Program Overview

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Global Security and Borders (MA)

Overview

This new MA programme offers students the opportunity to engage with the crucial interaction of global security practices and borders as sites of power, identity and politics. The programme aims to help students navigate this complex terrain by providing a firm grounding in critical border studies. At the core of this programme is the chance for students to apply their academic insights within a work-based environment with borders/security professionals through the Borders Internship module.

Course Structure

A unique course, not offered anywhere else in the UK or Ireland, through which you’ll critically examine how pressing security issues are increasingly being felt at border sites around the world.

In the first semester, you’ll explore how issues such as migration, security, human rights, technology and sovereignty converge at key border sites. The curriculum responds to current transformations in global politics, and addresses entrenched problems through contemporary case studies.

In the second semester, you will engage with these issues first-hand on an intense semester-long Borders Internship. Students will spend 10 weeks in a government department or local organisation crafting policies that address borders, security and conflict. You will produce a substantial Briefing Paper for your organisation, and present this work to wider audiences. During the summer, students will work exclusively on their independent MA dissertation.

People teaching you

• Dr. Heather Johnson: Senior Lecturer
• Dr. Merav Amir: Senior Lecturer
• Professor Cathal McCall: Professor of European Politics and Borders
• Professor David Phinnemore: Professor
• Professor Debbie Lisle: Programme Convenor
• Professor Katy Hayward: Professor of Political Sociology

Teaching Times

Teaching takes place at a variety of times from 9-8pm Monday – Friday.

Learning and Teaching

In general, there is an average of six hours contact teaching hours per week for the first semester. In the second semester, as well as two hours contact on an Elective module, the Borders Internship module will involve three days of a work-based placement per week for 10 weeks, as well as dedicated supervision with a member of academic staff.

Students should expect to spend 10-12 hours of independent study for every two hours in seminars and lectures, spread across the course of the semester. However, the second semester Borders Internship involves a more complex mix of work-based learning and supervision.

Cognitive Skills

• Develop advanced analytical, reasoning, literacy and communication skills.
• Solve problems, process and prioritise a wide variety of information, and express sophisticated arguments and positions in oral and written form.
• Enhance their knowledge of relevant methodological and theoretical approaches to key issue areas relating to global security and borders.
• Identify and articulate advanced level arguments relating to global security and borders in oral and written form.

Knowledge and Understanding

• Engage in relational thinking by acknowledging how pressing issues of global security are revealed most clearly in the operation of borders, and how borders expose the contingency of state sovereignty and the international system.
• Demonstrate an advanced awareness and understanding of the foundations of Critical Security Studies and Border Studies within International Relations.
• Understand how Critical Security Studies and Border Studies relate to different theoretical approaches to global security and borders within International Relations.
• Recognise the interdisciplinary influences on Critical Security Studies and Border Studies and acknowledge how these inform its development.
• Understand how critical theories of global security and borders translate into different practices at border sites, even when those sites are radically dispersed.
• Apply contemporary academic debates about global security and borders to contemporary bordering practices.
• Critically engage in debates on key developments in the politics of global security and borders.
• Reflect upon the ethical and political implications and developments in global security and borders.
• Engage in depth with a wide range of key issues in a theoretically informed way.
• Pursue independent, creative and critical thinking through both written work and group debate and discussions.

Subject Specific Skills

• Understand the key and evolving debates in Critical Security Studies and Border Studies.
• Critically engage with arguments relating to global security and borders, including contemporary bordering practices, the ethical and political implications of efforts to increase the security of borders, and moments where border security fails.

Transferable Skills

• Acquire and develop advanced subject-specific skills, as well as organisational, professional and career development skills that will be beneficial in further research, education and employment.
• One of the MA's core modules – the double-weighted PAI7097 Borders Internship – is key to providing transferable skills relating to employment.

Modules

Core Modules

• Borders Internship (40 credits)
• Approaches to Research Design (20 credits)
• Dissertation (60 credits)
• Global Security and Borders (20 credits)

Optional Modules

• Global Ireland (20 credits)
• Social Injustice (20 credits)
• Comparative Territorial Politics (20 credits)
• Freedom and modernity (20 credits)
• Global Development (20 credits)
• Policy analysis and evaluation: From theory to practice (20 credits)
• Diplomacy and Influence in International Affairs (20 credits)
• Interest Groups, Lobbying and Advocacy (20 credits)
• Global Terrorism (20 credits)
• The UK and Europe (20 credits)
• The Politics and Political Economy of Energy and Low Carbon Energy Transitions (20 credits)
• Feminism(s), Gender and Global Politics (20 credits)
• Global Political Economy (20 credits)
• Ethnic conflict and consensus (20 credits)
• Contemporary Security (20 credits)
• The Politics and Institutions of Northern Ireland (20 credits)
• The Politics of the Republic of Ireland (20 credits)
• Institutions and Politics of the European Union (20 credits)
• Conflict Intervention (20 credits)

Entrance requirements

Graduate

• A minimum of a 2.2 Honours degree (with minimum of 55%) or equivalent qualification acceptable to the University in a Social Sciences, Humanities or Arts subject; or a minimum of a 2.2 Honours degree (with a minimum of 55%) or equivalent qualification acceptable to the University in any subject with relevant professional experience.

International Students

• Our country/region pages include information on entry requirements, tuition fees, scholarships, student profiles, upcoming events and contacts for your country/region.

English Language Requirements

• Evidence of an IELTS* score of 6.5, with not less than 5.5 in any component, or an equivalent qualification acceptable to the University is required (*taken within the last 2 years).

Tuition Fees

• Northern Ireland (NI) 1: £7,300
• Republic of Ireland (ROI) 2: £7,300
• England, Scotland or Wales (GB) 1: £9,250
• EU Other 3: £21,500
• International: £21,500

Additional course costs

• Students will undertake internships located mostly in the Greater Belfast area. Where the internship requires travel outside the Belfast area, the School of HAPP will negotiate with the host institution/provider to cover travel costs.

Career Prospects

• All of the MA programmes offered in the School provide our graduates with the skills to pursue a wide range of careers in the private, public and voluntary sectors. In addition they provide an appropriate basis for those who wish to proceed to Doctoral-level study.
• Former students on the Global Security and Borders programme have gone on to the following careers:
  • Fully funded PhD Programme in the US
  • UK Navy
  • New York Police Department
  • Immigration services in Ireland
  • Law School in the US
  • Civil Service in Canadian Federal Government

Graduate Plus/Future Ready Award for extra-curricular skills

• In addition to your degree programme, at Queen's you can have the opportunity to gain wider life, academic and employability skills. For example, placements, voluntary work, clubs, societies, sports and lots more. So not only do you graduate with a degree recognised from a world leading university, you'll have practical national and international experience plus a wider exposure to life overall. We call this Graduate Plus/Future Ready Award. It's what makes studying at Queen's University Belfast special.

How to Apply

• Apply using our online Queen's Portal and follow the step-by-step instructions on how to apply.

Terms and Conditions

• The terms and conditions that apply when you accept an offer of a place at the University on a taught programme of study.
• Queen's University Belfast Terms and Conditions.