EDS383 Global Transitions and the City

The trend to an increasingly urban world is transforming societies globally. This course uses the city as a lens to study these changes. It maps the urban turn in international relations, emphasizing how global market relations shape de-territorializing logics in which cities function as points of connectivity that facilitate global flows of finance and knowledge in the global market society. This makes cities, on the one hand, into powerful actors in global governance, affecting how they engage in solving global challenges such as insecurity, extremism, and climate change. On the other hand, it makes cities visible as places in which many people experience marginalization effects of the global transformation processes that elevate cities globally.

This course approaches cities as fascinating and varied places shaped by multiple interconnections. It approaches cities as a lens on inequality, security, violence, and war in a global perspective. Students in this course are actively involved in researching trends in urban security, marginality, violence, and warfare. Case studies are selected across the global north, east, and south, facilitating engagement with comparison as method. A governance approach is included to emphasize what is being done and to what effect. In collaboration with the organisation Habitat Norway, students are introduced to the history of civil society-involvement in tackling global urban challenges. The course addresses the transformation towards inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable cities (SDG 11) and how to promote peaceful and inclusive societies (SDG16). Theoretically the course engages with international relations theory and related fields, such as urban and development studies, sociology, and geography. It facilitates discussion about developments in specific cities, addresses comparative methodology, and reflects on the broader insights we gain on global order and politics through an urban lens.

Knowledge and competence:

• The student can explain and discuss concepts such as sovereignty, global order, global city, marginality
• The student can explain which historical changes of the global political economy are associated with the global city-concept, and how this concept is linked to global order change
• The student can explain links between the global city-concept and the understanding of urban margins and critically discuss these connections using theory and empirical illustrations
• The student has knowledge of cities as actors in global governance
• The student has knowledge of the urban turn in international relations
• The student is experienced with holistic analysis of social, economic, and political developments
• The student can identify a comparative case study approach and discuss comparative method
• The student can identify relevant sources, and discuss benefits and challenges with case-specific analysis of global transitions
• The student has training in critical thinking and how to analyze empirical sources and draw on theory/conceptual discussion to identify global societal problems, ask questions, and form a judgement

Writing skills and oral presentations:

• The student has training in communicating in writing and orally, to peers, the complexities of global city and global order change
• The student has through independent writing learnt to use empirical illustrations of broader global political phenomena
• The student has through engagement in class learnt to draw on literature and insights from across various fields, including international relations, urban politics and planning, and development studies
• The student has experience with identifying sources relevant to a case study and how to collaborate with peers on a city-project/case study