IR5072 Erasing the Global Colour Line: Decolonisation and the Making and Unmaking of the Third World

Academic year

2025 to 2026 Semester 2

Further information on which modules are specific to your programme.

Key module information

SCOTCAT credits

30

The Scottish Credit Accumulation and Transfer (SCOTCAT) system allows credits gained in Scotland to be transferred between institutions. The number of credits associated with a module gives an indication of the amount of learning effort required by the learner. European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) credits are half the value of SCOTCAT credits.

SCQF level

SCQF level 11

The Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF) provides an indication of the complexity of award qualifications and associated learning and operates on an ascending numeric scale from Levels 1-12 with SCQF Level 10 equating to a Scottish undergraduate Honours degree.

Availability restrictions

First preference to be given to MLItt International Political Theory students, but subject to spaces being available, open as a module to other MLitts in the School and other Schools

Planned timetable

Wed 10am - 12noon

This information is given as indicative. Timetable may change at short notice depending on room availability.

Module coordinator

Prof S Seth

Prof S Seth
This information is given as indicative. Staff involved in a module may change at short notice depending on availability and circumstances.

Module Staff

Prof Sanjay Seth

This information is given as indicative. Staff involved in a module may change at short notice depending on availability and circumstances.

Module description

‘Race’ and racism not only shaped the social contours of many western countries, they also underpinned an international order dominated by a few European countries possessed of empires. After World War II anticolonial nationalism remade this imperial international system, replacing empires with numerous sovereign and formally equal nation-states. Drawing upon international history, international relations and postcolonial theory, this course examines 1) the momentous events and processes that remade the world 2) the subsequent emergence of the ‘Third World project’ to fashion a world free of domination of one peoples over others and 3) its subsequent decline and demise. Questions that run through the course include: why did most anticolonial movements culminate in nation-statehood?; was this a strength or a weakness?; did the Third World project fail, and if so, why?; and finally, what lessons might be drawn from this for those who still seek a just and equitable world order?

Assessment pattern

Coursework = 65%, Examination = 35%

Re-assessment

100% Written Examination

Learning and teaching methods and delivery

Weekly contact

I seminar (2 hours) x 11 weeks

Scheduled learning hours

22

The number of compulsory student:staff contact hours over the period of the module.

Guided independent study hours

275

The number of hours that students are expected to invest in independent study over the period of the module.

Intended learning outcomes

  • Identify the central determinants in the remaking of the international political order after World War Two
  • Compare conventional or mainstream historical accounts of the making of this international order with critical accounts, particularly those according centrality to decolonization in the remaking of ‘the international’
  • Identify and assess the importance of notions of ‘race’ to the international system of empires, and to the processes of decolonization that replaced this with a world of nation-states
  • Compare and assess differing accounts of ‘imperialism’, and of its importance in the past and in the present