RUB: World Politics and Humanitarian Action

Humanitarian action is a product of its world political context. Therefore, this module introduces students to theoretical and practical discussions on the relation between humanitarian action and global political structures, developments and issues. The aim is that students develop the capacity to understand the humanitarian system as part of the international order, i.e. its embeddedness in global dynamics and power relations. Students gain knowledge on main perspectives, concepts and tools of analysis of international relations so that they can develop critical thinking on the foundations, challenges and dilemmas humanitarian action faces. 

This module consists of three parts: The first part provides an overview about the history of humanitarianism and introduces the most significant historical developments, actors and corresponding theoretical approaches. The second part introduces the concept of humanitarian governance and focuses on three levels of analysis: the global power relations in which the humanitarian systems is embedded, its internal social organization and technologies of governance. The third part takes into account a number of key concepts that are important to understand for future humanitarians as they shape the way that humanitarian crises are tackled. We will familiarize with concepts such as human security, securitization, protection as well as vulnerability, risk and resilience and critically reflect on their influence in the humanitarian field.

The overall learning objective is to familiarize students with current debates and key issues in International Humanitarian Action from various theoretical perspectives of international relations. In order to achieve this objective, the NOHA programme is officially based on competence-based learning in accordance with the requirements for future humanitarian workers, as well as with regard to scientific research. In particular, students will acquire the following competencies and capacities as developed by NOHA Curriculum Development:

- Has developed profound knowledge of International Relations theories, key concepts of and the relationship between the different schools of thought.
- Has demonstrated a clear understanding of the humanitarian system in its international context, including the main international actors.
- Has justified and applied methodology and scientific methods correctly in an original piece of humanitarian research.
- Has highly specialised knowledge and a critical understanding of humanitarian concepts and theories.
- Has innovative expertise on a particular current theme in humanitarian action with an interdisciplinary understanding in terms of its political, legal, anthropological, public health and management aspects.
- Has specialised skills to conceptualise, interpret and critically analyse complex humanitarian crises and interventions on the basis of a variety of sources, generating new interdisciplinary expertise to help solve complex humanitarian problems.
- Has demonstrated the ability to position one's own research findings in the broader context of humanitarian action.
- Has developed an open attitude towards acquiring new knowledge and a critical understanding about professional and academic developments in humanitarian action.
- Has developed awareness in relation to aspects of cultural and gender diversity.
- Has shown adequate capacity for (self-) reflection on academic argumentation.
- Has shown familiarity with the main approaches and concepts of international relations.
- Has demonstrated a clear understanding of the international humanitarian system in its geopolitical context, with an emphasis on the power relations between actors.
- Has shown the ability to anticipate new crisis situations in geopolitical settings.
- Has demonstrated the capacity to identify the roots and causes of conflicts/complex emergencies in a particular case.
- Has shown the ability to apply certain key concepts of International Politics to concrete disaster situations.
- Has shown to be able to transfer acquired knowledge to other humanitarian situations.
- Has developed basic skills for acting in and reacting to intercultural contexts.

In order to acquire these competencies, each session focuses on one main topic. They consist of a combination of lectures, teacher-class dialogue, student presentations, and individual and team working phases.

Course attendance and active participation in discussions and group work is mandatory. The grading is based on the written assignment.

Students are required to write a paper on a topic related to the content of the module. It is mandatory to hand in a short proposal containing a preliminary title, problem description, research question, aims and objectives as well as a description of the structure of the paper before you start writing.

Requirements for the written assignment:
- Clear structure, distinctive methodological and theoretical approach and review of the relevant literature (state of the art)
- Adhere to rules and principles of scientific writing (e.g. referencing)
- Arguments (be critical and express your own opinions, as distinct from merely describing what is in cases, documents, or authors’ opinions)
- Word count (approximately 5000 words)
- Understandable and correct use of language
- Form, typography and layout

The following criteria will be used for grading the written assignments:
- Content and arguments
- Structure and composition
- Command of research skills
- Formal requirements of scientific writing, incl. correct and appealing use of language
- Originality