Master in Politics, Administration & International Relations

For experts on science & research, foundations, parliaments, civil service, associations, international organizations, non-governmental organizations, opinion research centers, political consulting, journalism, public relations.

New Educational Dimensions for the Management of Politics, Administration, and Organizations

The public sector finds itself in one of the most important phases of transformation in the history of modern statehood. The following examples are indicative of this profound change:

1. European integration;
2. new global and regional interdependence;
3. the call for more efficient and more citizen-oriented administrative management;
4. debates about privatization, public-private partnerships, or de-bureaucratization;
5. the introduction of Electronic Government;
6. the crisis of confidence in public institutions, with issues concerning ethical standards and new forms of political communication. This doesn't just include public, communal, and international administration, but rather public enterprises, non-government organizations, non-profit organizations, and political authorities such as alliances, parties, and parliaments.

The new generation of executives in the public sector needs ever-more management and strategic expertise to prepare them for making complex decisions in the dynamic environment of politics, economics, and society – on both a national and an international level.

ZU offers an innovative training and research program in the form of management-oriented politics and administrative sciences with international relations, in which social scientific elements of organizational research and policy research are combined with economics, management skills, and the most important elements of public law.

In this context, the faculty of Public Management & Governance sees itself as a research and education laboratory which promotes problem-centered training for the public sector in interdisciplinary dialog, with an international profile, and in a theory-driven way.

The following characteristics particularly distinguish the master program in "Politics, Administration & International Relations".

1. Specialization Within Master Degrees

Three tracks are available:

TRACK I: International Relations & Global Politics

How are the political aspects of international economic relations arranged? How is development policy directed? How is international law constituted? How are European and international political processes arranged?

TRACK II: Political Institutions & Decisions

How do political decision-making processes work? What do we learn from psephology? How do people behave politically? Which players and institutions define politics?

TRACK III: Public Goods & Services

Can public goods be restricted? How can the performance of organizations be measured and improved? What recent developments are there in the area of E-Government?

2. Research Project

What de­fines aca­d­e­mic work? Aca­d­e­mic vs. prac­ti­cal work. Are they op­po­sites?

The best way to an­swer this ques­tion is to pur­sue aca­d­e­mics your­self. Be­gin­ning with the for­mu­la­tion of a con­crete ques­tion which should be an­swered by means of the choice of meth­ods, through the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the analy­sis, to the in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the re­sults, the stu­dents will have the sup­port struc­ture of the pro­fes­so­rate at hand while car­ry­ing out their au­tonomous aca­d­e­mic work.

3. Co-operation with the Universities of Konstanz and Zürich

The pol­i­tics and ad­min­is­tra­tion fac­ul­ties of the Uni­ver­sity of Kon­stanz, the Uni­ver­sity of Zürich, and Zep­pelin Uni­ver­sity have joined forces to pool their ex­per­tise. Se­lected ZU mas­ter stu­dents re­ceive a travel schol­ar­ship to at­tend courses in Kon­stanz or Zürich.