Master of Arts (MA) in International Relations & Global Politics | IRGP Zeppelin University

The current world order is under pressure due to global challenges such as the effects of climate change, migration, and the rapid development of digital technologies.

Balancing the protection of their own interests with conflict and crisis prevention, international organizations, states, civil societal and private players negotiate, debate and argue every day about how to deal with these challenges of global governance. The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has emphatically highlighted the critical importance of domestic and foreign political processes.

During the course of the interdisciplinary, two-year master's program “International Relations & Global Politics | IRGP” our students will independently learn how to ask the crucial questions about every one of these challenges and how to develop research-based solutions.

Thematic focus and course structure of master's program

This new master's program creates the space and time for students to tackle these current challenges in-depth, in areas such as security policy, war and peace, development policy, and environmental and climate policy.

It teaches students which non-state players have an influence on political processes and equips them with the specialist skills and understanding of the conditions required for successful and sustainable models of international politics.

The curriculum allows students to prioritize political science topics of their choice, with a range of required elective modules available for advanced studies.

Course facts and information

• Qual­i­fi­ca­tion: Mas­ter of Arts (M.A.)
• Stan­dard pe­riod of study: 4 se­mes­ters (= 2 years)
• ECTS points: 120
• Non-con­sec­u­tive
• Course lan­guage: Eng­lish
• Lan­guage skills: Good knowl­edge of Eng­lish is nec­es­sary
• Course be­gins: Fall se­mes­ter (Sep­tem­ber)
• Fac­ulty: Fac­ulty of Po­lit­i­cal & So­cial Sci­ences
• Fees per se­mes­ter: €5.490

Interested? Please note the language requirements

Be­cause IRGP is an Eng­lish-lan­guage grad­u­ate pro­gram, very good Eng­lish lan­guage skills at C1 level are re­quired. Ger­man lan­guage pro­fi­ciency is de­sir­able, but not a manda­tory ad­mis­sion re­quire­ment. If there is a re­quest to take courses from our other grad­u­ate pro­grams, Ger­man teach­ing for­mats may be avail­able to you.

Interdisciplinary and research orientation of master's program

The big is­sues and prob­lems fac­ing in­ter­na­tional pol­i­tics can rarely be solved using the ap­proaches of a sin­gle aca­d­e­mic dis­ci­pline. That's why this study pro­gram has a sys­tem­at­i­cally in­ter­dis­ci­pli­nary focus.

Cur­rent top­ics in in­ter­na­tional re­la­tions and global pol­i­tics are thus an­a­lyzed and aca­d­e­m­i­cally ex­plored by both stu­dents and lec­tur­ers using cross-de­part­men­tal meth­ods and modes of thought.

Along­side the di­dac­tic in­te­gra­tion of re­search pro­jects as part of the lec­tures and/or sem­i­nars, stu­dents also have the chance, within the re­quired elec­tive sub­jects, to take a re­search mod­ule (Eli­nor Os­trom Pro­ject) where they ad­dress a cur­rent re­search topic of their own choos­ing.

Practical orientation and international employment prospects of the master's program

As a re­sult of the dig­i­tal­iza­tion process and pro­found po­lit­i­cal and so­cial up­heaval, the de­mands on cur­rent lines of work in the field of in­ter­na­tional re­la­tions and global pol­i­tics are in­creas­ing.

The the­o­ret­i­cal and prac­ti­cal skills taught in this mas­ter's pro­gram, in­clud­ing such top­ics as war and peace, the shap­ing of for­eign pol­icy and how to deal with new se­cu­rity threats in a glob­al­ized world, are of sig­nif­i­cant im­por­tance here.