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Semester 2

War and the Politics of Victory (PLIT10149)

Subject

Politics

College

CAHSS

Credits

20

Normal Year Taken

3

Delivery Session Year

2023/2024

Pre-requisites

Visiting students must have completed 4 Politics courses at grade B or above, including at least one core International Relations course. We will only consider University/College level courses, and we cannot consider interdisciplinary courses or courses without sufficient Politics/Government/International Relations focus. **Please see Additional Restrictions below**

Course Summary

International politics often involves conflict and war. Why groups resort to organized violence, how those conflicts unfold, and how and when they end often depends on ideas about victory - or what it means and what it looks like to 'win' a war. Using case studies from a variety of regions and historical periods and combining research spanning several sub-fields of International Relations, this course explores the strategic, ethical, and political dimensions of victory in war. It will introduce students to a number of ways to think about and assess victory as a strategic goal, an ethical dilemma, and a political challenge involving practical choices and very human consequences

Course Description

The idea that war is all about winning has been deeply lodged in popular consciousness for centuries, with a host of prominent thinkers and politicians attesting to its central role in armed conflict - why take up arms if not to win, and often to win a specific political outcome? Yet while victory is central to the idea and conduct of war, practitioners and scholars alike struggle to grasp its full strategic, ethical, and political importance. This course offers a sustained engagement with victory and the politics of war along each of these avenues. Students will gain not only an appreciation of how and why victory matters to war in general, but also the ability to analyze the political role of victory in strategic, normative, and security terms by engaging with theoretical and empirical literature across strategic studies, international ethics and just war, and critical security studies. By learning to focus on the meaning and consequences of victory in these ways, students will begin to see military strategy, ethical and legal deliberations, and the wider political consequences of war differently and more clearly.

Assessment Information

Written Exam 0%, Coursework 90%, Practical Exam 10%

Additional Restrictions

Unless you are nominated on a Politics exchange agreement, visiting students are only permitted to enrol in one Politics course each, per semester, before the start of the relevant semester’s welcome period – and spaces on each course are limited so cannot be guaranteed for any student. Enrolment in a second Politics course will depend on whether there are still spaces available in the January Welcome Period, and cannot be guaranteed. It is NOT appropriate for students to contact staff within this subject area to ask for an exception to be made; all enquiries to enrol in these courses must be made through the CAHSS Visiting Student Office. This is due to the limited number of spaces available in this very popular subject area.

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