MSc Econ Security Studies

This degree provides students with a specialist introduction to the advanced study of security in world politics as viewed from a perspective wider than - but not excluding - the military focus advanced in traditional security/strategic studies. The programme is designed to facilitate the development of a critical awareness of the state of theory and practice in the field of contemporary security studies. The issues and debates explored in the programme include:

• Contending understandings of, and conceptual debates concerning, the ‘nature' of security;
• The contemporary, ‘broader' agenda of security, including, for example, environmental security, human rights, ethnic conflict and migration as a security issue; and,
• The inter-relationship between global dynamics (such as globalisation) and the shifting security agenda in both the developed and less developed worlds; and,
• The policy responses to the new security agenda, and the alternatives to them.
• The programme deals with complex issues and debates at the cutting-edge of contemporary security studies, seeking to ensure that students can both think systematically about them, and communicate their conclusions clearly to specialist and non-specialist audiences alike.

This degree provides opportunities for students to develop and demonstrate knowledge, understanding, qualities, skills and other attributes in the following areas:

• The assumptions, theories and practices that have defined ‘traditional security studies';
• The assumptions and theories that underpin some of the most important alternative conceptualisations of security,
• Security relations at a state-societal level in both the developing and developed world;
• The inter-relationship between global processes and specific security dynamics; and,
• The policy responses to the new security agenda, and the alternatives to them.