Master of International Relations

Subject Item	KIMEP-credits	ECTS-credits
Program Foundation required courses	5	6
Professional Foreign Language	2	2
Management for Social Sciences	1	2
Psychology for Social Sciences	2	2
Program Foundation: Elective Courses	6	9
Theories of International Relations	3	4,5
Public International Law	3	4,5
Introduction to Political Geography	3	4,5
International Political Economy	3	4,5
Subject Item	KIMEP-credits	ECTS-credits
Program Major required courses	15	25
Research Methods/Thesis I	3	5
Ethics in International Affairs	3	5
Master Seminar in Regional Studies or	3	5
Master Seminar in International Relations	3	5
Central Asia in Global Politics	3	5
Subject Item	KIMEP-credits	ECTS-credits
Program Major Elective courses	12	20
Emerging Powers and Markets	3	5
Asian Security: Theory and Practice	3	5
Domestic Politics and Foreign Policy in the Post-Communist World	3	5
Political Geography	3	5
History of International Relations	3	5
Government and Politics in Central Asia	3	5
Russian Foreign Policy	3	5
Petropolitics	3	5
Central Asia – United States Relations	3	5
Central Asia Russia Relations	3	5
European Union: Politics and Foreign Policy	3	5
Experimental Research Work	6	18
Thesis Seminar	3	10
Research Internship	3	8
Final Attestation 4	4	12
Thesis Defense 4	4	12
Total	48	90

Course (credit) transfer KIMEP University can transfer credits earned in another program/university, if the courses are equivalent to the courses offered by the program at KIMEP University. A department committee shall consider each student’s case individually and make an appropriate decision. KIMEP University transfers a maximum 25 % of the total amount of the credits from a bachelor to a master program.

IRL5010 Professional Foreign Language for International Relations

This course is designed to train students in professional analysis and communications in English for the field of International Relations. Students will learn advanced language terminology and will develop skills that will enable them to analyze discourses and present valid arguments for a political audience at the international level. Practice includes developing critical thinking and writing skills specific for the field of international relations that enable students to clearly present claims to support their conclusions and avoid reinforcing biases. Topics addressed include the relationship between critical thinking and clear writing, credibility of sources, rhetorical devices, fallacies, unclear or misleading language, and the characteristics of various types of arguments.

IRL5513 Theories of International Relations

The course examines old and new theories used in International Relations, Realist, Liberal/internationalist, globalist and Marxist. Modern theories of globalization, modernization, dependency and human rights will also be discussed. The purpose of this course is to acquaint students with the theories and concepts used in the field of IR and to sharpen their theoretical knowledge and analytical skills so that they can understand and explain modern complex issues and conflicts in IR from a theoretical perspective and framework.

IRL5515 International Political Economy: Politics in the World of Interdependent Economics

The main objective of this course is to acquaint students with the dynamics and changes of the field, and to discuss the scope boundary and methodologies used in the study of IPE. It critically examines and analyzes major international economic trends and institutions such as international monetary and financial organizations, globalization of production and distribution, international trade and investment, development, dependency and foreign aid. Issues and problems of order, stability and transformation of world economy are also discussed.

IRL5517 Political Psychology and International Relations

This course applies psychological theories and methods to the study of political interactions. The course will survey psychological approaches to politics, examining psychological research on attitudes, personality, emotion, group processes, memory, cognition, and decision making. Specific course topics include: attitude formation, attitude change, decision heuristics and biases, personality, political leadership, political communication, groupthink, inter-group conflict, and stereotypes.

 

IRL5536 Management of International Institutions and Organizations

This course will train students to the basics of the management of international institutions and organizations, including a descriptive and normative analysis of such contemporary institutions, organizations and law. During the course students will reflexively consider the constraints that politicians, activists and administrators have to face when managing an international institution or organization. Issues such as limited resources, bureaucratization, balancing the political and economic interests of different stakeholders, and cultural differences will be analyzed in order to develop critical awareness and basic skills.

Program Major Required courses (12 credits)

Students need to take:

–          All courses from Group A

–          One course from Group B

–          One course from group C

IRL5512 Research Methods/Thesis I

This course will train students how to design and carry out research in the social sciences. Structuring research is about the planning of scientific inquiry, designing a strategy for finding out questions to your answers. Ultimately, scientific inquiry comes down to making observations, collecting data, analyzing them, and interpreting what you have observed and analyzed. However, before you start, you need to determine what you are going to observe and analyze and how. That’s what research design is all about. Although this sounds rather simple and trivial, the craft of designing social research is quite complex. This course lays out various possibilities for social research and provides a general introduction to research design and elaborates on its specific aspects. Research proposals are prepared according to some established rules and should incorporate the major elements of research design, including a variety of methods.

IRL5521 Central Asia in Global Politics

The course is designed as an in-depth study of the place of Central Asia in global politics and the policies of key external actors, such as Russia, the United States, China, European Union, Turkey, Iran, Japan, and India, toward the region. Students are familiarized with the ways Central Asia has been contextualized both in scholarly sources and media. We will dwell on the changing geopolitical dynamics of the region and analyze similarities and differences in the foreign policies of Central Asian states. At the end of the course, we will discuss future prospects of the region.

IRL 5538 Ethics in International Affairs

This is an advanced course presenting students a normative approach centered on ethics for studying international affairs. The main purpose of this course is to prepare students to have a critical perspective on international politics and institutions and to be able to evaluate the moral dilemmas that political leaders, activists and citizens have to face in a globalized world. The course has three main components: a theoretical approach that focuses on the ethics of political decision-making; a detailed study of contemporary international institutions and norms such as just war theory and human rights; an analysis of case studies based on current global issues.

IRL5580 Master Seminar in Regional Studies

This course is designed to enhance students’ research and thesis writing skills and develop a comprehensive understanding of their research topics. While learning to critically assess the work in progress of their peers, students will develop an advanced knowledge of Regional Studies with a particular focus on Central Asia.

IRL5590 Master Seminar in International Relations

This advanced seminar course is designed to offer students an opportunity to deepen and apply their theoretical knowledge to a specific issue in international relations. Students will participate in ongoing projects headed by individual faculty members and are expected to provide a substantial contribution engaging in research development through data collection and critical analysis.  Topics will vary every time the course is offered, and may include issues in bilateral relations, international security, international political economy and the international legal order.

IRL5533 Developmental Studies: Selective Models

This is a seminar course on development studies. A comparative analysis of approaches to the study of development and underdevelopment will be offered here, including structural-functional, neo-classical, Marxist, and dependency theories. The main objective of the course is to acquaint students with various theories, concepts and models of development and provide them with the necessary skills and methodology so that they can independently study, compare and contrast among various developmental models. This course will select several models of development from various parts of the world and study and evaluate them from comparative, historical perspectives. Students are expected to actively participate in the class.

IRL5531 International Institutions and Law

This course is designed to introduce students to advanced concepts of international organization and international law. It will consider the administration and politics of key international institutions and the machinery of international law. During the course students will be critically analyzing how institutions and legal frameworks are created and how they function in the areas of international peace and security, human rights and humanitarian relief, and environment and sustainable development.

 

Program Major Elective courses (9 credits)

IRL5525 Domestic Politics and Foreign Policy in the Post-Communist World

The course provides a comprehensive and comparative analysis and overview of the political, economic, ethno-religious, cultural and demographic peculiarities of the so-called Post-Communist world and their reflection in foreign and domestic politics, economy, security and nation-building.

IRL 5539 Political Geography

This course focuses on key issues and concepts of historical and current Political Geography and applies, these concepts, using advanced analytical methods, to selected events in the modern political world. It discusses geographic aspects, patterns and meanings of the political organization of territory and examines the logic of how power and institutions (political, social, economic, etc.) are distributed over space and places. It also explores how geographic space affects, reflects, and reproduces political organization on the level of national and international politics, including geopolitics.

IRL5540 History of International Relations

This is an advanced course that presents students both an analysis of the major events in the history of international relations and a detailed study of a specific historical case. In the first half of the semester, after a review of the Peace of Westphalia in order to understand the role of the state as the main actor in the international space, the course focuses on events such as the Napoleonic Wars and the Congress of Wien, the European preeminence, World War I and II, the Cold War, Decolonization and the Collapse of the Soviet Union.  In the second half of the semester the course will focus on one historical event in order to provide an in-depth analysis. For example, among the issues under review there can be: the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Arms Race, the Non-Aligned Movement, the Communist Revolution in China and others.

IRL5542 Government and Politics in Central Asia

This advanced course examines the multifaceted historical, ethnic, religious and linguistic factors that impact on the development of Central Asia after 1991. It provides a comparative study of political institutions, domestic politics and foreign policy behavior of Central Asian countries. The course is not only an introduction to the political systems of Central Asian states – new patterns of power and decision-making – but it also offers an analysis of ongoing changes generated by world geopolitics in a period of global uncertainty.

IRL5547 Russian Foreign Policy

The background of the present day Russian foreign policy is to be found in this advanced course. The emergence of USSR and US as the two global powers mainly defined the whole system of international relations in the world from 1945-89. Throughout this period, the Cold War confrontation constructed the essence of Soviet policy. The subsequent crisis and demise of the Soviet Union means not only the end of the “Cold War era” but also denotes the emergence of new key concepts and changes to dominant paradigms that explain the role of an independent Russia in the new world. The goal of the course is to develop students’ critical and analytical skills, and to direct them to explaining the motives and objectives of Russian diplomacy operating on several levels: relations with the USA and the West, the establishment of a new system of relations with former Soviet republics and the development of new approaches to Third World countries.

IRL5548 European Union: Politics and Foreign Policy

This course offers an advanced study of the model of the European Union as a unique experiment whereby European law supersedes national law and a single European currency is used.  The purpose of this course is to offer students an advanced and critical analysis of European government and politics as well as of the structure and foreign policies of the European Union.

IRL5551 Petro Politics

This course provides a comprehensive study of the contemporary politics of oil via a critical analysis of the causes, dynamics and implications of the global quest for energy. The course lays special emphasis on the geopolitics of energy in the various oil-producing regions of the world and the interests of great powers in these regions. General theories, concepts, paradigms and models associated with international relations, economics, and security studies will be introduced to provide students with the analytical tools and knowledge necessary to comprehend the complex dynamics of energy politics and to facilitate an understanding of current developments in the field of energy. The course is designed to sharpen students’ abilities in the area of geopolitical analysis by evaluating various strategies for constructing pipelines, accessing markets and forming strategic alliances between producing and consuming nations.

IRL5552 Central Asia-United States Relations

This is a graduate-level survey course on the development of Central Asia – US relations from 1991 to the present. At the outset, we will examine the mutual “discovery” of the United States and Central Asia by their opposite number, as well as the framing of the relationship in the context of realist, idealist, and neo-Marxist paradigms. We will further consider the interests that determine foreign policies of Central Asian states and that of the United States in the region, perceptions and decision-making processes, and the broader geopolitical context of Central Asia – US relations (with the focus on Russia, China, Afghanistan, Iran, and EU). A broad variety of topics will be discussed: American contribution to Kazakhstan’s denuclearization, investments in the energy sector, development assistance, the post-9/11 security relationship, US military bases in Central Asia, US cultural influence on the region, and other issues. We will conclude by examining the likely trajectories for the development of these relationships in the coming decade.

IRL5555 Asian Security: Theory and Practice

The course aims to provide both an advanced theoretical knowledge of the current debates of security studies and to apply their paradigms to the study of Asian security at different levels of analysis: national, regional and global. An updated research of key issues in each region (Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia and Central Asia) will be combined with an in-depth consideration of various aspects of security: military (including nuclear), political, economic, environmental, societal and human.

IRL5558 Central Asia – Russia Relations

This graduate course provides a comprehensive and comparative overview and analysis of the political, economic and historical background of Russian – Central Asian relations throughout the Tsarist and Soviet periods and their reflection in cultural, political, strategic, economic, ethno-religious relations between the former Soviet Central Asian states and the Russian Federation. In doing so, the course provides a thorough methodological and analytical foundation of the cultural and demographic peculiarities of post-Soviet Russia and Central Asia, their foreign and domestic politics, economy, security. The bulk of the coursework will be devoted to investigating and discussing specific aspects of the Russian – Central Asian relations, such as nation building, language policies, minorities, separatism, interethnic conflicts, global security, democratization, as well as the influence of other global actors like the US, China, the EU, and the Muslim world on the interaction between Russia and the Central Asian states.

IRL5561 Emerging Powers and Markets

This course is designed to present students the evolution of the international system by looking at emerging powers and markets. In particular, the course will consider the conceptualization of ‘emerging powers and markets’ and the methodological bases for studying high-growth economies. An analytical review of social, political and legal frameworks for economic development will be used for comparing case studies.

IRL5563 Foreign Policy: Doctrines and Strategies

This course focuses on the doctrines and strategies adopted by states in foreign affairs. It aims to provide students both a comprehensive view of foreign policy making given the flexible constraints of the international system and an in-depth analysis of case studies. The course will mostly study major powers (USA, EU, Russia, China), but it will also consider a few examples of regional powers.

 

Internship (4 credits)

IRL5534 Internship in International Relations

The internship is designed to provide the student with a hands-on learning opportunity by in a consulate, the Foreign Ministry, an NGO, private company or other agency. A program of study and activities is collaboratively designed by the students’ advisor and the participating agency. In the past, departmental internships have been pursued at the Foreign Ministry, US and UK consulates, the UN, the OSCE, and the EurAsEC.

 

Thesis requirements ( 6 credits)

IRL5525 Thesis II

Prerequisite: IRL5512 Thesis I

All Master’s students have to write a M.A. thesis. The thesis topic must be approved in writing, first by the prospective thesis supervisor and then by the Thesis Supervisory Committee (Panel). The thesis research has to be supervised by a qualified KIMEP faculty. (For details, please see the CSS Guidelines for Master’s Thesis.) In his/her M.A. thesis the student has to demonstrate that he/she can design and execute with competence a major piece of research. The length will vary with the nature of the topic, but it should be developed in 50-60 pages (double-spaced). This course, taught by an experienced instructor, is designed to help students to acquire necessary skills in writing their thesis and to organize their time and thesis materials. The course complements the guidance of students’ thesis supervisor. By the end of the semester, students will have completed the introduction, the theoretical framework and the methodology (literature review and bibliography) and have prepared for the Thesis Proposal Defense.

IRL5526 Thesis III

Prerequisite: IRL5512Thesis I and IRL5525 Thesis II

This is the writing and finalization of the research thesis. Normally, by the end of the semester, students will have completed and submitted their thesis, and have it defended before the Thesis Defense Committee. The Thesis has to follow the formal requirements and standards as detailed in CSS Guidelines for Master’s Thesis.

 

 

The program graduates may work in the following fields: diplomacy, international interaction consulting, regional studies, geopolitics, in public and private enterprises, NGOs, multinational companies, or as coordinators of various international projects. In addition, program graduates progress through the ranks of various international organization structures, such as UNO, OSCE, Red Cross International, WTO, Green Peace, League of Arab States, European Council, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Turkic Council, and many others.