Seminar room: 315, 404, 406, 504, 505, 506, 517, 518

Our three module seminars are student-led. Their benefit for the learning process is contingent upon every student's active participation in these seminars. Each seminar is designated by a particular activity. A mini lecture (seminar 1), a Westminster-style debate (seminar 2) and the production of a review article (seminar 3). Each seminar requires some homework. Please read the seminar instructions well in advance and come prepared! Attendance is mandatory. If you cannot attend these seminars, you need to do an extra assignment.

Activity: Writing a review

In academic journals, published works are reviewed and findings, arguments and methodology discussed. Each of you will write a review for a work of your choice (though it should be about international security), in which you present the content and then critically discuss the merits and more critical aspects for an audience that has not (yet) read the book. You can use actually published book reviews for information and to orient yourself when writing the review. There is no strict word limit for this, but in line with short reviews in journals you might want to aim for 600-1.200 words. The review will be uploaded to your group's page the day before the seminar, and each review will be discussed in turn (along with the books).

The idea is to produce a book review for a book of your choice; we would not know which books you have already read anyway, so there is no need to put up a clause that it has to be a 'new' book. What is important is that you engage with the structure of the book, think through how it builds its argument, which kind of research is being done for the findings, and which theoretical school it could be counted towards.

It is of course a good idea - or may be a more interesting - if the book you are reviewing is not a text book but a proper academic publication. Basically you would be weighing positive aspects and critically engage with what in your eyes could/should have been done differently. The idea is also to consult reviews as published in international journals to see how this is done. It needs not be long, but concise, and ideally somewhat entertaining. In the seminar, you will introduce your review and explain why you wrote it as you did. Below, please find suggestions for books to review (compiled from the course literature list), and some links to book reviews.

Alternative task:

Should you be unable to attend the seminar or fail to upload your review on time, you will need to replace seminar participation with a comparative review. This means that the format is somewhat stricter, and you have to systematically compare two books of simliar topics. This will need to be between 1.000 and 1.500 words and be submitted to Jan or Florian.

Suggested book reviews for reference:

Melissa K. Griffith (2022) Cyber Security and Emerging Technologies, Survival, 64 (5), 174-180, DOI: 10.1080/00396338.2022.2126189.
Dagmar Rychnovská & Robert Braun (2019) Socially responsible innovation in security: critical reflections, Critical Policy Studies, 13 (3), 366-368, DOI: 10.1080/19460171.2019.1638806
Yan, R. (2022). Commissioned Book Review: Alister Miskimmon, Ben O’Loughlin and Jinghan Zeng, One Belt, One Road, One Story? Towards an EU-China Strategic Narrative. Political Studies Review, 20 (4), NP7–NP8. https://doi.org/10.1177/14789299211036666

Books for review suggestions - (you have the choice beyond those):
Autessere, Severine. 2021. The Frontlines of Peace. Oxford: Oxford UP.

Eriksson Baaz and Stern. 2013. Sexual Violence as Weapon of war? Perceptions, prescriptions,
problems in the Congo and beyond. London: Zed books. Available at: https://www.diva-
portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1148245/FULLTEXT01.pdf)

Felix Berenskoetter (Ed.). 2016. Concepts in world politics. London: Sage.

Buzan, Barry & Ole Wæver & Jaap de Wilde 1998. Security: A New Framework for Analysis.
Boulder/CO: Lynne Rienner.

Buzan, Barry and Ole Wæver: Regions and Powers. Cambridge: Cambridge UP 2003.

Coker, Christopher 2014. Future war. Cambridge: Polity

Cramer, Christopher. 2011. Civil War is not a Stupid Thing. Accounting for Violence in Developing Countries. London: Hurst.

Goetze, Catherine. 2017. The distinction of peace: a social analysis of peacebuilding. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-0-472-07341-2

Howard, Michael. 2000. The Invention of Peace: Reflections on War and International Order. New
Haven, CT: Yale UP.

Koops, Joachim A. et al (eds). 2015. The Oxford Handbook of United Nations Peacekeeping Operations, Oxford Academic, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199686049.013.77

Maleŝević, Siniŝa, 2010. The Sociology of War and Violence. Cambridge University Press).

Pischedda, Constantino. 2020. Conflict among Rebels. Why Insurgent Groups fight each other. New York: Columbia UP.

Shirk, Mark. 2022. Making War on the World. How Transnational Violence reshapes Global Order. New York: Columbia UP.