We start by looking at what world politics is (and how it is more than just International Relations), then move through the Melian Dialogue, realism, the state of nature, liberalism, Marxism, feminism, political communication and diplomacy, constructivism, geopolitics, scientific approaches, China, religious geopolitics, the nature of war and finally human rights.

After an introductory session, we look at historical determinism, the legacy of Sprout & Sprout, the history of geopolitics, the influence of Haushofer, Japanese geopolitics, Yves Lacoste, critical geopolitics, feminist geopolitics, religious geopolitics, mountains/ rough terrain and war, scientific research on war and geography, infrastructure, and how to do spatial data analysis.

This entirely lab-based module starts with an introduction to R, then looks at how to find data, data management and variables, hypotheses and descriptive statistics, visualising data, hypothesis testing and bivariate analysis, linear regression and model building, assumption and diagnostics. If time permits, we look at graphics programming, data mining and text analysis.

This module starts by looking at what the future might be for China's place in the world. It goes on to look at the "pivot" to Asia. It argues that many books on the subject have been over-influenced by geographical determinism, looks at critical alternatives, but also presents quantitative methods which can be used to better understand China's place in the world. It goes on to look at China and Japan, China and Taiwan, China, the environment and civil society. Finally, the module looks at China's exercise of Soft Power.