Master’s Degree in International Relations (LM-52) – International Cooperation and Security curriculum

Master’s degree in International Cooperation and Security – the course in brief

The curriculum in International Cooperation and Security provides for the study of the rules of international organizations’ operation and global governance systems; it also provides legal knowledge useful for evaluating the economic organization of non-profit entities and identifying the characteristics of international peacekeeping and post-conflict reconstruction operations.

The curriculum in International Cooperation and Security of the Master’s Degree Program in International Relations allows for the maturation of knowledge related to theories on international relations and methodologies for the analysis of historical phenomena, framed in the security paradigm, as well as the knowledge necessary to interpret – with an adequate critical spirit – migration processes useful for embarking on paths in international organizations, public administrations, NGOs, non-profit entities and companies operating at the national and international level.

Professional profile and expected occupational and professional outlets for master’s graduates in Political Science

Expert in international affairs

Function in a business context:

The master’s degree graduate in Political Science can operate with full professional autonomy as:

• expert in diplomatic and international affairs;
• civil servant in public administration, in the roles of first-level civil servant;
• manager in public or private entities at the national or international level;
• consultant in multinational corporations or banking or insurance groups and in organizations in general aimed at service delivery.

Skills associated with the function:

The International Relations graduate acquires the following skills:

• analyse the scenario at the national or international level;
• design and apply qualitative-quantitative methodologies for the management of complex situations;
• perform consulting activities in economic and social sectors, including labour consulting;
• coordinate public relations activities;
• conduct sectoral research in statistical, economic and social fields.

Employment outlets:

The master’s degree graduate in International Relations can find employment outlets in:

• International and European Union organizations (UN and its specialized institutes, NATO, OSCE, European Commission, etc.);
• International nongovernmental organizations;
• Offices with international projection of national public and private organizations and bodies;
• National and international public organizations concerned with the promotion and protection of human rights;
• National NGOs;
• Public administrations (Departments, Study Offices, External Relations Offices, etc.).

 

The Master’s course in Political Science prepares for the profession of (ISTAT codings)

1. Management specialists in public administration – (2.5.1.1.1)
2. Experts in the study, management and control of social phenomena – (2.5.3.2.1)
3. Specialists in political science – (2.5.3.4.3)

Knowledge required for access

Access to the Master’s Degree Program in International Relations requires possession of a bachelor’s degree in class L-36. Access to the Master’s Degree Course may also include those who hold a bachelor’s degree in other classes, or another degree obtained abroad that is recognized as suitable, or a degree related to the previous four-year system, provided that they possess the following curricular requirements, referable to knowledge of disciplines related to Political Science and International Relations:

• at least 8 credits in SSD SECS-P/01 or SSD SECS-P/02;
• at least 8 credits in the SSD SPS-P/02 or the SSD SPS/01;
• at least 8 credits in SSD IUS/09;
• at least 8 credits in SSD SPS/07;
• at least 8 credits in SSD M-STO/04;
• at least 8 credits in SSD SPS/06;
• at least 8 credits in SSD L-LIN/12.

Any educational deficiencies, with respect to the prescribed curricular requirements, must be completed before the beginning of the course of study and verification of individual preparation, so that courses can be taken with profit. There is provision for the verification of the adequacy of the student’s personal preparation, with modalities that will be defined in the didactic regulations of the course of study. To access to the course, knowledge of the English language is also required such as to enable students to use it fluently in both written and oral form, at a level of at least B2.

Methods of Admission

The University’s order of studies has as one of its primary objectives both to enable students to carry out the university course within the legal time frame and to enable graduate students to be able to practice their chosen profession in the shortest possible time. To achieve these goals, it is also necessary that the initial knowledge of students enrolling at the university be as stipulated in the individual Teaching Regulations of the Courses of Study. In this regard, the aforementioned Didactic Regulations provide information about the basic knowledge required to profitably approach the chosen Course of Study.

Master’s Degree Course in International Relations

In the case of coming from a Bachelor’s degree class that does not guarantee direct access to the Master’s Degree Course in Political Science, at the time of the application for enrolment, the possession of specific Credits obtained in the scientific disciplinary fields, congruent with the Class of the Master’s Degree for which admission is requested, as resulting from the certificate of exams taken in the Bachelor’s degree is verified.

In the case of evidence of non-possession of all the credits required by the Didactic Regulations of the Master’s Degree Course, the applicant for enrolment must carry out curricular integration, up to the completion of the required credits, in the manner indicated in the Didactic Regulations of the Master’s Degree Course in International Relations. Verification of the adequacy of personal preparation is verified through a test on basic historical-politological issues, which determines admission to the training course of the Master’s Degree Program.

Specific educational objectives of the Master’s Degree Course in International Relations and description of the training course

The Master’s Degree Course in International Relations (LM-52) of the Faculty of Political Science at Unicusano University is designed to provide students with professional knowledge that will allow flexible entry into the world of work. Cultural, scientific and professional contents of an interdisciplinary nature are emphasized with particular attention to legal, political, geographical, sociological and historical aspects and with a focus on current issues such as globalization and its crisis and, more generally, aspects concerning the international dimension of economic, political, cultural and social phenomena.

More specifically, during the first year, the course of training includes in particular the acquisition of knowledge in the areas of economics with international declination and international relations, followed in the second year by teaching in the historical and legal areas in the European context. The educational objectives of the degree are to:

1. provides analytical tools and institutional knowledge of an advanced level that allow correct evaluations and analyses aimed at reading contemporary society with particular attention to human rights and democratization processes. The skills acquired will enable the master’s degree graduate to enter the world of work more correctly with high-profile responsibilities and with the ability to plan, implement and manage operational strategies of particular complexity and fully understand the legal-regulatory evolution at the international level. Functions at high levels will be able to be carried out in the world of diplomacy, international organizations, non-governmental organizations, but also in all public and private entities that are relevant to the complex world of international relations;
2. To provide methodologies and tools of comparative analysis for the analysis of the dynamics of the processes of structural change in the international world such as globalization in its various aspects and the crisis of the same as well as the knowledge related to the methodologies proper to international cooperation bodies. These are modes of university education that will enable master’s graduates to place themselves with anthropological and geographical accuracy before the challenges of today’s world to which they will be able to make concrete contributions from senior positions and with responsibility in economic-political decision-making processes.

The training course, useful for the realization for the above training objectives, provides that students are urged to constant interaction with the teacher learning to personally elaborate both in oral and written form through the writing of short reports and term papers, personal interpretative schemes originating from an interdisciplinary view of individual problems.

Therefore, the ability to apply knowledge, within the interactive teaching activity, consists of activities aimed at stimulating work involving critical and personal reworking of specific theoretical or research topics, in which comparisons and evaluations by the student are required (forums) and reports and/or projects (e-activities and wikis). The teaching tools aimed at training include all the tools of the telematics university such as online lectures, handouts, slides, in-progress learning verifications, lectures and seminars in virtual classrooms, and practical experiences in small groups. Verification of these acquired skills takes place both in the course of the teaching activity itself and in both oral and written profit examinations.

Expected Learning Outcomes.

Knowledge and understanding skills

The master’s degree graduate in International Relations acquires a thorough and specialized knowledge of international issues in the legal, historical, social, geographical, political and economic spheres and a good knowledge of at least two foreign languages, one of them from the EU, in addition to Italian.

Master’s graduates acquire knowledge and comprehension skills that extend and reinforce those of the first cycle so as to elaborate and apply original ideas in a work and research context related to institutional, political and legal issues with adequate attention to skills in political-social, legal-economic, historical-cultural and linguistic fields. Verification of expected outcomes takes the form of oral and/or written examinations, group work, exercises, writing reports and term papers on specific topics.

Ability to apply knowledge and understanding

The Master’s degree student in Political Science obtains the necessary skills to deal critically with different issues in various fields in the national and international arena. With both theoretical and applied spin-offs, and adopting the comparative and interdisciplinary method typical of political studies (in the legal, historical, social, geographical fields), the student is provided with the ability to apply knowledge that will enable him or her to work competently and with understanding on complex problems in the various fields of work for which the training is aimed.

Graduates should be able to use diverse sources, institutional or otherwise, to work at the technical-professional level as experts in specific areas of public policy and organizational analysis of complex apparatuses, as well as to participate in the design, implementation and monitoring of international and supranational programs. The acquisition of applied knowledge will be stimulated through the critical and selective use of legal, historical, economic, and social sources and training in data collection through the tools of field research. Testing of the expected results will take the form of oral and/or written examinations, group work, exercises, writing reports and term papers on specific topics.

Making Judgements

Master’s graduates in International Relations must demonstrate ability to apply the knowledge and concepts learned during the two-year course in a multidisciplinary context and to understand the world in an informed and critical manner. Master’s graduates must demonstrate critical capacity in understanding globalization processes, ability to collect and interpret data including in the languages chosen during the course of study, in new areas, integrating the knowledge acquired and formulating opinions characterized by autonomy and freedom of judgment even in the presence of limited and incomplete information.

The course of study leads to increased autonomy of judgment and is the result of both lectures and seminar activities or carried out in research groups or during the writing of reports or term papers that are guided by the lecturers with great respect for the personality and autonomy of judgment of the student. The critical study of bibliographic sources and documents, their organization and evaluation is one of the methodological bases for the development of theses, papers and research.

The Master’s degree student in Political Science learns to reason with autonomy of judgment about even highly complex historical documents, international documents, judgments, doctrine, specialized bibliographies and the press, but also the Internet and foreign language sources. International student mobility will be promoted through participation in internships and educational placements at EU and international research centres and institutions.

Communication skills

The Master’s degree student in International Relations must demonstrate possession of a personal and professional style capable of achieving appropriate communicative and expressive contexts. During the two years of study, the students’ ability to organize the knowledge acquired in the various disciplines in a coherent, even interdisciplinary manner is refined.

The use of telematic means enhances communication skills allowing a high level of interaction both between faculty and students and among students through the preparation of term papers, group research and seminar-type activities both de visu and in telematic classrooms. Master’s graduates must be able to use two European Union languages in addition to Italian with competence and clarity in written and oral form, with reference also to individual disciplinary lexicons.

The study is also aimed at the acquisition of sector-specific technical vocabularies with regard to the various disciplines that enable the writing of texts of a scientific nature. Particularly in term papers and thesis writing, students, who are followed punctually by the teacher of reference, learn the technique of scientific dissemination of ideas and the way to state their ideas and argue them keeping well in mind the points of view of scholars in the specific discipline; they also learn the use of materials to support their own point of view that results from a constructive comparison with other points of view on the same subject.

Learning skills

Graduates of the Master’s Degree in International Relations are introduced to a methodology typical of the Humanities and Social Sciences, a methodology that can also be spent in a general key. The specificity of the topics covered during the two-year course enables them to be able to move with ease in legal, juridical, historical, social, geographical, political and economic issues, also with the help of the foreign languages studied. Master’s degree graduates must be able to use knowledge, tools and methods, acquired during their studies, that enable them to further develop their skills, self-directed or autonomously, in the professions or research.

Learning skills are regularly evaluated through periodic tests during the course of training activities. In particular, in addition to final examinations, intermediate assessments are arranged, with individual papers or group work being submitted during the courses to check the learning skills actually acquired. The learning ability acquired is expendable both in the working environment and in the sphere of study and research aimed at further study: the training acquired allows the continuation at an even higher level of preparation through the attendance of internships and specialized courses, Master’s degrees, PhDs.

Final Examination

The final examination to obtain the Master’s Degree in International Relations, taken with a Commission appointed by the competent academic authority and composed in accordance with the law, consists of the dissertation of a thesis, also in a foreign language, in a teaching chosen by the candidate from among those in his or her curriculum.

The topic, which must have interdisciplinary profiles, is agreed with the teacher of the teaching itself. It must be a thorough monographic research, a research carried out in an original way, spread over an adequate number of pages, articulated and accompanied by notes and an accurate and complete bibliography.

The subject of the thesis may be an in-depth study of a theoretical topic or the conduct of field research or the development of a specific project aimed at solving concrete problems. The grade is expressed in 110 with possible honours and takes into account, on the basis of a Regulation expressed by the Faculty Council, the average of the exams taken by the candidate. The final examination is awarded 16 credits.

List of teachings International Cooperation and Security Curriculum Class LM-52 Master’s degree class in international relations
EXAM	SSD	CREDITS
First year specialization
Theories and models of international relations	SPS/04	9
Optional subject – Aspects and problems of security in international politics – History of European political cooperation	SPS/06	9
History of international institutions	SPS/03	9
Law of international organizations and global governance COLACINO – GINESTI	IUS/13	9
Sociology of migration	SPS/10	9
Optional subject – Knowledge management – Law of economics of non-profit entities – Electronic commerce law	SECS-P/10 IUS/05 IUS/04	6
Subject of the student’s choice		9
Total CREDITS		60
Second year specialization
International economic policy	SECS-P/02	9
Development geography and strategies for cooperation	M-GGR/02	9
Optional subject – Peace operations and humanitarian intervention – International security law	IUS/13	9
Optional subject – Knowledge management – Business law of non-profit entities – Electronic commerce law              SECS-P/10	SECS-P/10 IUS/05 IUS/04	6
Optional subject – Language and translation – English language – Language and literatures of China and southeast Asia – Language and translation – French language	L-LIN/12 L-OR/21 L-LIN/04	9
Internship		2
Final examination		16
Total CREDITS		60

 

Subjects of the student’s choice
EXAM	SSD	CREDITS
European security and defense policy and armed conflict	IUS/13	9
Holy See and international cooperation	M-STO/04	9
Migration and society	SECS-S/04	9
International organization and human rights	IUS/13	9