The course starts with an illustration of the concept of strategy, its fundamental assumptions, its analytical criteria and reference area in the international system. Subsequently, it introduces a series of analytical tools aimed at understanding its constituent elements, the dynamics of the formation of the strategy at national level, and the main issues related to it. Particular attention will be devoted to the question of the tools of the strategy and to the possible ways of using them in pursuing national interests.

The second part of the course is strictly empirical. Using the analytical tools illustrated in the first part of the course, a variety of case studies are examined. More specifically, in the course of the lessons the national strategies of international actors in various areas of the world and in various time frames from the Cold War period to the most recent years are studied in detail. The purpose of this section of the course is to bring students to familiarize themselves with the practice of strategy in its various forms.

Week 1 – The Theory of Stratey: Fundamental Concepts
1. Introduction: The academic discipline of Strategic Studies, Objectives and structure of the course, assessment, teaching approach, materials.

2. The Strategic Approach to international Relations: Strategy as a Science and its fundamental assumptions.
Bernard Brodie, ‘Strategy as a Science’ World Politics, Vol. 1, No. 4 (July 1949), pp. 467-488.
Michael Howard, ‘The Strategic Approach to International Relations’, British Journal of International Studies, Vol. 2, No. 1 (April 1976), pp. 67-75.
MLR Smith – Strategic Theory Assumptions.

3. The concept of Strategy: General overview and analytical framework
Bob De Wit, Strategy: An International Perspective, 6th Edition (Andover: Cengage, 2017).
Niccolò Petrelli, La Grande Strategia e il Futuro della Competizione USA-Cina (Lugano: StartInsight/Europa Atlantica, 2021), 27-29.
Edward Luttwak, Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2002), levels
Niccolò Petrelli, La Grande Strategia e il Futuro della Competizione USA-Cina, 53-55.

Week 2 – The "environment" and content of Grand Strategy

4. Grand Strategy and the “environment”
Edward Luttwak, Strategy, scope.
Niccolò Petrelli, La Grande Strategia e il Futuro della Competizione USA-Cina, 30.
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies - Anarchy in International Relations.
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies - Interdependence in International Organization and Global Governance.

5. The elements of Grand Strategy: Diagnosis, Objectives.
Niccolò Petrelli, La Grande Strategia e il Futuro della Competizione USA-Cina, 31-40.

6. The Elements of Grand Strategy: Means
Niccolò Petrelli, La Grande Strategia e il Futuro della Competizione USA-Cina, 40-47.

Week 3 – The Content of Grand Strategy (II)

7. The Elements of Grand Strategy: Time
Niccolò Petrelli, La Grande Strategia e il Futuro della Competizione USA-Cina, 47-51.
Andrew Carr, ‘It’s about time: Strategy and temporal phenomena’, Journal of Strategic Studies (2018).

8. The Elements of Grand Strategy: The competitive logic
Niccolò Petrelli, La Grande Strategia e il Futuro della Competizione USA-Cina, 47-51.
Michael Porter, ‘What is Strategy?’, Harvard Business Review (January-February 1996).

9. The Execution of Grand Strategy
Colin Gray, The Strategy Bridge: Theory for Practice (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2012), 59-74.*
Niccolò Petrelli – The Stages of Grand Strategy (dispensa)

Week 4 – The Process of Grand Strategy

10. Strategy and Contingency
Hew Strachan, ‘Strategy and contingency’, International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs, Vol. 87, No. 6 (November 2011), pp. 1281-1296.

11. The strategy process: features and analytical criteria.
Lawrence Freedman, Strategy, A History (Oxford: Oxford UP: 2013).
John Lewis Gaddis, ‘Containment and the Logic of Strategy’, The National Interest, No. 10 (WINTER 1987/8), pp. 27-38.
Richard K. Betts, ‘The Trouble with Strategy: Bridging Policy and Operations’, Joint Force Quarterly (Autumn/Winter 2001–02), 23-30.

12. The Grand Strategy of Brasil
Carlos R. S. Milani and Tiago Nery, ‘Brazil’, in Thierry Balzacq, Simon Reich, Peter Dombrowski (eds.), Comparative Grand Strategy A Framework and Cases (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2019).
Matias Spektor, ‘Brazil: Shadows of the Past and Contested Ambitions’, in William I. Hitchcock, Melvyn P. Leffler, Jeffrey W. Legro (eds.), Shaper Nations: Strategies for a Changing World (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2016).

Week 5 – Grand Strategy in Practice: Case Studies

13. The Grand Strategy of the EU
Daniel Fiott and Luis Simón, ‘The European Union’ in Thierry Balzacq, Simon Reich, Peter Dombrowski (eds.), Comparative Grand Strategy A Framework and Cases (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2019).
Sven Biscop, ‘No peace from corona: defining EU strategy for the 2020s’, Journal of European Integration, 42/8 (2020), 1009-1023.

14. The Grand Strategy of Russia
Celine Marangé, ‘Russia’ in Thierry Balzacq, Simon Reich, Peter Dombrowski (eds.), Comparative Grand Strategy A Framework and Cases (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2019).
Fyodor Lukyanov, ‘Russia: Geopolitics and Identity’, in William I. Hitchcock, Melvyn P. Leffler, Jeffrey W. Legro (eds.), Shaper Nations: Strategies for a Changing World (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2016),

VIa Settimana – Grand Strategy in practice: Case Studies (II)

15. The Grand Strategy of Israel
Eitan Shamir, ‘Israel’ in Thierry Balzacq, Simon Reich, Peter Dombrowski (eds.), Comparative Grand Strategy A Framework and Cases (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2019).
Ariel Levite, ‘Israel: Strategic Vision Adrift’ in William I. Hitchcock, Melvyn P. Leffler, Jeffrey W. Legro (eds.), Shaper Nations: Strategies for a Changing World (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2016).

16. The Grand Strategy of Iran
Thierry Balzacq and Wendy Ramadan-Alban, ‘Iran’ in Thierry Balzacq, Simon Reich, Peter Dombrowski (eds.), Comparative Grand Strategy A Framework and Cases (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2019).
Kevjn Lim, ‘Iran’s Grand Strategic Logic’, Survival, 62/5 (2020), 157-172

17. The Grand Strategy of China
Andrew S. Erickson, ‘China’, in Thierry Balzacq, Simon Reich, Peter Dombrowski (eds.), Comparative Grand Strategy A Framework and Cases (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2019).
Oriana Skylar Mastro, ‘Chinese Grand Strategy’, In John Baylis, James J. Wirtz, Jeannie L. Johnson (eds), Strategy in the Contemporary World, 7th edition, (Oxford UP, forthcoming Dec 2021).

Week 7 – Conclusions
18. The Grand Strategy of the US
Hal Brands, Grand Strategy in the Age of Trump (Washington DC: Brookings, 2018), cap. 3.

19. Conclusions and Final Revision

FOr info about teaching material email the instructor.

In addition to the readings listed above students that attend the course (at least 2/3 of classe) will have to submit a paper (maximum 4000 words) before December 6 Dicembre on one of the following:

Richard Rumelt, Good Strategy/Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why it Matters (New York: Crown, 2011).
Henry Mintzberg, Bruce Ahlstrand and Joseph Lampel, Strategy Bites Back (London: Prentice Hall, 2008).
Michael Porter, The Competitive Advantage of Nations (New York: The Free Press, 1990), 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10, 11.

Students attending for 8CFU will have phave to submit two papers (maximum 4000 words) before December 12 on two of the following:

Richard Rumelt, Good Strategy/Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why it Matters (New York: Crown, 2011).
Henry Mintzberg, Bruce Ahlstrand and Joseph Lampel, Strategy Bites Back (London: Prentice Hall, 2008).
Michael Porter, The Competitive Advantage of Nations (New York: The Free Press, 1990), 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10, 11

Strategic Studies

Instructor: Niccolò Petrelli
A.A. 2021/22
C.F.U. 9

What is Strategy? What are its constituent elements? How does it work in practice? How do international actors coordinate national interests and available resources? How is power developed in the international system? The course aims at introducing students to the topics of strategy, power in its various forms, and competiton and conflict in the international system. By familiarizing students with the theory of strategy, the course provides them theoretical tools appropriate for analyzing international relations in a competitive perspective.
AT the end of the course the students will be in possess of:

1. Analytical instruments appropriate for analyzing and assessing the dynamics of conflict and competition in international relations.
2. Knowledge of a certain number of empirical cases of national strategy in various areas of the world in the last 30 years.

Program

Week 1 – The Theory of Stratey: Fundamental Concepts
1. Introduction: The academic discipline of Strategic Studies, Objectives and structure of the course, assessment, teaching approach, materials.

2. The Strategic Approach to international Relations: Strategy as a Science and its fundamental assumptions.
Bernard Brodie, ‘Strategy as a Science’ World Politics, Vol. 1, No. 4 (July 1949), pp. 467-488.
Michael Howard, ‘The Strategic Approach to International Relations’, British Journal of International Studies, Vol. 2, No. 1 (April 1976), pp. 67-75.
MLR Smith – Strategic Theory Assumptions.

3. The concept of Strategy: General overview and analytical framework
Bob De Wit, Strategy: An International Perspective, 6th Edition (Andover: Cengage, 2017).
Niccolò Petrelli, La Grande Strategia e il Futuro della Competizione USA-Cina (Lugano: StartInsight/Europa Atlantica, 2021), 27-29.
Edward Luttwak, Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2002), levels
Niccolò Petrelli, La Grande Strategia e il Futuro della Competizione USA-Cina, 53-55.

Week 2 – The "environment" and content of Grand Strategy

4. Grand Strategy and the “environment”
Edward Luttwak, Strategy, scope.
Niccolò Petrelli, La Grande Strategia e il Futuro della Competizione USA-Cina, 30.
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies - Anarchy in International Relations.
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies - Interdependence in International Organization and Global Governance.

5. The elements of Grand Strategy: Diagnosis, Objectives.
Niccolò Petrelli, La Grande Strategia e il Futuro della Competizione USA-Cina, 31-40.

6. The Elements of Grand Strategy: Means
Niccolò Petrelli, La Grande Strategia e il Futuro della Competizione USA-Cina, 40-47.

Week 3 – The Content of Grand Strategy (II)

7. The Elements of Grand Strategy: Time
Niccolò Petrelli, La Grande Strategia e il Futuro della Competizione USA-Cina, 47-51.
Andrew Carr, ‘It’s about time: Strategy and temporal phenomena’, Journal of Strategic Studies (2018).

8. The Elements of Grand Strategy: The competitive logic
Niccolò Petrelli, La Grande Strategia e il Futuro della Competizione USA-Cina, 47-51.
Michael Porter, ‘What is Strategy?’, Harvard Business Review (January-February 1996).

9. The Execution of Grand Strategy
Colin Gray, The Strategy Bridge: Theory for Practice (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2012), 59-74.*
Lawrence Freedman, Strategy, A History (Oxford: Oxford UP: 2013).
Richard K. Betts, ‘The Trouble with Strategy: Bridging Policy and Operations’, Joint Force Quarterly (Autumn/Winter 2001–02), 23-30.

Week 4 – The Process of Grand Strategy

10. Strategy and Contingency
Hew Strachan, ‘Strategy and contingency’, International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs, Vol. 87, No. 6 (November 2011), pp. 1281-1296.

11. Change in Grand Strategy
Rebecca Lissner, ‘Rethinking Grand-Strategic Change: Overhauls Versus Adjustments in Grand Strategy’, in Thierry Balzacq and Ronald R. Krebs (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Grand Strategy (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2021).

12. Analys and Evaluation of Grand Strategy
William C. Wohlforth, ‘The Challenge of Evaluating Grand Strategy’, in Thierry Balzacq and Ronald R. Krebs (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Grand Strategy (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2021).
John Lewis Gaddis, ‘Containment and the Logic of Strategy’, The National Interest, No. 10 (WINTER 1987/8), pp. 27-38.

Week 5 – Analysis and Evaluation of Grand Strategy

13. Success in Grand Strategy

Hal Brands and Peter Feaver, ‘Getting Grand Strategy Right’, in Thierry Balzacq and Ronald R. Krebs (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Grand Strategy (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2021).

14. Grand Strategy in Small States

Anders Wivel, ‘The Grand Strategies of Small States’, in Thierry Balzacq and Ronald R. Krebs (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Grand Strategy (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2021).

Week 6 – Grand Strategy in Practice: Case Studies

15. the Grand Strategy of Brazil
Carlos R. S. Milani and Tiago Nery, ‘Brazil’, in Thierry Balzacq, Simon Reich, Peter Dombrowski (eds.), Comparative Grand Strategy A Framework and Cases (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2019).
Matias Spektor, ‘Brazil: Shadows of the Past and Contested Ambitions’, in William I. Hitchcock, Melvyn P. Leffler, Jeffrey W. Legro (eds.), Shaper Nations: Strategies for a Changing World (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2016).

16. the Grand Strategy of the EU
Daniel Fiott and Luis Simón, ‘The European Union’ in Thierry Balzacq, Simon Reich, Peter Dombrowski (eds.), Comparative Grand Strategy A Framework and Cases (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2019).
Sven Biscop, ‘No peace from corona: defining EU strategy for the 2020s’, Journal of European Integration, 42/8 (2020), 1009-1023.

17. Russia's Grand Strategy
Celine Marangé, ‘Russia’ in Thierry Balzacq, Simon Reich, Peter Dombrowski (eds.), Comparative Grand Strategy A Framework and Cases (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2019).
Fyodor Lukyanov, ‘Russia: Geopolitics and Identity’, in William I. Hitchcock, Melvyn P. Leffler, Jeffrey W. Legro (eds.), Shaper Nations: Strategies for a Changing World (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2016),

Week 7 Grand Straegy in Practice: Case Studies (II)

18. Israel's Grand Strategy
Eitan Shamir, ‘Israel’ in Thierry Balzacq, Simon Reich, Peter Dombrowski (eds.), Comparative Grand Strategy A Framework and Cases (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2019).
Ariel Levite, ‘Israel: Strategic Vision Adrift’ in William I. Hitchcock, Melvyn P. Leffler, Jeffrey W. Legro (eds.), Shaper Nations: Strategies for a Changing World (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2016).

19. Iran's Grand Strategy
Thierry Balzacq and Wendy Ramadan-Alban, ‘Iran’ in Thierry Balzacq, Simon Reich, Peter Dombrowski (eds.), Comparative Grand Strategy A Framework and Cases (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2019).
Kevjn Lim, ‘Iran’s Grand Strategic Logic’, Survival, 62/5 (2020), 157-172

20. China's Grand Strategy
Andrew S. Erickson, ‘China’, in Thierry Balzacq, Simon Reich, Peter Dombrowski (eds.), Comparative Grand Strategy A Framework and Cases (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2019).
Oriana Skylar Mastro, ‘Chinese Grand Strategy’, In John Baylis, James J. Wirtz, Jeannie L. Johnson (eds), Strategy in the Contemporary World, 7th edition, (Oxford UP, forthcoming Dec 2021).

Week 8 – Presentations
21. US Grand Strategy
Hal Brands, Grand Strategy in the Age of Trump (Washington DC: Brookings, 2018), cap. 3.
22. Students' Presentations
23. Students' Presentations

Week 9 – Presentations

24. Students' Presentations
25. Students' Presentations
26. Students' Presentations

Week 10 – Conclusions

27. Conclusions and Exam Review

Teaching materials will be provided by the instructor.

For centuries mankind has desired peace and a peaceful resolution of conflicts; only in the last few centuries peace has been perceived as an attainable political objective. In this way, the idea of the abolition of war became conceivable, associations dedicated to peace arose (and pacifism was also considered as a kind of peace party) and international organizations were founded, with the aim of banning war and promoting peacekeeping operations.

The course offers a historical introduction to the theme of peace as one of the focal points of contemporary politics until the beginning of the 21st century. It is dedicated to the international history of peace ideas, peace movements and peace institutions.

The course aims to encourage students to think critically on the theme of war/peace in history, focusing on past centuries, but with an introduction to why, during Antiquity, the Middle Ages and the beginning of the modern age, the desire for peace and the rejection of war never became a political objective.

By the end of the course, students will be able to better comprehend the main aspects of the peace/war debate and the importance and limitations of peace movements and peace institutions in the contemporary world. Furthermore, they will acquire an understanding of the main interpretations and methodologies proposed and used by scholars to analyze the history of peace.

The course is taught in English.

Introduction: Peace and Historical Research
Week 1
Introduction and description of the course. Methodological issues and new approaches: The concept of peace; ‘Peace history’; Pacifism and ‘pacificism’.


PART I – The inevitability of war

Week 2
Antiquity: Ancient Eastern Civilizations, War and peace in the Bible, Ancient Greece, Rome. The Christian Tradition: Early Christianity and military service: A Christian pacifism?; The Constantinian turn; Augustine’s synthesis.

Week 3
The Middle Ages: Islam, Christianity and holy war; the ‘just war’ theory; Christians refuse war (Bogomils, Cathars, Waldensians, Lollards, Taborites, Bohemian and Moravian Brethren). Refusal of war in the age of absolute Monarchies: Erasmus’s humanist irenism, Anabaptist, Memmonite, Anti-Trinitarian Not-Resistance, Quaker ‘peace testimony’. Restraint of war in the age of absolute monarchies: Victoria and Grotius.


PART II
Peace As a Political Aim

Week 4
The idea of a ‘perpetual peace’ (1712-1814): Enlightenment and peace projects; Rousseau; Kant; Revolutionary war and the birth of the ‘friends of peace’.

Week 5
Peace and war in the age of nations (1815-1870): Conservatism, liberalism, radicalism, socialism and the peace issue; Moderates and radicals inside peace societies; The Peace Congress Movement and its politicization.

Week 6
The age of militarism and pacifism (1870-1914): The birth of pacifism as an international movement for international law and arbitration; Socialist anti-militarism; Tolstoyanism; The difficulties of pacifists and socialists.


PART III
Total Peace in the Age of Total War

Week 7
The failure of peace and a new pacifism (1914-1918): Nationalism and peace; New associations: Women’s International League, Union of Democratic Control, League of Nations Society, No-Conscription Fellowship, Fellowship of Reconciliation. ‘No More Wars’ (1914-1931): Wilsonianism and the League of Nations; Gandhi and nonviolence; A peace mass movement.



Week 8
Pacifism and Totalitarianism (1931-1945): Warlike totalitarianisms; A divided peace movement; The Peace Pledge Union; Against fascism and war?.


PART IV
The Age of Peace Movements

Week 9
‘One World or None’ (1939-1947): the UN; World federalism; A physicists’ anti-nuclear weapons movement; New anti-war constitutions. ‘Does the Dove Fly to East?’ (1947-1953): The communist ‘partisans od peace’; World federalism’s rise and fall; Peace at the core of the Cold War political debate.

Week 10
Peace and Protest (1954-1978): Atomic consciousness; the Pugwash movement; The anti-nuclear protest; Churches and peace; ‘Make Love, Not War!’: young culture and the Vietnam War; Peace and revolution; The Peace Research. Missiles and Peace Culture (1979-1989): Eco-Pax; the Transnational peace movement.

Week 11
The Peacekeeping Years (1989-2001): UN peace-keeping and its theory; Clinton administration and ‘democratic peace’; Peacekeepers vs. pacifists. War and Peace at the Beginning of the 21st Century: Tomahawks vs. Kalashnikov: A decline of ‘Great Wars’? US Mars vs. EU Venus?

Week 12
A final appraisal: Pacifism or pacifisms? Peace and Politics. What results? Policies or politics changed?

REQUIRED READINGS:
David Cortright, Peace: A History of Movements and Ideas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
Michael Howard, War and the Liberal Conscience (London: Temple Smith, 1978) (or any later edition).


REQUIRED WORK FOR NOT ATTENDING STUDENTS (ONLY FOR INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS STUDENTS)
• In English:
1. David Cortright, Peace: A History of Movements and Ideas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
2. Michael Howard, War and the Liberal Conscience (London: Temple Smith, 1978) (or any later edition).
3. One book chosen among the recommended readings
4. Another book chosen among the recommended readings

The syllabus varies with the credits, as will be clarified at the beginning of the course.

1. Introduction to international law
2. Legal constructivism and international law.
3. Justice and methodology in international law.
4. Singularities of international adjudication.
5. International adjudication in disputes between states.
6. International adjudication in disputes concerning human rights.
7. International criminal justice.
8. International arbitration in foreign investments.
9. International courts and tribunals operating within autonomous legal systems.
10. Global neoliberalism and the human person.
11. Analysis of a number cases decided by international courts and tribunals (only in the 9-credit course).

The syllabus varies with the credits, as will be clarified at the beginning of the course.

Textbooks and materials, with further references therein (in several languages):

1. Carlo Focarelli, Costruttivismo giuridico e giurisdizioni internazionali (Milan: Kluwer/Cedam, 2019).
2. For students who have not passed an exam in international law the following textbook is also required in part: Carlo Focarelli, Diritto internazionale (Milano: Kluwer/Cedam, 2021, 6th edn), only paras §§ §§ 5-10, 15-17, 24-25, 30-36, 41-42, 76, 81, 106-118, 142-168.

The syllabus is the same for attending and non-attending studends.

The course presupposes an adequate knowledge of international law. Students who have already passed an exam in international law are required to provide a certificate thereof.

The locution "human rights" denotes a field of action as well as a broad, inter-disciplinary, field of studies. In the first perspective, human rights are generally meant to express a set of minimum standards of conduct a State ought to meet in the treatment of individuals over whom it exercises its jurisdiction. Since the end of World War II international charters, conventions, covenants and declarations have been promulgated stating what basic rights individuals have. Notable efforts have been made to enforce adherence to those rights resulting in the creation of a system of multi-level jurisdiction through a number of international courts. Even though many see human rights as a Western, culturally biased, construction based upon an abstract and atomistic conception of the individual, the notion that for a State to promote and perform cruel and degrading acts is unjust, albeit for different reasons, has become increasingly popular globally. In the second perspective, descriptively human rights are said to be powers or properties belonging to all human beings in virtue of being human. Normatively that all human beings must be able to enjoy certain fundamental rights is a matter of global justice. Today not only theories of human rights, concerned with guiding action, but also theories about human rights, concerned with foundational questions, compete with one another. The course concentreates on the theory of autonomy, vulnerability, recognition and justice by Axel Honneth. There is general agreement about the fact that liberal-democratic societies are based on normative principles, which require legal provisions to ensure that governments do not violate anyone’s fundamental rights. Yet, partially on account of the complexity of the ongoing overlapping global processes of integration, deregulation, reform, and partially on account of the influence of anti-foundational critique (deconstruction; postmodernism; relativism), these widely accepted principles seem to have lost much of their original explanatory and prescriptive force. Contrary to those claiming that this problem consists of a mere temporal delay between philosophical investigation and practical application Honneth argues that more is needed than time, hope and persistence to transform theoretically developed principles of freedom and justice into guidelines for political action. In his view the normative principles at the heart of the human rights discourse are formulated in a manner that prevents us from deriving guidelines for political action. In particular, the course will examine the model of normative reconstruction that Honneth developed in neo-Hegelian fashion for the purpose of situating his own theory of justice as recognition in the analysis of the variety of historically determined institutional instances and practices that embody existentially significant claims to realization.

CONTENT OF THE PROGRAMME -

PART I – Historical background, methodological approaches, perspectives and major issues

- Introduction and course description; theory of human rights and its historical background; ontology and epistemology in the theory of human rights
- Freedom, justice as fairness and the ethics of discourse. Rawls, Habermas and the challenges of the anti-foundational critique
- Identity, authenticity, recognition and otherness

PART II – The theory of autonomy, vulnerability, recognition and justice by Axel Honneth

- Situating Honneth; Hegelian roots; the fabric of justice
- The struggle for recognition and the moral grammar of social conflicts
- The right to freedom and the social foundation of democratic ethical life
- The reasons for the existence of legal and moral freedom and their pathologies respectively
- Social freedom and the three registers of the ‘We’ of personal relationships
- Autonomy, vulnerability, recognition and justice and the market: the sphere of consumption, the labour market and environmental sustainability
- The ‘We’ of democratic will-formation; Organized self-realization: paradoxes of individualization
- The work of negativity; the ‘I’ in ‘We’: recognition as driving force of group formation; recognition and ideology

This course is taught in Italian.

• Honneth, A., Freedom’s Right. The Social Foundations of Democratic Life (2011), trans. J. Ganahl, Polity Press, Cambridge 2014 (ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-6943-4). In addition one article made available during the course.

N.B. with a view to the final exam students may skip the section (in the Italian edition ONLY) from page 358 to page 481.

The course is divided into two parts. The first part deals with the most important events of the transformations of the war from the end of the Second World War to today: the armed conflicts of the Cold War, the wars of decolonization, the wars between non-Western powers and the search for a new world order after 1990.
The second part is devoted to the impact of wars in Italy and Europe between the twentieth and twenty-first centuries with a deepening of the relationship between political and military power.
The first part of the course will consist of lectures, during which also photographs and footage will be employed.
Only for students attending the course, the assessment related to the first part of the course may take the form of a mid-term exam, to be taken during the course (esonero).
The second part of the course will be structured, after an introduction by the instructor, with the discussion of an oral presentation by the attending students on a series of texts chosen from a list that will be presented at the beginning of the course. The interrelation between students is in fact one of the cornerstones of the course.
At the end of the course, attending students will be required to write a 5000 word paper, analyzing the book chosen.
The assessments of the midterm exam and the report will constitute, for attending students, the final grade of the exam.

Books for students attending the course:
Jeremy Black, Le guerre nel mondo contemporaneo, Il Mulino, Bologna, 2006
Readings assigned by instructor

Books for students not attending the course:
1. Jeremy Black, Le guerre nel mondo contemporaneo, Il Mulino, Bologna, 2006
2. Margaret Macmillan, War. Come la Guerra ha plasmato gli uomini, Rizzoli, Milano, 2021

For the students enrolled in the former course of History of war and military institutions, the program remains unchanged:
1. J.J. Sheehan, L’età post-eroica. Guerra e pace nell’Europa contemporanea, Laterza, Roma-Bari, 2008
2. T. Detti (a cura di), Le guerre in un mondo globale, Viella, Roma 2017

The course analyzes the History of International Relations from the mid 1980s till the Obama Administration (with some hints to the more recent years).

The main topics of the course are:
- End of the Cold War
- German reunification
- Iraq-Kuwait 1990-1991 war and the international reaction
- collapse of Jugoslavia
- the crisis in Somalia
- Rwanda genocide
-the crisis in Kosovo
- 9/11 attacks and War on Terror
- evolution of arms control and challenges related to nuclear weapons

The focus of the course will be on the kind of international reactions in each crisis, the behavior of the main players of the international system (national states, organizations and alliances, coalitions, non-state actors) and on the evolution of the threats to the security during the period analyzed (mid 1980s; 1990s, and the first decade of the XXI century).

extbooks compulsory for ALL (attending and non-attending students)

1) Antonio Varsori, Le relazioni internazionali dopo la guerra fredda, 1989-2017 (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2018)
2) Giuseppe Mammarella, Europa e Stati Uniti dopo la guerra fredda (Bologna: Il Mulino)

3) two short readings, available at the Cartoleria "4 Appunti", via G.Chiabrera (excerpt from the book: Ennio Di Nolfo, Storia delle relazioni internazionali // and excerpt from the book: Odd Arne Westad, La guerra fredda globale)

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ATTENDING students (Frequentanti)

In addition to these books (Varsori; Mammarella; and the two short readings), compulsory for all, students attending classes have to study readings (articles and books) assigned by the professor during the course.

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Students non-attending classes (STUDENTI NON FREQUENTANTI):
In addition to these books (Di Nolfo and Mammarella, compulsory for all), students non attending classes have to CHOOSE ONE OF THE FOLLOWING THREE OPTIONS:

1) ASIA (2 books)

- Bill Emmott, Asia contro Asia. Cina, India Giappone e la nuova geografia del potere (Milano: Rizzoli, 2008)

and one between the following two:

- Barbara Onnis, La Cina nelle relazioni internazionali. Dalle guerre dell' Oppio a oggi (Roma: Carocci, 2011)

- or: Sumit Ganguly, Storia dell'India e del Pakistan. Due paesi in conflitto (Milano: Bruno Mondadori, 2004), pp. 1-16 -and from 94 to the end

2) STATI UNITI (BOTH books)

- Pierre Hassner e Justin Vaisse, Washington e il mondo. I dilemmi di una superpotenza (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2004)
- New Book: Chollet & Goldgeier, America between the wars. The misunderstood years between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Start of the War on Terror. From 11/9 to 9/11 (2008)

3) ONU

- Paul Kennedy, Il Parlamento dell'Uomo. Le Nazioni Unite e la ricerca di un governo mondiale (Milano: Garzanti, 2007)

Part I. Introduction to European environmental law
- The legal concept of “environment”
- Environment and plurality of legal systems
- Environmental law and European constitutional law
- The institutional framework of the European Union (brief outline)
- The sources of European environmental law

Part II. Principles of European environmental law
- Environmental law and European integration
- Environmental protection in the European Treaties in force. The Treaty of Lisbon
- General principles of Union's action: The principle of sustainable development
- Environmental protection in the light of subsidiarity and solidarity
- Principle of integration
- Fundamental principles of the Union's environmental policies
- Principle that preventive action should be taken
- Precautionary principle
- Principle that environmental damage should as a priority be rectified at source
- Principle that the polluter should pay


Part III. European decision-making processes and securities concerning environmental law
- Environmental protection and division of powers between the European Union and the Member States
- Objectives and criteria on Union policy on the environment
- European legislative proceedings
- European legislation on Environmental protection and its implementation within Member States
- General action programmes and soft law
- Art. 37 European Charter of Fundamental Rights
- The right to a healthy environment and the Court of Strasbourg

In addition to the materials provided by the lecturer, students are required to attend to the relevant parts of the recommended textbooks.
Students should also be in full possession of the fundamental texts of European law, such as, for example, P. Scarlatti (ed.), Codice essenziale di diritto costituzionale dell'Unione europea, Roma, Aracne, 2011.

We will explore the advent of fossil fuels with the emergence of the age of coal, the shift to hydrocarbons, and the most recent trend towards renewable energy sources. This will be done by analysing great power politics, political and economic debates on energy, the expansion of fordism and consumerism, the role of multinational oil companies, the pressures for decolonization and the emergence of the environmentalist debate from the 1970s up to the more recent debate on the "Anthropocene" and "decarbonization".

Questions and concepts such as “resource curse”, “conservationism”, “Dutch disease”, “limits of growth”, "peak oil", "sustainable development", "extractivism", will be discussed and informed by the relevant literature (and possibly archival material), and with the help images and documentaries.

This course is taught in English.

For everyone (2 texts):

1. Bruce Podobnik, "Global Energy Shifts. Fostering Sustainability in a Turbulent Age"

2. Van De Graaf/Sovacool, "Global Energy Politics", or Per Hogselius, "Energy and Geopolitics"

For the "non frequentanti", in addition to the previous texts also:

3. Leonardo Maugeri, "The Age of Oil", or Giuliano Garavini, "The Rise and Fall of OPEC"

For the "frequentanti" who take the 8CFU exam: one text selected among the reference material

Reference material
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Ervand Abrahamian, "Oil Crisis in Iran: From Nationalism to Coup d'Etat"
Kate Aronoff, "Overheated: How Capitalism Broke the Planet - and How We can Fight Back"
Basosi/Garavini/Trentin, "Counter-Shock: the Oil Counter-Revolution of the 1980s"
Giuliano Garavini, "The Rise and Fall of OPEC in the Twentieth Century"
Nicholas Georgescu-Rogan, "Energy and Economc Myths"
Amitav Ghosh, "The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable"
Thane Gustafson, "The Bridge: Natural Gas in a Redivided Europe"
Michael Herb, "The Wages of Oil. Parliaments and Economic Development in Kuwait and the UAE"
Jason Hickel, "Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World"
Per Hogselius, "Red Gas"
William Stanley Jevons, "The Coal Question"
Daniel Yergin, "The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power"
Daneil Yergin, "the New Map"
Naomi Klein, "This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate"
Paasha Mahdavi, "Power Grab. Political Survival through Extractive Resource Nationalization"
Andreas Malm, "Fossil Capital. The Rise of the Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming"
Victor McFarland, "Oil Powers: A History of the US-Saudi Alliance"
Bernard Mommer, "Global Oil and the Nation State"
Bethany McLean, "The Smartest Guys in the Room. The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron"
John McNeill and Peter Engelke, "The Great Acceleration. An Environmental History of the Anthropocene Since 1945"
Timothy Mitchell, "Carbon Democracy. Political Power in the Age of Oil"
Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonzo, "The Oil Pentagon"
Simon Pirani, "Burning Up: A Global History of Fossil Fuels Consumption"
Luigi Piccioni, La cronologia di "altronovecento" dell'ambiente e dell'ambientalismo 1853-2000
Joachim Radkau, "The Age of Ecology: A Global History"
Thea Riofrancos, "Resource Radical. From Petro-Nationalism to Post-Extractivism in Ecuador"
Myrna Santiago, "The Ecology of Oil. Environment, Labour and the Mexican Revolution, 1900-1938"
Vaclav Smil, "Energy and Civilization: A History"
Van De Graaf/ Sovacoool, "Global Enegy Politics"
Robert Vitalis, "Oilcraft: The Myths of Scarcity and Security That Haunt US Energy Policy"
Tyler Volk, "CO2 Raising: The World's Greatest Environmental Challenge"

The locution "human rights" denotes a field of action as well as a broad, inter-disciplinary, field of studies. In the first perspective, human rights are generally meant to express a set of minimum standards of conduct a State ought to meet in the treatment of individuals over whom it exercises its jurisdiction. Since the end of World War II international charters, conventions, covenants and declarations have been promulgated stating what basic rights individuals have. Notable efforts have been made to enforce adherence to those rights resulting in the creation of a system of multi-level jurisdiction through a number of international courts. Even though many see human rights as a Western, culturally biased, construction based upon an abstract and atomistic conception of the individual, the notion that for a State to promote and perform cruel and degrading acts is unjust, albeit for different reasons, has become increasingly popular globally. In the second perspective, descriptively human rights are said to be powers or properties belonging to all human beings in virtue of being human. Normatively that all human beings must be able to enjoy certain fundamental rights is a matter of global justice. Today not only theories of human rights, concerned with guiding action, but also theories about human rights, concerned with foundational questions, compete with one another. The course concentreates on the theory of autonomy, vulnerability, recognition and justice by Axel Honneth. There is general agreement about the fact that liberal-democratic societies are based on normative principles, which require legal provisions to ensure that governments do not violate anyone’s fundamental rights. Yet, partially on account of the complexity of the ongoing overlapping global processes of integration, deregulation, reform, and partially on account of the influence of anti-foundational critique (deconstruction; postmodernism; relativism), these widely accepted principles seem to have lost much of their original explanatory and prescriptive force. Contrary to those claiming that this problem consists of a mere temporal delay between philosophical investigation and practical application Honneth argues that more is needed than time, hope and persistence to transform theoretically developed principles of freedom and justice into guidelines for political action. In his view the normative principles at the heart of the human rights discourse are formulated in a manner that prevents us from deriving guidelines for political action. In particular, the course will examine the model of normative reconstruction that Honneth developed in neo-Hegelian fashion for the purpose of situating his own theory of justice as recognition in the analysis of the variety of historically determined institutional instances and practices that embody existentially significant claims to realization.

CONTENT OF THE PROGRAMME -

PART I – Historical background, methodological approaches, perspectives and major issues

- Introduction and course description; theory of human rights and its historical background; ontology and epistemology in the theory of human rights
- Freedom, justice as fairness and the ethics of discourse. Rawls, Habermas and the challenges of the anti-foundational critique
- Identity, authenticity, recognition and otherness

PART II – The theory of autonomy, vulnerability, recognition and justice by Axel Honneth

- Situating Honneth; Hegelian roots; the fabric of justice
- The struggle for recognition and the moral grammar of social conflicts
- The right to freedom and the social foundation of democratic ethical life
- The reasons for the existence of legal and moral freedom and their pathologies respectively
- Social freedom and the three registers of the ‘We’ of personal relationships
- Autonomy, vulnerability, recognition and justice and the market: the sphere of consumption, the labour market and environmental sustainability
- The ‘We’ of democratic will-formation; Organized self-realization: paradoxes of individualization
- The work of negativity; the ‘I’ in ‘We’: recognition as driving force of group formation; recognition and ideology

This course is taught in Italian.

• Honneth, A., Freedom’s Right. The Social Foundations of Democratic Life (2011), trans. J. Ganahl, Polity Press, Cambridge 2014 (ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-6943-4). In addition one article made available during the course.

N.B. with a view to the final exam students may skip the section (in the Italian edition ONLY) from page 358 to page 481.

The course is structured in 4 parts (9 CFU):

1) An overview of the European Union’s history, politics and institutional developments: from the European Community of the 1970s to the EU of the 2000s.

2) Environmental challenges and politics in an international history perspective, from the Stockholm Conference of 1972 to the Paris Agreement of 2015: conservation; global threats; multilateral negotiations; and the rise of climate change in international politics.

3) The roots and development of the EU environmental policy within the context of its energy policy, external relations and foreign policy.

4) Students’ short papers and presentations (see list of recommended readings/bibliography).

Attendance is mandatory.

1. Afionis Stavros, The European Union in International Climate Change Negotiations, London, Routledge, 2017;
2. Jordan Andrew, Gravey Viviane(eds), Environmental policy in the EU: actors, institutions and processes, (fourth edition), London, Routledge, 2021, pp. 1-276;
3. Kaiser Wolfram, Meyer Jan-Henrik (eds), International Organizations and Environmental Protection. Conservation and Globalization in the Twentieth Century, New York, Berghahn Books, 2016, pp. 1-102; 153-267; 293-333.

Software R-studio and R: installation and main features. Project creation in R studio. First step with R: elementary operations, descriptive statistics, graphs. Statistical inference refresher. Sampling distribution, confidence intervals and tests. Environmental data. Maximum likelihood estimation. Linear models: parameter estimation, model selection and goodness of fit. Generalized linear models: parameter estimation, model selection and goodness of fit. Logistic regression. Poisson regression.

Carsten Dormann (2020) Environmental Data Analysis: An introduction with Examples in R, Springer

CONTENT

PART I – TRANSPORT, ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT
Definition of sustainability: link between transport, environment and development
Preserving resilient transport to climate change
Wide reforms on a low-carbon path
Financing issues for mitigation and adaptation

PART II – URBAN FREIGHT AND BEHAVIOUR CHANGE
Relevance of sustainable urban freight transport
Stakeholders involved and their role
Types of intervention measures, innovative solutions and best practices
Behavioural analysis and planning

This course is taught in English.

Required readings:

Block, R., Kopp, A., Limi, A. (2013). Turning the right corner : ensuring development through a low-carbon transport sector. Directions in development: environment and sustainable development. Washington DC; World Bank.

Curtis C. (2020). Handbook of Sustainable Transport. Research Handbooks in Transport Studies series. Edward Elgar, USA.

Macharis C., Melo S. (2011). City Distribution and Urban Freight Transport. Multiple Perspectives. Edward Elgar, UK.

Articles published in High-Quality Scientific Journals will be provided during the course