Contributor(s): Peter Wilson | This course is compulsory for the MSc International Relations & MSc International Relations (Research) and for students taking MSc International Relations as part of the LSE-Sciences Po Double Degree in Affaires Internationales. It is not available to students on any other degree programme. This course has 5 objectives: (i) to enquire into the nature of international politics and the role of general theory in advancing our understanding of it; (ii) to introduce the main contributions to the general theory of international politics; (iii) to provide students with a range of concepts, ideas, and perspectives to enable them to widen and deepen their understanding of international politics; (iv) to encourage critical, independent, thought; (v) to ascertain the extent to which progress has been made in our understanding of international politics, and more tentatively to what degree international politics itself can be deemed intrinsically or latently progressive. The primary pedagogical device of the course is a close reading of 13 seminal IR texts. Students are encouraged to investigate the epistemological assumptions underlying these texts, the methods of analysis they employ, their importance in the canon of IR, and their value for thinking about international politics today.