Module Title: The Great Powers Today
Module Leader: Professor Brendan Simms
Module Description:
What are the great powers today, how do we categorise them, and how do they act? This class will explore how definitions of great power status have evolved over the past two hundred years, and what might constitute great power status today. This class will also explore how the Great Powers behave and how the global balance has shifted over the past ten years or so. It will foreground history as a key driver and constraint for both the rising and the declining actors, and geography and identity as key variables. This course is an exercise in contemporary history rather than political science and may not be suitable for those with a strong theoretical bent.