LPINT7264 Global Politics in the Digital Age Course Descriptor

Course Overview

The deployment of digital tools in politics has not only reshaped the channels of political communication and the public sphere. In the last decades, the use of digital technology can be said to have revolutionised the spaces for governance and political action globally. Digital tools have increasingly been deployed in governance and decision-making processes that involve a plurality of actors at multiple levels, with an impact on public participation, policy outcomes and demands for efficiency and accountability. The use of digital tools has simultaneously enlarged and questioned the spaces of state sovereignty, by opening new frontiers to discourses of security (such as cybersecurity) or through an intensification of channels of biopolitical control and surveillance. Finally, technology has provided new platforms for political action and mobilisation, from citizen fora in deliberative projects to spaces of resistance such as digital activism, which further reshape the spaces and processes of formation of political identities. All these phenomena demand a reconsideration of questions of governance, sovereignty, power, security, identity and agency that are at the basis of studies of International Relations, in order to attune the discipline to a new era of governance.

This core course provides the theoretical and conceptual foundations to study trends and debates around the politics of digital technology globally, with an attention to the empirical applications that inform scholarly debates in the field.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

Knowledge and Understanding

Subject Specific Skills

Transferable and Professional Skills

Teaching and Learning

This course has a dedicated Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) page with a syllabus and range of additional resources (e.g. readings, question prompts, tasks, assignment briefs, discussion boards) to orientate and engage you in your studies.

The scheduled teaching and learning activities for this course are:

• Lectures
• Seminars
• Office hours

Students can expect to receive a minimum of 16.5 scheduled hours per 15-credit course.

Faculty hold regular ‘office hours’, which are opportunities for students to drop in or sign up to explore ideas, raise questions, or seek targeted guidance or feedback, individually or in small groups.

Students are to attend and participate in all the scheduled teaching and learning activities for this course and to manage their directed learning and independent study.

Indicative total learning hours for this course: 150

Employability Skills

• Work independently, creatively, and to deadlines
• Conduct specialised independent research and explore relevant existing knowledge
• Develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills
• Present findings and opinions in a clear, structured manner, whether orally or in writing
• Engage in collaborative and constructive discussion

Assessment

Formative

Students will be formatively assessed during the course in seminar activities and by means of assignments that offer opportunities to develop, practise and refine the same skills in research, writing, presentation and communication that will be assessed in the summative assessment elements for the course. These assessments have been designed to foster engagement with society and the world, the ability to intervene in political activities and the making of policy, and cooperation with relevant actors, institutions, organisations and industries. Formative assessments do not count towards the end of year results, but will provide students with regular developmental feedback.

Summative

Typically the written assignment will consist of a Policy Brief.

Feedback

Students will receive formal feedback in a variety of ways: written (including via email correspondence), oral (on an ad hoc basis) and indirectly through discussion during seminars.

Feedback is provided on summative written assignments which will be handed back to the students.

Indicative Reading

Note: Comprehensive and current reading lists for courses are produced annually in the Course Syllabus or other documentation provided to students; the indicative reading list provided below is used as part of the approval/modification process only.

Books

Hoijtink, M., & Leese, M. (Eds.). Technology and Agency in International Relations (London: Routledge, 2019).

Wagner, B., Kettemann, M. C., & Vieth, K. (Eds.). Research Handbook on Human Rights and Digital Technology: Global Politics, Law and International Relations (London: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2019).

Bjola, C., & Zaiotti, R. (Eds.). Digital Diplomacy and International Organisations: Autonomy, Legitimacy and Contestation (London: Routledge, 2020).

Cubitt, S., Finite Media: Environmental Implications of Digital Technologies (Durham: Duke University Press, 2016).

Journals

Azmeh, S., Foster, C., & Echavarri, J. (2020). The international trade regime and the quest for free digital trade. International Studies Review, 22(3), 671-692.

Calderaro, A., & Craig, A. J. (2020). Transnational governance of cybersecurity: policy challenges and global inequalities in cyber capacity building. Third World Quarterly, 41(6), 917-938.

Cornut, J., & Dale, N. (2019). Historical, practical, and theoretical perspectives on the digitalisation of diplomacy: An exploratory analysis. Diplomacy & Statecraft, 30(4), 829-836.

Fritsch, S. ‘Technology and Global Affairs’, International Studies Perspectives, 12.1 (2011), pp. 27-45.

Gorwa, R. (2019). What is platform governance?. Information, communication & society, 22(6), 854-871.

Hofmann, J. ‘Mediated Democracy–Linking Digital Technology to Political Agency’, Internet Policy Review, 8.2 (2019).

Electronic Resources

Additional resources will be available on the University’s VLE.

Indicative Topics

• Technology governance
• Deliberative spaces and public sphere
• Human rights in the digital age
• Cybersecurity and cyberspace
• Automation and warfare
• Biopolitical surveillance
• Migration and digitalisation of borders
• Sustainability and digital media
• Digital platforms and citizens empowerment
• Resistance and digital activism

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