300472 Die Politik der Polargebiete: Arktis und Antarktis im System der Weltpolitik (LEH: Politische Soziologie) (LEH) (WiSe 2026/2027)

This 2-semester course will intensively introduce students into how research questions and research projects are designed and executed. The course will substantively deal with the politics of the polar regions in the system of world politics, and enable students to require a broad and profound knowledge of two world regions that have often alluded the attention of social scientists, but obviously have been gaining in importance in world politics in many respects: be it as important sites and amplifiers of global climate change, be it as sites of latent or manifest geopolitical and geoeconomic conflicts. The first semester will focus on a broad introduction to, and immersion in, the relevant themes, and be devoted to the development of a collaborative overarching research question and agenda. In the second semester, the students will design more specific research questions in this context, which will be developed into individual papers (‘Prüfungsleistung’), but also feed into the overarching collaborative endeavour.
Although formally optional, it is an important part of the course, and strongly encouraged (with some limited financial support), that students participate in a range of events that take place in a concentrated fashion in February 2027 (Internationale Polartagung Bremerhaven; Themengruppe Polar- und Meerespolitik Bremen).

PLEASTE NOTE: The FIRST meeting of the course will be on 19 October!

Requirements for participation, required level

It is not possible to take this course without a sufficient command of English, and it is envisaged that the main course language will be English; however, in case it turns out that ALL participants are native German speakers, the language for course discussions will mostly be German