Admission requirements
This course is for Master students Public Administration, track International and European Governance only.
Description
International organisations play an important role in world politics. But how do these organisations work? How do they become independent and legitimate actors? How do they manage a multinational staff? This course looks inside international organisations by focusing on their administrative bodies, that is, on international bureaucracies such as the European Commission or the United Nations Secretariat.
The course tackles a set of fundamental challenges faced by international administrations: gaining autonomy and legitimacy from member states, building expertise, ensuring that staff is representative in terms of nationality and gender, and managing staff with different ethnic, cultural and educational backgrounds. It also looks at how these organisations innovate and reform themselves.
The course combines the discussion of organisational challenges with the application of these issues to a number of real-world cases, ranging from diversity management in the International Monetary Fund to the legitimacy challenges facing the World Health Organisation.
Course objectives
By the end of the course, students will have:
Knowledge and understanding of key theories and concepts relating to the management of international organisations and networks.
Advanced knowledge and understanding of the distinctive nature and challenges of governance and management in an international and multi-level setting.
Ability to identify and apply relevant theories to analyse real-world cases within international administrations.
Ability to prescribe solutions to management problems in international administrative contexts based on in-depth organisational analysis.
Ability to present results of research and case analyses to managers and relevant policy-makers.
Awareness of the challenges of working in a multinational environment, including in leadership positions.
Timetable
On the right side of programme front page of the E-guide you will find links to the website and timetables, uSis and Brightspace.
Mode of instruction
The course consists of seminars, group work and self-study. Attendance during the seminars is compulsory.
Assessment method
Oral presentation done in groups (20% of total grade).
Written policy brief prepared in groups (20% of total grade).
Individual paper (60% of total grade).
For this course, partial grades from the academic year 2020-2021 will remain valid.
Reading list
To be announced on Brightspace.
Registration
Register for every course and workgroup via uSis. Registration for courses and workgroups in uSis is possible from 16 December, 13.00h. Some courses and workgroups have a limited number of participants, so register on time (before the course starts). In uSis you can access your personal schedule and view your results.
Leiden University uses Brightspace as its online learning management system. After enrolment for the course in uSis you will be automatically enrolled in the Brightspace environment of this course.
Contact
Dr. J. Christensen j.christensen@fgga.leidenuniv.nl
Dr. F. Bulfone f.bulfone@fgga.leidenuniv.nl