Political and Social History

Political and Social History
Bachelor in International Studies
ECTS Credits: 6.0
Semester: 2

COMPETENCES AND SKILLS THAT WILL BE ACQUIRED AND LEARNING RESULTS

BASIC AND GENERAL COMPETENCES
BASIC COMPETENCES
CB1 - Be able to show that they possess and comprehend facts and contents in an area of study which, based on a previous general secondary school level, have been extended to those included in advanced textbooks and in some aspects proceed from the most advanced studies in this area.
CB5 - Be able to show that they have developed the learning skills required to perform further studies with a high degree of self-dependence.

GENERAL COMPETENCES
CG1 - Understand social, political, legal and economic realities from a comparative perspective.
CG2 - Be able to approximate and analyze the intrinsic values contained in equal opportunities, multi-cultural society, political ideological and cultural pluralism, human rights, and the international community.
CG3 - Know quantitative and qualitative research techniques and possess the ability to choose which is most adequate to apply in the field of Social Sciences.
CG4 - Be able to manage information: identify, organize and analyze relevant information critically and systematically within the context of international relations.
CG5 - Be able to debate and formulate critical reasoning, using precise terminology and specialized resources, when analyzing international and global phenomena, employing both the concepts and knowledge from different disciplines as well as the methods of analysis, paradigms and concepts pertaining to the Social Sciences.
CG6 - Be able to apply scientific method to the economic, social and political questions of a global society; be able to formulate problems in this context, identify a possible explication or solution, and a method to contrast them by sensibly interpreting the data.
CG7 - Know how to express judgments, which include ethical reflections, on essential social, scientific and economic topics within a representative context of society both on a local and international level.

OVERLAPPING COMPETENCES
CT1 - Acquire the capacity to communicate knowledge in oral and written form, both to specialized and to non-specialized publics.
CT2 - Acquire the capacity to establish good interpersonal communication and to work both in interdisciplinary and international teams.
CT3 - Acquire the capacity to organize and plan workloads, taking correct decisions based on the available information, collecting and interpreting relevant data in order to provide assessments in that area of study.
CT4 - Develop the motivation and capacity to perform independent continuous learning for life, with an endowment to adapt to change and new situations.
SPECIFIC COMPETENCES
CE1 - Be familiar with the principal political and social theories. Be capable of analyzing and comparing contemporary policies.
CE2 - Be familiar with and understand the processes of political, social, economic and cultural change in society and contemporary policy.
CE6 - Understand the socio-political impact of empires, religions and cultures in historical perspective.
CE8 - Understand the structure of markets and the impact of public intervention on markets.
CE9 - Be familiar with and comprehend the relevance of technological change for economic and social development.
CE12 - Be able to formulate and solve basic economic, social, political problems in an international context.
CE13 - Be familiar with the principles of cost-benefit analysis and its application to basic problems.

LEARNING RESULTS
· Applied knowledge to understand the transformation of society and long-term rules of social convention and cohabitation. Understand how sovereignty, rights and freedoms, ideologies, and beliefs change over time, and understand the role of large social movements.

DESCRIPTION OF CONTENTS: PROGRAMME

1. The origins of the modern state and the formation of the system of States in the Modern Age.
2. Formation of Nation-States, nationalisms and first empiralisms.
3. Revolutions, new elites and social change in the 19th century: The French Revolution, American Independence, the new social and political regime and the rise of the Bourgeoisie.
4. Urbanization, industrialization, capitalism, worker movements and the extension of suffrage.
5. The Modern State, secularization and the modern world.
6. Professionalization of bureaucracy, transnational movements, progressive ideology, and political and military rivalry.
7. Wars and the weakness of the international political system during the interwar period.
8. The Russian Revolution, the crisis of capitalism during the Great Depression and the rise of fascism.
9. New world order, cold war, and the strengthening of the Welfare State.
10. Decolonization.
11. Structural and social change.
12. The world after the fall of the socialist block: political challenges of globalization.
13. Global society and the clash of civilizations.

ASSESSMENT SYSTEM

Continuous Assessment: 40%
Final exam: 60%

BASIC BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bayly, C.A.. The Birth of the Modern World. Blackwell. 2004
Hobsbawm, Eric. The Age of Revolution, 1789-1848. Vintage Books. 1996
Hobsbawm, Eric. The Age of Empire, 1875-1914. Vintage Books. 1989
Hobsbawm, Eric. The Age of Capital, 1848-1875. Weidenfeld & Nicholson. 1975
Hobsbawm, Eric. The Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914¿1991. Vintage Books. 1994
Judt, Tony. Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945. Penguin Books. 2006
Mazower, Mark. Dark Continent: Europe's 20th Century. Knopf. 1998
Osterhammel, Jürgen / Pettersson, Niels P.. Globalization: A Short History. Princeton University Press. 2009
Peter Stearns. World History in Documents: A Comparative Reader. NYU Press. 2008

ADDITIONAL BIBLIOGRAPHY

Calvocoressi, Peter. World Politics since 1945. Routledge. 2008
Furet, Francois, Nolte, Ernst. Fascism and Communism. University of Nebraska Press. 2004
Gaddis, John Lewis. The Cold War. Allen Lane. 2005
Halperín Donghi, Tulio. The Contemporary History of Latin America. Duke University Press. 1993
Huntington, Samuel P. . The Third Wave: Democratization in the late twentieth century. University of Oklahoma Press. 1991
Joll, James. Europe since 1870 : an international history. Penguin. 1983
McMahon, Robert J.. The Cold War: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. 2003
Osterhammel, Jürgen. The Transformation of the World: A Global History of the Nineteenth Century. Princeton University Press. 2014
Paxton, Robert O.. The Anatomy of Fascism. Vintage Books. 2005
Payne, Stanley G.. A history of fascism, 1914-1945. University of Wisconsin Press. 1995
Powaski, Ronald E.. The Cold War: The United States and the Soviet Union, 1917-1991. Oxford University Press. 1998
Roberts, J.M.. The Penguin History of the Twentieth Century: The History of the World, 1901 to the Present. Penguin Books. 2004
Service, Robert. Comrades! A World History of Communism. Harvard University Press. 2010
Stearns, Peter N.. European society in upheaval : social history since 1800 . Macmillan. 1967
Vinen, Richard. A History in Fragments: Europe in the Twentieth Century. Little, Brown & Company. 2000