Teaching

Polsis has a final year module aimed at understanding different approaches to environment matters and climate change.

We try to cover the ways we define and think about the environment, as well as to question the standpoint from which we interrogate our own assumptions.

And in 2023 we trialled a novel form of assessment, in which we encourage students to bring creativity to their assessment of the environment (see blog in link).

Sustainable development is a phrase we now hear everywhere, and this module gives students the opportunity to examine its origins; to analyse its rapid ascent to the forefront of politics; and to critique the fundamental assumptions upon which it is built.

The module examines empirical examples of sustainable development strategies at a range of policy levels, drawing from states, the private sector, and citizens.

Global environmental problems like biodiversity loss and climate change have been gaining in political salience in recent years. In particular, the ability of humans to alter fundamental parts of the ecosystem on which they depend is becoming increasingly acknowledged and calls for mitigating these influences are strengthening.

Within this context, this course examines the variety of environmental problems and their causes to date, with an emphasis on the politics of cooperation/ governance in the environmental sphere.