Programme overview

BSc Political Science: International Relations

Structure Academic Year

and Organisations (IRO)

The Academic Year runs from early September to July and consists of two semesters, each divided into two blocks. A block covers 8 weeks, with 7 weeks of teaching and one exam week. At the university, we use the European Credits Transfer System (ECTS) to represent the workload of courses. Each year of the three-year programme consists of 60 EC. One EC stands for 28 hours of studying. All lectures, workgroup and exams are on campus.

1st Year: Basics of Political Science and International Politics

During the first year of the programme, you acquaint yourself with the basics of the political science discipline and international politics. Furthermore, you will study related subjects, such as economics and history. Political Science: IRO is a Bachelor of Science, which means that an important part of the programme is reserved for academic skills courses, where you practice text analysis, debating, and academic writing. You attend lectures with all IRO students from the same year. The work groups (Academic Skills and Statistics 1 in the first year) consist of about 24 students, and during the work group sessions you actively work with your fellow students on deepening and processing the knowledge you have gained from the lectures and your reading.

Studying International Relations and Organisations is a full-time job. It will take you, on average, 40 hours a week. Attending lectures, tutorials, and work group sessions will take about 16 hours; these are the contact hours. The rest of the time you will study independently or with your fellow students preparing for the lectures and work group sessions, writing assignments and essays, and reading.

2nd Year: Indulge yourself in IR

The second year of the programme offers you more in-depth courses. The focus will shift from introductionary to international with topics like Global Justice / International development / International security / International political economy / International law and human rights.

3rd Year: Choose your own path

The third year consists out of 3 elements: the elective space, the bachelor seminar, and bachelor project (including the final thesis).

Elective space

You are free to choose from several options to fill your elective space:

E Choose a minor or take electives at any faculty of Leiden or another Dutch University

E Study abroad at one of our partner universities

E Do a research internship, either in the Netherlands or abroad

 Prospectus Political Science: International Relations and Organisations

Please contact your study adviser for more details

MSc Political Science: International Organisation

Specialisation: International Organisation

This specialisation focuses on the interplay of international rules and institutions, non-governmental organisations, and national governments in light of today’s security issues.

Do you want to deepen your knowledge of international relations and global governance? Are you interested in the dynamics of inter-governmental cooperation and institution building? Do contemporary security issues such as the spread of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, and the emergence of new great powers draw your attention? Then this programme is designed for you: it combines substantive courses in political science and international politics with skills-oriented courses on policy analysis, monitoring and evaluation. Your lecturers are scholars from many different countries with expertise in all important areas of international politics. Several staff members have practical experience in foreign policy formation, diplomacy, and international organisations. You will be based in The Hague, the political capital of The Netherlands and seat of many important international organisations, including European Union and United Nations agencies, treaty organisations and prominent non-governmental organisations.

Internship option

Students are given the opportunity to do an internship with an NGO, interest group, government or international organisation, political party or media organisation (see Course Information on Brightspace). Students are responsible for finding an internship position. It is important that the organisation is willing to allow and facilitate the student to implement a research project relevant to the organisation or its activities. The internship is followed by a three month internship project seminar. During the internship seminar the student will write his or her thesis on the research project. This research paper takes the form of an academic paper. It invokes theory to help answer a clearly formulated question (or hypothesis) on the basis of systematically collected data. Both the internship, and the internship project seminar count for 15 EC (in all: 15 + 15 = 30 EC).

Thesis

Students apply theoretical and methodological knowledge and skills to a theme related to conflict and international cooperation. The thesis seminar is open to students writing their theses on Political Science topics, preferably but not limited to the subfields of international relations, political behavior and political theory. It is strongly recommended that students start thinking about the topic of their thesis before the start of the classes. Attendance is compulsory for all classes of the thesis seminar. Detailed information about the study material and the writing process can be found on Brightspace.