuss the institutions and actors in French politics. The second part will focus on the main events that shaped the country. Every concept will be discussed in a comparative perspective to highlight the similarities of the French political system with other countries such as Romania, Portugal and, to a certain extent, Finland.

Email registration to the teacher essential by 3 January, 2018.

This course will adopt a flipped classroom. The teacher delivers instructional content outside of the classroom. Research is conducted at home and students will engage in concepts and applications in the classroom with the guidance of the instructor. The evaluations of students will be based on multiple-choice question tests that will take place every week (answers will be randomly collected) and on the involvement in teamwork during the working sessions.

Multilateralism can be understood as a cooperative form of decision-making on issue areas where supranational authority does not exist but where coordinated action is necessary. It is ideally an institutional arrangement that ensures global governance in a non-discriminatory manner wihtout regard to particularistic interests. Regionalism on the other hand refers to the different forms of regional cooperation among states that are drawn together through geography, politics, culture and transnationalism and most importantly, the benefits of cooperation. European integration process is the most developed form of regionalism and as such has served as a stepping stone for global cooperation. Under US leadership, the transatlantic region has been instrumental in developing the current structures of multilateralism and global governance. However, while population growth and climate change (among other things) necessitate even stronger cooperation, multilateral institutions like United Nations and World Trade Organization are being sidelined by regional organizations. Moreover, under Trump administration the former champion of liberal institutionalism has turned its back on multilateralism at the same time as the EU struggles with internal political and economic crisis.  This course provides tools to analyze current affairs of regional and global governance within the framework of comparative regioanalism and comparative institutional analysis. Studend also learns to set their analytical skills in practice through a policy paper workshop.

- Lectures and instruction, 12 hours  - Seminar work, 12 hours - Individual and group work about 100 hours to be used for the following: a) individual reading of course material about 6 research articles, b) 300 word commentaries of each article, c) group work: preparing and presenting a policy brief, d) 1800-2500 word individual essay or policy paper.

Contents:

Corporate Global Citizenship; Corporate Social Responsibility; Global issues and changemarkers; Understanding and Critiquing Social Entrepreneurship and Social Intrapreneurs; Political roles, Political CSR, Business and Human rights; Stakeholder Relationships and Corporate Citizenship; Addressing Environmental Constrains; Values in Management Practice; Shared Value; Global Standards; Global Challenges.

Lectures:

Thursday 5.4. at 16-18
Tuesday 10.4. at 10-12
Thursday 12.4. at 16-18
Tuesday 17.4. at 10-12
Thursday 19.4. at 16-18
Tuesday 24.4. at 10-12
Thursday 26.4. at 16-18
Thursday 3.5. at 16-18
Tuesday 8.5. at 10-12
Tuesday 15.5. at 10-12

This course is primarily intended for

• master's students of responsible business,
• master's students of management and organization studies (this course can be registered as course KATJOS49 Current issues in Management and Organisations)
• master's students of leadership for change master's programme, and
• master's students of politics (this course can be registered as course POLVOS23)

The course is also open for exchange students and others interested.

The class will look at the concept of trust in international relations theoretically as well as through examining a number of case studies from diplomatic history. The relevance of trust for contemporary issues in world politics will also be discussed.

The module includes lectures, seminars and independent reading, complemented by independent research/essay writing or practical workshops.

The module is divided in three parts.

The first consists of 4 lectures providing a historical overview of the emergence of refugees and forced migration as a contemporary “governance issue”, as well as a theoretical and methodological introduction to refugee studies as an interdisciplinary area in social sciences.

The second part of the course consists of 4 seminars, in which, after a short introduction by the teacher, students engage in group discussions, short presentations and other activities on the following topics: 1. Humanitarian innovation: what is left of refugee aid? 2. The promotion of refugee self-reliance and entrepreneurship: critical approaches to the refugee camp as an ‘economic space’. 3. The role of the private sector in refugee aid: examples from Jordan, Sweden, and Finland.  4. The role of political activism and volunteering in spaces of hospitality and refuge.

In the third, applied part of the module, students can choose between activities:

1. Writing an essay on a topic of their choice.

2. Taking part in an art/research workshop on migration organized in Tampere, 2-5 May 2018.

Lectures, seminars and workshops require a limited amount of independent reading to be completed before the sessions. Material for the seminar activities includes not only academic texts, but also policy reports, press, videos and art work.

Schedule

6.3.-25.4.2018, Tuesdays 13-16

Art/research workshop 3-4 May 2018.

Contents

The Art/Research Festival examines the ways in which the arts and arts-based research can be incorporated to qualitative inquiry in social sciences. The festival examines how the artistic process, actual making of artistic expressions or artworks themselves can offer a way to understand and examine social and political life.

The focus of the festival is migration. Presentations, panels, performances and workshops approach the movement of people through different forms of expression. The festival asks how art can help researchers make sense of migration – and what are its limits.

Programme:

Thursday 3 May

12–13 Lobby Bar, PinniB, ground floor
What is ABR

13–15 Lobby Bar, PinniB, ground floor
Workshop: Collaging Migration
Inna Perheentupa, Daria Krivonos, Saara Särmä

15–17:30 Oasis, PinniB, 2nd floor
Panel: Researching migration through art
Leonardo Custodio, Eeva Puumala, Marja-Liisa Torniainen, Sepideh Rahaa (TBC)
Moderated by Daria Krivonos

19:00 TTT Kellariteatteri, Hämeenpuisto 28
Olga Jitlina: “Translation” and a discussion
Reserve your ticket at www.eventbrite.com

Friday 4 May

12–14 Oasis, PinniB, 2nd floor
Panel discussion: Can art change the world?
Julia Bethwaite, Hassan Blasim, Monica Gathuo, Saara Särmä
Moderated by Inna Perheentupa

14–17 PinniA 1081
Workshop: Home and belonging through videos
Amir Jan and Mohammad Javid

18–20 Restaurant Telakka, 2nd floor
Acoustic lecture: Sounds of War
Susanna Hast & Timo Kalevi Forss

Please, register for the course by 25 April here: https://elomake.uta.fi/lomakkeet/21033/lomake.html

According to the United Nations, climate change is the greatest challenge of our time. In this course we explore some central political, legal and moral questions related to climate change, with an emphasis to global climate ethics. How does climate change affect people, states, and international affairs? How negative climate effects could be regulated and mitigated at regional and international level? Who bears the greatest responsibility for climate change? What rights the most vulnerable people and states have? How the future of just climate governance would look like? By looking at these and related questions this course offers an overview of key debates in climate ethics and politics literature, and introduces students to essential questions of global climate justice.

Enrollment via email to responsible teacher by 15.2.2018. Maximum 15 students are admitted.

The language of instruction is English.