What are international orders? What are state systems? How do they change over time? When did the present order/system of sovereign states emerge? What is the relationship between nation and state? Is there an international society? How has globalization transformed world politics? These are some of the questions that will be at the core of this inter-disciplinary block seminar aimed at bringing a global perspective to the ever-changing nature of world politics. The course will consist of an introduction to the main themes on Friday 19 October followed by three block sessions (see dates below). The first session will focus on providing students with a conceptual apparatus based on theoretical texts, a historical reflection on different orders/systems and on the eventual establishment of the European State System in the Early Modern period. The second session will address the period of European expansion and its inter-action with pre-existing alternative political orders beyond Europe, on nationalism and the impact of the emergence of a global economy in the 19th century. The third session will focus on the 20th century, the consolidation of the present order/system and the contemporary transformations emerging from the new wave of “globalization”. The aim of the seminar is to develop a critical and non-teleological approach to understanding these transformations and to enable students to relate their individual research cases to a wider global context. close