MA International Relations (Standard)

For entry in the academic year beginning September 2027, the tuition fees are as follows:

• MA (full-time)
  UK students (per annum): £18,200
  International, including EU, students (per annum): £30,900
• MA (part-time)
  UK students (per annum): £9,100
  International, including EU, students (per annum): £15,400

The fees quoted above are fully inclusive of tuition, administration and computational costs.

Fees for entry are subject to yearly review. The University reserves the right to increase your tuition fee by up to 7% each year for courses lasting more than one year, including to reflect rising costs associated with delivering our educational and wider student experience. Postgraduate fees information .

Always contact the admissions team if you are unsure which fee applies to your qualification award and method of attendance.

All students should normally be able to complete their programme of study without incurring additional study costs over and above the tuition fee for that programme. Any unavoidable additional compulsory costs totalling more than 1% of the annual home undergraduate fee per annum, regardless of whether the programme in question is undergraduate or postgraduate taught, will be made clear to you at the point of application. Further information can be found in the University's Policy on additional costs incurred by students on undergraduate and postgraduate taught programmes (PDF document, 91KB).

We know that student finance can be complicated. The links below provide further information to help guide you.

• Learn more about - student finance options for UK students .
• Learn more about - fees and finance for international students .
• Graduates of The University of Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan University can receive a 10% discount on their master's degree tuition fees as part of our Manchester Alumni Loyalty Discount scheme.

Aims: The course unit aims to:

Provide students with a broad introduction to the discipline of Critical Military Studies (CMS).  CMS takes a critical look at the role armed forces and processes of militarisation play within domestic political contexts and in broader international society.  Whilst in an era of professional militaries relatively few people are members of the armed forces, militarism maintains a pervasive impact in the culture and practices of societies across the world.  The course explores the function of military and of organised violence, the origins of the modern military and the way it has evolved into the 21st Century.  It looks at the social processes that help to shore up and sustain the military as an institution, the impact of participation in armed conflict, and the way in which political violence is portrayed, justified and remembered. The course invites students to critically consider the relationship between military apparatuses and violence, and asks whether we can or should try to re-imagine a post-military society in the future. 

The critical aspect of CMS is not necessarily to automatically oppose or dismiss the role of the armed forces.  Rather it is to question under-explored or apparently common sense assumptions about the role, history, practices and influence of the military within society.  Consequently, the course reflects a plurality of outlooks and should be of interest to all students wanting to learn more about the security forces, irrespective of their over-arching ethical views on militarisation and political violence.

• Provide students with an introduction to the different ways in which violence and security are theorised, and how this might shape military practice.
• Introduce students to the history of the modern military and its evolution to the present day.
• Invite students to consider the way in which culture is influenced by militarism, by considering its representation in the media, film, music, photography and spoken word.
• Encourage students to connect practices of militarism with broader structures of identity and power in international politics.

Students should be able to

• Understand the shifts in military practice, technology, strategy and organisation that have occurred since 1945, and the implications this has had on the conduct and consequences of violent conflict.
• Demonstrate detailed knowledge and understanding of the different facets of militarisation within society and how the role of the military is sustained, celebrated and remembered.
• Use their critical capabilities to explore how cultural artefacts and social constructions of gender interact with the military
• Employ their empathic and reflective skills to consider how political violence and military action are experienced by a variety of different actors and the impacts this has on social and political contexts.
• Be able to present their views and ideas to others, clearly and succinctly in both written and verbal form

The weekly seminars provide an opportunity for students to discuss the important themes or concepts and to practice developing their own arguments and exploring those of their classmates.  Seminars will be structured around a specific task, designed to open up space for discussion and debate. 

Depending on the topic in question, this might involve debates, roundtables, role play or ‘flipped classroom’ task where the students report back on a research task that they have prepared in advance.  Seminars will often include prompts for discussion such as film clips and current events. Each week, specific openings will be created in the seminar exercise for students to receive formative feedback relevant to their assessment and to the development of their thinking.

Reflective Report (1000 words – 25% of final grade)

Final Essay (2000 words – 75% of final grade)
 

• Basham, Victoria, Aaron Belkin and Jess Gifkins (2015) "What is Critical Military 
  Studies?", Critical Military Studies, 1(1), 1-2 
• Basham, Victoria (2013) War, Identity and the Liberal State, London: Routledge
• Woodward, Victoria and Claire Duncanson (Eds.) The Palgrave Handbook of Gender
• and the Military, Basingstoke: Palgrave
• Gilmore, Jonathan (2015) The Cosmopolitan Military: Armed Forces and Human
• Security in the 21st Century, Basingstoke: Palgrave
• Booth, Ken (Ed.) (2004) Critical Security Studies and World Politics, London: Lynne
• Rienner
• Heath-Kelly, Charlotte (2016) Death and Security: Memory and Mortality at the 
  Bombsite, Manchester: Manchester University Press 
• Sjoberg, Laura (2014) Gender, War and Conflict, Cambridge: Polity Press
• Woodward, Rachel (2004) Military Geographies, Oxford: Blackwell
• Duncanson, Claire (2009) Forces for Good? Military Masculinities and Peacebuilding
• in Afghanistan and Iraq, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan
• Edkins, Jenny (2008) Trauma and the Memory of Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge
• University Press
• Garton-Ash, Timothy and Adam Roberts (2009) Civil resistance and power politics:
• the experience of non-violent action from Gandhi to the present, Oxford: Oxford
• University Press
• Shaw, Martin (2005) The new Western way of war: risk-transfer war and its crisis in
• Iraq, Cambridge, Polity Press
• Kaag, John and Sarah Kreps (2014) Drone Warfare, Cambridge: Polity