Admission requirements
Only students of the Advanced MSc International Relations and Diplomacy can take this course.
Description
This course analyses the role that China and Russia – two of the most influential global powers outside the traditional Western alliance – play in global politics. While observers predominantly believed that the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 would bring about a unipolar world of American dominance and a convergence around liberal democracy and free market economies, the post-Cold War order soon produced new challenges to the prevailing Western-led global framework. Primary among the external challenges are a rising China and a resurgent Russia. Both countries explicitly aim to create a multipolar world, work to form alternative international institutions and economic infrastructure, challenge Western influence in their neighbourhoods, and seek to engage with or take advantage of shifting political dynamics in Western societies. More so than Russia, China presents an alternative model of political and economic development that is supposed to enable it to catch up with – or possible even surpass – the West’s economic and technological development, and it has decades of high growth rates to back up those claims.
This course focuses on both comparisons and interrelations between Russia and China. It looks at the worldviews and ideologies of their political leaderships, their political systems and political economies, as well as their foreign policies and grand strategies. Along each of these vectors, we will not only compare Russia and China, but also evaluate their efforts to shape global governance and offer alternative institutional frameworks to those created and propagated by the Western powers. In this light, we will comparatively analyse Chinese and Russian influences and practices in the recently expanded BRICS, in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and on the African continent. Moreover, we will examine what these influences and practices mean, more broadly, for traditionally Western-led institutions such as the United Nations, the World Bank, the IMF, and, hence, the future of the global order. Finally, this course will also analyse the implications of the intensifying, though highly asymmetrical, ‘partnership’ between Beijing and Moscow which has been (re)shaping global politics ever since the geopolitical tensions initiated by Russia’s actions in Ukraine beginning in 2014, and in particular following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Course objectives
The purpose of the course is to raise, exchange and evaluate questions regarding the role that China and Russia play in global politics. Some of these key questions are: How do Chinese and Russian power in global politics compare? What are the key areas of influence and constraint in their global engagement? To what extent is the multipolar world an emerging reality, and how do China and Russia conceptualize and promote this idea? Moreover, we also do not refrain from asking more reflexive questions, such as, which assumptions or epistemologies are our current views on China and Russia based on? And to what extent do these correspond to how China and Russia view themselves and are viewed from other locations? By analysing these questions, we will gain a better understanding of our current geopolitical moment and how it profoundly shapes the world that we live in.
Students will develop skills to become conversant on a variety of issues related to the role of China and Russia in international politics, to write lucidly about these issues, and to orally present key findings in class. The main objective of the course is for students to form their own judgement and to encourage critical thinking.
Timetable
On the right-hand side of the programme front page of the studyguide you will find a link to the online timetables.
Mode of instruction
This course will be mostly a discussion-based seminar, although the lecturers will provide brief introductory presentations to the various topics that will be discussed. The course will combine academic rigor and literature with a particular focus on key practical dilemmas and challenges that policymakers face.
Study load: 140 hours
Attendance Policy
Attendance is mandatory, subject to course structure (see syllabus for details).
Assessment method
Class participation: 20%
Paper outline: 10%
Presentation: 30%
Final paper: 40%
Failed partial grades or components should be compensated by passed partial grades or components. The calculated grade must be at least 5.50 to pass the course. It is not possible to re-sit a partial grade or component once you have passed the course.
Passed partial grades obtained in the academic year 2024-2025 remain valid during the academic year 2025-2026.
Passed partial grades obtained in the academic year 2025-2026 remain valid during the academic year 2026-2027.
Should a student fail the overall course, the student can complete the course in the next academic year. In cases of exceptional circumstances, a student may apply to the board of examiners for a resit to complete the course in the same academic year.
*The assessment method has changed from last academic year. Students that have valid partial grades from last academic year, may complete the course according to last year’s assessment methods.
Reading list
No books need to be purchased; readings will be announced.
Registration
TBA
Contact
Dr. Kaspar Pucek
Research Fellow within the Security Unit and the Russia & Eastern Europe Centre (CREEC) at the Clingendael Institute
kpucek@clingendael.org
Dr. Raoul Bunskoek
Head of the Clingendael China Centre and Senior Research Fellow at the Clingendael Institute
kpucek@clingendael.org
Remarks
This course is an elective designed for second year MIRD students.
This elective is conditional on at least 5 students registering for this course.
This course is offered by The Netherlands Institute of International Relations ‘Clingendael’.