OADD 2290 - Climate Change and the International Order: Historical Legacies and Contemporary Challenges

This course is an historical, theoretical and political investigation into the link between the world order and the material infrastructures driving climate change: energy, land use, technological innovation, economic rivalry, and growth. Instead of focusing narrowly on climate diplomacy, we aim at showing that the current geopolitics of climate change is the historical outcome of a deeper historical cycle where international cooperation, pacifism, and energy interdependency shaped the world system, and rooted international stability in energy intensity. We will guide the students through these issues by focusing alternatively on history, theory and politics, and we will study the very empirical manifestations of the new political order that is taking shape in the beginning of the 21st century, when the previous pattern of international stabilization meets the planetary limits and generates new risks an threats.

A basic formation in contemporary history, political philosophy, and sustainability principles will help with the course. Students will have to be comfortable with interdisciplinary approaches to international politics and environmental issues, with conceptual reasoning, with the basics of IR theory. Some insights into the history of science and technology will be helpful but not required.

• In Class Presence: 2 hours a week / 24 hours a semester
• Online learning activities: 1 hour a week / 24 hours a semester
• Reading and Preparation for Class: 2 hours a week / 48 hours a semester
• Research and Preparation for Group Work: 1 hour a week / 24 hours a semester
• Research and Writing for Individual Assessments: 0.5 hour a week / 12 hours a semester