300464 Star Wars or Star Trek? Space Exploration between Conflict and Cooperation in World Politics (World Politics II) (S) (WiSe 2026/2027)

Since the beginning of the Space Age in the 1950s, International Relations (IR) scholarship has been divided on the question of whether space politics is characterized by conflict and competition or stands as an exceptional domain of international cooperation. This question is currently receiving more attention due to the major increase in space exploration activities in recent years. Plans for crewed missions and permanent human presence on the Moon and Mars are gaining momentum and China, Europe, India, Russia, and the USA have ambitions to land on the Moon within the next decade. The growing involvement of commercial actors further contributes to the complexity of the situation.
In this seminar, we will investigate this dichotomous interpretation of conflict versus cooperation in outer space and analyse how it corresponds to different theoretical perspectives in IR. We will explore this from a historical angle by looking at the early Space Age, the Apollo era, and the International Space Station, as well as from a contemporary perspective. Thus, this seminar offers an overview of critical developments in the political history of space, how international space governance evolved, and how technological developments are entangled with cooperative or conflict-driven action in world politics. The seminar enables students to critically engage with competing narratives of cooperation or conflict in outer space and to identify key actors and governance structures in this field.