Collapse All
Expand AllWelcome to Postgraduate studies in the Department of Political and International Studies at Rhodes!
Our postgraduate students and courses constitute a vibrant and treasured part of the academic work we do. In recent years our graduates have gone on to prestigious institutions throughout the world including the London School of Economics, Cambridge, Sussex, Oxford, the Hague and many others. They have excelled in Master’s and Doctoral Studies abroad but have also had an excellent record of finding employment in sought-after positions in academia, government, NGOs and business both in South Africa and elsewhere. The Department is proud of the high academic standards it demands of students and of the reputation we have. The two go together. A committed and highly qualified staff will demand much of you. Be assured that we set the same standards for ourselves, in our research and in our teaching. You will find the opportunity here to debate with fellow students, to attend a weekly seminar programme where visitors to the Department as well as our own staff and students will present papers and engage in lively discussion, and to interact closely with the academic staff at all levels. Critical thinking is not only encouraged but expected. Through the year your written and spoken presentation skills will be enhanced, as will your ability to craft and defend arguments, to come to terms with intricate ideas, to read and interact with some of the great thinkers of our time.
POSTGRADUATE COURSE OFFERING 2012
Honours & Masters Courses
5.1 Courses
Students must choose their five courses from among the following options:
SEMESTER ONE SEMESTER TWO
Qualitative Research Methods The Politics of Collective Action
Lecturer: Prof. L. Vincent Lecturer: Dr T. Fluxman
Foreign Policy Analysis - [Term 3 & 4) Biopolitics and governmentality
Lecturer: Prof. PH Bischoff Lecturer: Prof. L. Vincent
IR Theory – towards Global Governance Frantz Fanon Fifty Years On
Lecturer: Prof. PH Bischoff Lecturer: Mr R. Pithouse
Ubuntu Reconstructing the South African Mind*
Lecturer: Prof. L. Praeg Lecturer: Prof. J. Wells
Poverty and Privilege The Politics of Social Policy
Lecturer: Dr S. Matthews Lecturer: Prof. R. Van Niekerk
Understanding Domination Cold War Studies*
Lecturer: Dr T. Fluxman Lecturer: Prof G. Baines
IR:Comparative Regional Security Inst. Community, Justice and Freedom*
Lecturer: Prof A. Acharya Lecturer: Dr I. Chachine
(Visiting Nelson Mandela Professor)
IR:Regional Studies: Palestine & Israel
Lecturer: Mr J. Rose
* Provisional, to be confirmed by July.
On application to the Head of Department, Honours students may be permitted to pursue a one semester course option in a cognate subject (History, Law, Economics, Sociology, Philosophy or Anthropology) outside the department. Applications may also be made to take Urban Theory and Spatial Development in Geography.
Honours Research Essays
If you have been given permission to embark on a research essay as a component of your Honours degree, you are strongly urged to speak to lecturers in the Department before deciding on a topic since they may be able to suggest suitable avenues for fruitful research. Those students who wish to embark on a research essay must in the first two weeks of Term 1:
- obtain permission from the Head of Department;
- discuss a topic with Professor P. Bischoff so that supervision can be assigned to you;
Thereafter a research proposal must be submitted to your supervisor by the end of term 1.
Proposal for Honours research essay
The research proposal for an Honours research essays should include:
- a detailed title which describes exactly what you will be researching (choose a subject which interests you and which is researchable in the sense that there is enough material readily available for you to use);
- an explanation of why this subject is of interest;
- a brief attempt to state the historical and political context of the topic
- some indication of what resources are available to you which will enable you to complete the study
- a set of references of works consulted in preparation of the proposal.
Length of the research essay
Students are expected to submit research essays of no more than 10 000 words, excluding bibliography, tables, footnotes and appendices. Never ‘pad’ a research essay. The suggested word limit is a maximum not a norm.
Date of Presentation of research essay
- Progress by a student will be assessed at the end of Semester 1 (when permission to proceed further may be withdrawn).
- Honours research essays must be submitted by no later than the 30th of October in any given year.
Postgraduate Diploma Courses
Students reading for the Diploma in International Studies are required to take five courses. The following courses are compulsory for Diploma Students:
SEMESTER ONE
- African Security and Development
Lecturer: Ms S. Magadla
- Politics of the Environment
Lecturer: Ms G. Barrett
SEMESTER TWO
- Peace and Conflict in Africa
Lecturer: Taught by invited visitors to the Department
- Africa in International Relations
Lecturer: Mr M. Mavura
The additional, fifth course required for the Diploma may be taken from among the following options outside the department:
These include –
( I ) Term courses in Economics: (two term courses needed)
Environmental Economics (Term 3)
Department of Economics
Lecturer: Prof. G. Fraser
Development Economics (Term 4)
Department: Economics
Lecturer: Dr D. Bekker
Labour Economics (Term 4)
Department: Economics
Lecturer: Mr D. Fryer
(Consider attending these Economics lecturers – speaking to their courses in the week of 6th-10th February: Inquire with the Economics Department)
(II) Term course in Geography (may be upgraded to semester course)
Urban theory and Spatial Development (Term 3)
Department: Geography
Lecturer: Dr J. Kirshner
(III) TERMS 3 & 4
Development Studies (Semester course)
Department: Sociology
Or any other fourth year courses, subject to the approval of the HoD.
African Security & Development Studies (S. Magadla)
Public International Law
African Peace and Conflict ( Dr I. Souare, P.S. Handy, K. Aning)
African I. R & Diplomacy ( M. Mavura)
To be awarded a Diploma in International Studies students must pass at least four out of the five courses taken and achieve an overall aggregated pass of at least 50%.
Entrance Requirements
Students may register for the PDIS having obtained an undergraduate degree in any field with a good pass.
Students who obtain an overall aggregated mark of at least 70% may be considered for admission into the Master’s degree in Political and International Studies.
Honours
The Honours degree consists of either five courses or four courses and a research essay of ten thousand words. The latter option may be exercised only on recommendation of the Head of Department.
To be awarded an Honours degree, students must pass at least four out of the five courses taken and achieve an overall aggregated pass of at least 50%.
Entrance Requirements
To be accepted into an Honours degree in the Department, students normally require a good second class pass in a bachelor’s degree majoring in Political Studies or International Studies or, with the approval of the Head of Department, a good second class pass degree in a cognate discipline such as History, Sociology, Philosophy or Economics.
It is anticipated that each of the above fields of research may at some point, although obviously not all at the same time, present in terms of an active research project run by the lecturer in question. The post-graduate course on offer will form the core of a staff member’s research project that will run through as many annual teaching cycles as the project leader requires and may or may not align itself with Thinking Africa. For instance, in 2010 Prof. Leonhard Praeg is in the second of a three-year teaching based research cycle into “Ubuntu” situated in the general research field of African Philosophy. Honours students who elect to do this course with Prof. Praeg will take part in an exciting collaborative research project into one of the most fascinating and surprisingly complex questions of debate in contemporary South Africa. The three-year ubuntu cycle will conclude with the publication of the best student papers in the form of peer-reviewed articles and, having aligned itself with the Thinking Africa project, as a collection of papers in book form under the project series title Thinking Africa: Ubuntu
Masters degree in Political and International Studies
Masters students in the department have always had a choice between doing masters by course work (which includes a mini thesis) and masters by full thesis. The launch of Thinking Africa will not change this although, from 2010, the research focus of both the mini- and full thesis will be more closely aligned with the relevant fields of research and, when and where possible, with the research projects on offer:
• Masters degree by course work: students who elect this option will have to choose their requisite number of courses from those on offer in the year of registration. From 2010 the mini-thesis component of the masters by course work has to be in one of the fields of research. In addition, students will be encouraged to conduct their mini-thesis research as an extension of one of the teaching based research projects on offer. For example, masters by course work students who want to work in “African Philosophy” will be required to do the course on Ubuntu and encouraged to write a mini-thesis on the same topic.
• Masters degree by full thesis: from 2010 students who elect this option will be asked to choose a topic of research within one of the listed fields of interest. Where such a field of interest presents in terms of a teaching based research project, that is, where the lecturer concerned is running a course in that field of interest, masters students by thesis will be required to audit (sit in) on that course although their participation will not be formally assessed. Should the project leader and/or student in question choose to do so, work produced as a result of masters by thesis may also be considered for inclusion in the Thinking Africa end-of-research-cycle publication.
Students may register for either a combined coursework and thesis Master’s degree or a Master’s degree by thesis only, as recommended by the Head of Department.
The Master’s by coursework and thesis consists of three approved postgraduate courses and a thesis of 15 000 to 25 000 words. The required thesis length for the Master’s by thesis only is 30 000 to 50 000 words.
Master’s students are required to have a thesis proposal passed by the Humanities Higher Degrees Committee by the 30th of November of the year in which the degree is begun. Those who do not succeed in doing so may not be permitted to continue with the Master’s degree. Thesis proposals must conform to the requirements set out in the Rhodes University Higher Degrees Guide and must be submitted to the Higher Degrees Committee with the approval of the supervisor and Head of Department.
To be awarded the degree, coursework Master’s students need to pass all three courses as well as the thesis. They may not repeat courses already passed at Honours level.
Students pursuing a Master’s degree by full thesis may be upgraded to the PhD on the recommendation of the supervisor and Head of Department and with the permission of the Senate.
Entrance Requirements
To be accepted into a Master’s degree in the Department students would normally require an Honours degree with at least a good second class pass in Political Studies or International Studies or, with the approval of the Head of Department, a cognate discipline such as History, Sociology, Philosophy or Economics.
Honours and Master’s Courses
Subject to demand and the availability of staff, a range of Honours and Master’s courses are offered in any given year. These might include, for instance, Terror, Ubuntu, The Politics of Food, The Politics of Space, International Relations Theory, International Political Economy, International Law, Peace and Conflict, International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, International Relations of Africa, Political Economy of Africa, African Foreign Policy, International Economics, The Politics of Collective Action, Body Politics, Theories of Politics, Security and Society, International Relations and Security in Southern Africa, United States Foreign Policy, Electoral Systems and Voting Behaviour, Freedom and Domination, Foreign Policy Analysis, Cold War Studies, Chinese Foreign Policy, Contemporary Southern African Politics and such additional courses as may become available from time to time depending on staff availability.
Not all of these courses are offered in any given year. Prospective students should inquire as to which courses are on offer in the year that they will be registered.
Interdisciplinary Honours Degrees
Approved courses in the Department of Political and International Relations may be taken in the Interdisciplinary Honours Programmes in Industrial Relations, Development Studies, Gender Studies and South African Cultural Studies.
Grading
The final mark for courses taken in the Diploma, Honours and Master’s by Coursework and Thesis degrees consists of a combination of class marks and examination marks. At the discretion of the lecturer concerned, class work may count between 30% and 50% of the final mark for a course and the examination between 70% and 50% of the final mark.
For the Master’s by Coursework and Thesis the thesis counts 50% of the final mark while the courses taken make up the remaining 50%.
Doctoral Studies (PhD)
The PhD consists of a dissertation which must conform to the requirements set out in the Rhodes University Higher Degrees Guide. Prospective students must usually be in possession of a good Master’s degree in either Political or International Studies, or, with the permission of the Head of Department, an approved cognate discipline. Admission will depend also on the availability of suitable supervision expertise in the chosen field of study of any prospective student.
Doctoral students are required to have a thesis proposal passed by the Humanities Higher Degrees Committee by the 30th of November of the year in which the degree is begun. Those who do not succeed in doing so may not be permitted to continue with the doctorate. Thesis proposals must conform to the requirements set out in the Rhodes University Higher Degrees Guide and must be submitted to the Higher Degrees Committee with the approval of the supervisor and Head of department.
Given that PhD students are rarely in residence the sole requirement here is that proposals be submitted in the fields of research of the staff member they propose to work with.
Masters Students
Prospective Masters:
Prospective students are expected to align their individual research projects - BA Hons. research papers, M.A. full/mini theses and PhD dissertations - with the available specialisms of the lecturers in the department. Currently, these are:
Prof. Leonhard Praeg
• Violence, legitimation and terror
• African philosophy
• Collective violence
Dr Tony Fluxman (on sabbatical 1 January- 30 June, 2011)
• False consciousness
• The theory of ideology
• Capitalism and oppression
• The politics of climate change.
Professor Louise Vincent
• Gender studies
• Reproductive rights
• Political identity
• Women in politics
• Multiculturalism.
Dr Sally Matthews (on sabbatical 1 January- 30 June, 2011)
• The study of Africa
• Poverty and privilege
• African political economy
• Race and identity in South Africa.
Professor Paul Bischoff
• Foreign policy analysis
• South African foreign policy
• International organization
• Global governance
• Multilateralism and Diplomacy
DR Booker Magure
- Social Dialogue and Social Movement Unionism
- Civil society and Democratisation
- International Economic Relations
Ms Georgina Barrett:
• Critical security studies
• International political sociology
• The United Nations system.
Mr. Richard Pithouse
• Contemporary political theory
• Anti- and post-colonial theory
• Popular movements
• Urbanism
• Critical race theory
Mr Mike Mavura
- Migration and development
- International and regional Organisations
- International economic relations
Ms Siphokazi Magadla
- Security and Development in Africa
- African Diaspora
- Women in peace and security
- South African politics and foreign policy
Note:
Please be advised that there is a limit to the number of students that can be accommodated in any one course. Therefore students must think in terms of first, second and third choices because it will not always be possible for every student to take only their first choice options.
Honours and Master’s students choose from the same menu of course options and attended classes together but their work is assessed separately and according to criteria appropriate to their level of study.
In the event of too few students wishing to take a course, the course may not be offered.
