International Development MSc

International Development - MSc

Explore some of the world's most pressing international development challenges such as security, environment and post-conflict reconstruction. Our MSc aims to equip you with the knowledge and skills to work in a variety of sectors including charity, NGO, local government, travel, manufacturing or policy.

Month of entry

September and January

Mode of study

Full time, Part time

Location

Keele University campus

Subject area

Politics and International Relations

Fees for 2023/24 academic year

UK - Full time £8,900 per year. Part time £4,900 per year.
International - £17,700 per year.

Duration of study

Full time 1 year, Part time 2 years

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Please note: this course is no longer accepting applications from international students for September 2023 entry

This course is open for January 2024 entry for UK and International students

Why study International Development at Keele University?

Explore core international development challenges in the Global South

Conduct an independent research project in the field

Critically engage with methods, sources, and data, many of which are at the cutting edge of the discipline

Benefit from our long-standing alumni network and visiting speaker series

Develop practical solutions to real-world challenges

Course summary

What is International Development?

International Development is a core international policy priority, part of the United Nations’ 2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which aims to reduce global inequalities and combat poverty. The SDGs have been integrated into many aspects of public life, and international development is becoming embedded at more levels of local, national and international administrations.

Study in this field is suited for those interested in working in the charity, NGO, environmental or aid sectors, but also to those interested in employment in business, local government, regulatory sectors, manufacture, travel and policy.

Course content

Drawing on Keele's long-standing expertise in international relations, sustainability, the environment, conflict, security and post-conflict reconstruction, the programme explores the most pressing contemporary challenges including global inequality, environmental change, reconstruction and development after conflict as well as the global political problems that shape all issues of global inequality.

Our MSc differs from other programmes in the UK and internationally because of its focus on the environmental and security aspects of international development. It provides a distinctive focus on the connections between development and global environmental change and challenges; as well as the connections between development, conflict and security transnationally and in different areas of the world.

The first stages of the course will provide you with in-depth grounding in core theoretical and practical aspects in the field. You will learn about the key concepts and challenges in international development and build the skills to be able to undertake independent research and analysis of significant themes, cases, problems and potential solutions.

As you progress through the programme you will critically engage with methods, sources, and data, many of which are at the cutting edge of the discipline. You will also gain skills related to project proposals, presentation to non-specialist audiences, groupwork, project planning, and negotiation.

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Committed to sustainability

At Keele we're leading the sector in sustainability, not just in our ambitions to become carbon neutral by 2030 but also through our teaching and our ground-breaking research into climate change and renewable technologies.

Proudly named Global Sustainability Institution of the Year (International Green Gown Awards, 2021), our commitment to sustainability is embedded in all that we do.

Find out more about Keele’s commitment to sustainability.

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Course structure

The MSc International Development requires 180 credits, made up of 3 core modules, 5 optional modules and a 60-credit dissertation. The choice of optional modules gives you the opportunity to tailor your degree to your individual interests and professional needs.
The programme can be studied as either a one-year full-time or two-year part-time course, with a September and January start date.

Compulsory taught modules

PIR-40095: Research in Action (15 credits)

You will gain an advanced introduction to research design and evidence gathering in Politics and International Relations (including International Diplomacy). You will also have the opportunity to design and conduct your own small-scale practical research project based on a topic of your own choosing. This module is key to the development of your research skills.

PIR-40144: Advanced Approaches to Politics and International Relations (15 credits)

Taught in an intensive workshop like approach, this module will provide you with a foundation in the mainstream philosophies and approaches to studying social science disciplines, including international development, as part of the discipline of international relations. You will examine how scholars have approached the issues of what to study and how to study, and consider how these issues are related to historical and current power relations in world politics. The module will also allow you to develop your own research design skills and independent study ideas.

PIR-40152: International Development: Environment and Conflict (15 credits)

Examine the core theories and approaches to international development and gain the tools to analyse and debate the question of international development. This module focuses particularly on the relationships between international development, environmental change and conflict.

Optional modules

Recommended optional modules

PIR-40088: The Theory of Global Security (15 credits)

This module explores the main theoretical traditions through which security has been understood and examines contemporary problems of security and development

GEG-40006: Economic Development and Environmental Transformation (Geography 15 credits)

This module investigates connections between economic development and the environment; examining global development and conservation through the developing world.

PIR-40131: Environmental Public Policy (15 credits)

This module examines the international politics of making environmental policies in a range of different national, international and transnational actors.

PIR-40146: Post-conflict development: cases and approaches (15 credits)

This module offers an in-depth exploration of how states can rebuild after conflict, focusing on real-world examples of development.

LAW-40043: International Environmental Law (Law, 15 credits)

Take a critical perspective on the development of international environmental law. This module provides grounding in the legal norms, institutions and processes of the filed, exploring current environmental global issues such as biodiversity loss, trade and environment, food security and climate change through specific treaty regimes.

LAW-40058: International Refugee Law (Law, 15 credits)

Examine key issues in international migration – a key challenge faced in development.

Optional modules

PIR-40156: The international politics of war and memory (15 credits)

Examine why war happens, and how the politics of war memory influence and shape contemporary politics.

PIR-40093: The Changing International Agenda (15 credits)

Take an in-depth critical assessment of the development, change and nature of the international system.

PIR-40136: International Diplomacy (15 credits)

Take an innovative look at the theories and practices underpinning international diplomacy, and consider the varied settings in which diplomacy takes place.

PIR-41058: The Global Politics of Islam (15 credits)

Explore the international challenges of the politics of Islam.

LAW-40048: Foundations of Human Rights (Law, 15 credits)

Examine the development of concepts of human rights and the contemporary political sociology of human rights.

LAW-40047: Equality, Discrimination and Minorities (Law, 15 credits)

Take an in-depth examination of the inequalities of international human rights policy and practices. This module provides an advanced level study of conceptual and normative aspects of ethics, equality and the non-discrimination paradigm.

PIR-40106: Dimensions of Environmental Politics (15 credits)

Gain an overview of key concepts, debates, processes and discourses in relation to the political dynamics of the environment.

GEG-40020: Key Themes in Human Geography and Sustainability (Geography 15 credits)

This module explores key debates in human geography and sustainability, including focus on the relevance of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals in contemporary world politics.

GRT-40020 Quantitative Research and Data Analysis (15 credits)

Gain a comprehensive introduction to the principles and practices of quantitative social science research.

GRT-40021 Qualitative Research Methods (15 credits)

Acquire an overview of the wide range of qualitative methods used in social science research.

PIR-40138: Crisis, conflict and diplomacy (15 credits)

This module explores the management of crisis in world politics, looking at real-world examples of how states use diplomacy to avoid conflict, and why and how they succeed or fail.

PIR-40142: The geopolitics of nationalism and populism (15 credits)

Take a critical exploration of the relationships between nationalism/populism and security from a geopolitical perspective. The module will focus on theoretical approaches and case studies relating to various historical and contemporary issues such as war and peace, self-determination, national-populism and foreign policy and more.

PIR-40119: Race and Justice in the US (15 credits)

Despite the successes of the 1960s civil rights movement, discrimination is still a top issue in the US. In this module you will examine how discrimination, inequality and civil rights have been navigated and negotiated in the US from the second half of the twentieth century.

PIR-40096: Comparative European Politics (15 credits)

Informed by classic and contemporary theoretical and empirical approaches to comparative politics this module considers the nature and role of fundamental political structures in Europe (including electoral systems, political parties, executives and legislatures). It also explores the ways in which these structures, and the actors within them, interact.

LAW-40046: Human Rights and Global Politics (Law, 15 credits)

Explore the evolving political and legal strategies to advance human rights in a global political framework. You will examine the global civil society and the expansion and role of transnational human rights.

Dissertation

PIR-40105: Master's Dissertation (60 credits)

You will write a dissertation of 15,000 words on a topic of your choice within the field of International Development.

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Additional opportunities

From engaging with our long-standing alumni network and attending our visiting speaker series to exploring practical and subject based societies on campus, there are many ways to enhance your learning whilst studying this programme. There is also scope for the future creation of work-based or experiential learning opportunities.

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Keele Postgraduate Association

Keele University is one of a handful of universities in the UK to have a dedicated students' union for postgraduate students. A fully registered charity, Keele Postgraduate Association serves as a focal point for the social life and welfare needs of all postgraduate students during their time at Keele.

KPA interior

Hugely popular, the KPA Clubhouse (near Horwood Hall) provides a dedicated postgraduate social space and bar on campus, where you can grab a bite to eat and drink, sit quietly and read a book, or switch off from academic life at one of the many regular events organised throughout the year. The KPA also helps to host a variety of conferences, as well as other academic and career sessions, to give you and your fellow postgraduates the opportunities to come together to discuss your research, and develop your skills and networks.

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Our expertise

Our research-active academics have extensive experience of teaching at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, and at conducting supervision at Masters and PhD level in universities in the UK, continental Europe and North America.

Welcome to your teaching team

Dr Afshin Shahi, Associate Professor in Middle East Politics and International Relations - Afshin joined Keele in 2023. He obtained his MA and PhD from Durham University, and has worked at Durham, Exeter and Bradford universities and in 2018 was visiting research fellow at the European University Institute in Florence. His research interests encompass Iranian politics, climate change and conflict, sectarianism and political Islam in the Middle East. He is a regular contributor to national and global media outlets including BBC and Aljazeera.

Professor Helen Parr, (Co-Director for Programme), Professor of Modern and Contemporary History - Helen is an expert in contemporary British history, war and society, and international relations. She has worked on Britain’s relations with the EC/EU, the Labour Party and European integration, Britain’s Cold War and nuclear weapons policies and British-French relations. Her book, Our Boys: The Story of a Paratrooper (Allen Lane, 2018), won the Templer Medal Book Prize, the Duke of Wellington Medal for Military History, the Longman-History Today Book Prize and was longlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Writing.

Dr Becky Richards, Lecturer in International Relations - Becky's research sits within the Security/Development nexus and she is particularly interested in political development, state building, and conceptions of what it means to be a successful or ‘acceptable’ state.

Dr Barry Ryan, Senior Lecturer in International Relations - For the past number of years Barry's research has gradually evolved from its initial empirical focus on policing and liberal internationalism towards a more critical stance on the relationship between police, war and global security. He has worked as a development worker for a number of years in northern Namibia, with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the United Nations Development Programme and with Irish Aid on security reforms in the Balkans, Eastern Europe and Caucus region. His research article ‘Reasonable Force: the emergence of global policing power’, published in Review of International Studies, received the British International Studies Association Best Article 2013 award.

Dr Moran Mandelbaum, Lecturer in International Relations - Moran teaches and researches global politics and nations and nationalism from a psychoanalytical lens. He has written peer-reviewed research papers on the Brexit vote, the inclusion of LGBTQ population as a form of sovereign legitimation in Israeli society, the ideal of nationally congruent societies in modernity, and the power of belonging in global politics. His recent book, The Nation/State Fantasy, offers a psychoanalytical genealogy of nationalism from early modernity to contemporary political and IR theory.

Mr Naveed Sheikh, Lecturer in International Relations - Naveed has an MA in International Relations (with distinction) from the University of Durham. He proceeded to enrol for a Ph.D. at the Centre of International Studies at the University of Cambridge, working on a thesis on nuclear non-/proliferation and identity imaginaries. He has also held fellowships at Harvard University and Hosei University in Tokyo. Naveed's research focuses on identity and (inter) national security, terrorism and political violence, religion and world politics and the global politics of Islam.

Dr Heidi Wang Kaeding, Lecturer in International Relations) - Heidi joined Keele in September 2019. Prior to this, she was Assistant Professor in Asian Politics at Trinity College Dublin, working for the Department of Political Science and Trinity Centre for Asian
Studies. She obtained her PhD in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Heidi's research focuses on three substantial themes: global environmental governance; economic statecraft in East Asia; and the role of emotions in international politics.

Professor Deirdre McKay, Professor of Sustainable Development and Senior Internationalisation Director - Deirdre joined Keele in January 2008, previously holding appointments as Postdoctoral Fellow and then Research Fellow in the School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University. Her research draws on both social/cultural geography and social anthropology to explore people's place-based experiences of globalisation and development.

Dr Mario Prost, Senior Lecturer - Mario is Senior Lecturer and Programme Director of the LLM in International Law at the Keele Law School. As well as his ongoing work on various aspects of international legal theory, Mario's current research focuses on the colonial history of (international) environmental law and critical approaches to transnational arbitration (with special emphasis on investor-state arbitration).

Dr Forough Ramezankhah, Teaching Fellow in Law - In 2007 Forough was awarded a scholarship to study Master of Research in Social Science Research Methods in Law at Keele University. She gained a further scholarship to do a research degree at Keele and in 2013 was awarded with a PhD in Law. Forough's research interest includes Refugee Law, Narrative of Asylum Seekers, intersection of Modern Slavery and Asylum.

Dr Phil Catney, Senior Lecturer in Politics and School Research Director - Since joining Keele, Phil has been the lead or co-investigator on four research council-funded projects. He is also a regular commentator on politics in local, regional and national media. Phil's research interests are principally focused on urban and environmental governance, local governance, British Politics and public policy theory. He is also co-editor of the Routledge book series 'Transforming Environmental Politics and Policy' with Professor Tim Doyle (University of Adelaide).

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