University of Ghana International Relations

LECIAD was specifically established in 1989 by the University as an International Relations and Diplomacy institute within the Faculty of Social Studies at the request of Ghana’s Foreign Ministry.
LECIAD is thus an academic unit within the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Ghana but with a strategic link with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. LECIAD has since earned a reputation as a dynamic, innovative, prestigious and world renowned institute for studies in International Affairs.
LECIAD’s philosophy and approach to teaching and research in International Affairs is all-encompassing based on a critical and continuously evolving debate that seeks to empower our students to understand the past and the challenges of our present world especially the post-Cold War and post-9/11 dynamics. As an institution located in Africa, LECIAD focuses on addressing some of the persistent challenges facing Africa.
The Centre’s values are thus shaped by the history of Ghana as Africa’s political liberation forerunner, and doyen of democracy and good governance. Africa’s standing in the global political economy informs the Centre’s adoption of a problem-solving approach to the study of international affairs.
The Centre thus combines theory and research in order to come to terms with the issues of critical importance to Ghana, Africa, the developing world, and the international community.

University of Ghana International Relations Admissions

INTA 601: INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
The course explores the foundations of International Relations in its classical, evolutionary and contemporary frameworks. It examines the scope, methods and tools of analysis, and probes the three contending theories of the field, namely: realism, liberalism and globalism. Important concepts, including the following are clarified: structure, actors, power, and levels of analysis; balance of power and polarity; the national interest; foreign policy and decision-making; co-operation, interdependence, regimes and international organisations. Critical to the course is the political economy of international relations, which covers such issues as regionalism, integration and the developing world, globalisation and the contradictions of global capitalism.

INTA 641: INTERNATIONAL LAW

The course examines the basic concepts and some of the most important aspects of international law. These include the making of international law, the context and the nature of international law, legal personality and the role of states, law of the sea, air and outer space, human rights, dispute settlement and the international use of force. These issues are examined with emphasis on the needs of the internationalist.

INTA 661:         INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS
The course explores the regulatory problems of international economic relations from an interdisciplinary perspective. Using economic, legal and political science frameworks of analysis, the course focuses on the regulation of international trade and the problems therein to individual contract, national and international levels. World trade regimes and financial institutions are also focused upon for their international regulatory role. Transnational corporations, the debt crisis and the politics of structural adjustment are also examined.

INTA 620:         RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This course is designed to enable students understand the function and process of research. These include the identification of research problems, the structure and content of research report. Methods of determining causal relationship and data collection, as well as data analysis and interpretation are examined.

INTA 620:         APPLIED FIELD METHODS
Focuses on logic of hypothesis testing, modes of gathering data, sampling, experimental and non-experimental, index construction, bivariate and multivariate techniques, and casual inference fallacies. Practical information is presented on transforming hypothesis into a fieldwork setting, questionnaire construction and administration, and interviewing techniques.

INTA 602:         REGIONALISM AND INTEGRATION: THEORY, HISTORY
AND PRACTICE
The course is designed to explore the origins, nature and evolution of regional co-operation and/or integration among states in the international system. It also examines the theoretical assumptions of regionalism and the contemporary trends and issues of regional politics. Conceptually, the various approaches to integration are analysed. These are federalism, functionalism, neo-functionalism, supra-nationalism, communications and transaction. In addition, regional organisations like the EU, OAU, NATO, NAM and the Commonwealth are focused upon. Sub-regional organisations like ECOWAS, ASEAN, NAFTA, SADC and the Arab League are also explored. The structure, membership functions, problems or limitations and successes of these bodies are emphasised.

INTA 604:         TOPICS IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY

This course is to help students familiarise themselves with a variety of broad theoretical perspectives of international politics and global economic situation. These are approaches to the study of power, ideology, state interests, peace and war, and equilibrium; a critique of liberal, conservative and Marxist conceptions of international politics; grand theory, political and economic interpretations of systems structure and the values that shape the perspective of international politics.

INTA 606:         INTERNATIONAL CONFLICTS AND CONFLICT
RESOLUTION

The course presents the various theoretical approaches to understanding conflicts; the structure of conflicts; and the different approaches to the analysis, prevention, management and resolution of conflicts. The course, while examining all forms of conflicts in the international system, places special emphases on Third World conflicts, particularly, intra-state conflicts. The role of civil society, groups, states, NGOs and international organisations in conflict management are explored. The course seeks to enable students to develop knowledge, skills, values and behavioural alternatives, which can be used for the management of conflicts.

INTA 608:         COMPARATIVE POLITICS

The course introduces students to the most important theories and approaches in contemporary comparative political analysis. These include modernisation theory and political development; political culture; political regimes, institutions, the state, and elites; and political participation. It also explores and compares revolutions and transitions to democracy. Examples are from the United States of America, France, India, Kenya, Mexico, and Ghana.

INTA 612:         POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT

The attempt to understand how political systems change and why they evolve in the ways that they do has preoccupied students of comparative politics since the Second World War. This course takes stock of this project to date, examining early attempts to explain modernisation, the rise to prominence of the developmentalist paradigm, the criticisms levelled against the mainstream views by dependendistas and world-systems theories, indigenous models of development, post-modernism, and the recent rebirth of the political development approach. Examples are drawn from sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean basin, and Oceania.

INTA 614:         COMPARATIVE PUBLIC POLICY

The course attempts to provide answers to questions such as: Why do the various national governments develop the policies that they do? Why do countries facing similar problems respond with different public policies? The course also considers a wide range of issues such as housing, health, education, environmental, macroeconomic, and social policies across advanced industrial and developing countries. Additionally, the course assesses competing explanations for the patterns of crossnational similarities and differences in policy formulation and implementation. Special attention will be paid to the recent world-wide trend towards privatisation.

INTA 616:         AREA POLITICS COURSES

The aim of the course is to develop students’ expertise in the often-unique political life of particular regions and sub-regions. The course also seeks to complement and deepen their foreign language training and comprehension. The cluster of area-specific courses are: the Politics of West Africa with French or Swahili option; Politics of Southern/East Africa with Swahili option; Politics of Latin America with Spanish or Portuguese option; Politics of the Middle East with Arabic option; Politics of East Asia or the Pacific Rim with Japanese option; and Politics of the former Soviet Union with Russian option.

INTA 618 GHANAIAN FOREIGN POLICY

The course examines the concept of foreign policy environment: internal and external: the natural-material basics of Ghana; social structure, social forces and the foreign policy public. It also focuses on themes and instruments of foreign policy; economic and leadership factors; the bureaucracy, contingency and situational factors. Furthermore the course looks at the regimes; realists and idealists; continuity and change; trends and prospects.

INTA 622          ISSUES IN GHANAIAN FOREIGN POLICY

The course examines Ghana’s relations with her neighbours; the West African sub-region; Africa, the Commonwealth; the Non-Aligned Movement; Trade and Technology Transfer; the OAU and the UN. The course also explores the topical foreign issues of vital interest to Ghana.

INTA 624:         AFRICA IN WORLD POLITICS

The course examines Africa’s place and role in the conduct of international affairs. The socio-historical path, trodden by the continent in an effort to be part of the global system is assessed. Special emphasis is placed on the kind of impact the global system has on Africa at every turn in the continent’s history. Consequently, issues such as colonialism, neo-colonialism, the Cold War and its demise, the Debt Crisis, Structural Adjustment and Globalisation challenges are stressed. These are discussed against the background of contending theoretical positions, especially neo-classicists and structuralists.

INTA 626:         COMPARATIVE FOREIGN POLICY

The course focuses on the impact of dynamic interaction of internal and external environments on foreign policy. Areas include moving forces in international politics: nationalism, race, ideology, colonialism, imperialism, neo-colonialism, trade, strategic, religious and idealist concerns. Liberal/Industrial states (USA, Britain, France, Germany, Canada, Japan etc.) in the world: totalitarian/industrial states (former USSR and China) in the world; developing countries and radical-revolutionary states in the world.

INTA 628:         ISSUES IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS

This course examines the structure, processes and challenges of the contemporary international system; the UN, world peace, development, and crisis resolution. There are seminars on at least three topical issues in the international system.

INTA 642:         LAW OF DIPLOMACY AND INTERNATIONAL
INSTITUTIONS
The course covers the Law of Treaties; Diplomacy and Diplomatic Law; International Institutions – classification, common problems; UN Systems; African Regional and Sub-regional Organisations; Use of Force and Peacekeeping; War, Neutrality and Disarmament.

INTA 644:         INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS

HISTORY, THEORY AND PRACTICE

The course explores the conceptual and historical origins of international institutions; Theories of International Organisation and integration-Cupertino, co-ordination, harmonisation, functionalism, regionalism; the UN systems, and the role of the United Nations in matters of peace and security; Peacekeeping; Regional Organisations; Sub-regional Organisations; Non-Governmental Organisations and Specialised Agencies. The course also examines the problems associated with such international institutional issues as, constitution, legal personality, succession, dissolution, membership and participation, termination and exclusion, plenary and executive bodies, voting procedures, budgetary arrangements, secretariats, privileges and immunities, co-ordination, implied powers, interpretations, sanctions and enforcement.

INTA 646:         THE LAW OF THE UNITED NATIONS

World order based on the rule of law has always been one of mankind’s dreams. The course examines the theory and practice of international law in the UN. It covers legal problems relating to the organisation, functions and powers of the main organs of the UN. The emphasis is on the problem of financing peacekeeping operations, the exercise and the threat of force in international relations. Others include the interpretation and evolution of the UN Charter; the UN’s constitutional problems; the UN’s international status; work of the Sixth Legal Committee of the General Assembly; work of the International Law Commission; cases before the International Court of Justice and the War Crimes Tribunals.

INTA 662:         INTERNATIONAL TRADE AND DEVELOPMENT

This course looks at the debate about the use of export promotion strategies as an engine for development, which concerns the ability of countries in other parts of the developing world to replicate the achievements of the Newly Industrialised Countries. This course also looks at the advantages developing countries enjoy under the various preference systems of the GSP and the Lome Convention, and what have been the main constraints to their utilizing such advantages.

INTA 664:         GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS AND DEVELOPMENT

The course seeks to address such questions as, what gives the goods/products of a country a competitive edge over others? How is such competitive advantage acquired? What is the role of government in export promotion strategies? The course combines international business strategy and international marketing tools to explore the options to producers from developing countries that want to penetrate overseas markets.

INTA 656:         INTERNATIONAL FINANCE AND DEVELOPING
COUNTRIES

Both the theory and practice of international financial relations are examined from the developing countries perspective. The course also provides an analytical framework within which identified principal issues of interest to the developing countries are discussed. These include the issues of balance of payments disequilibria, stabilisation and adjustment, exchange rate policy, North/South interaction, foreign aid, commercial lending, relations between the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) and the developing countries, and external debt.

INTA 658:         POLITICS OF STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT

The course explores the interaction of external and domestic political influences on the initiation, implementation, and outcome of economic adjustment. It looks at such issues as international influence on economic policy, conditionality and the role of international financial institutions in funding and sustaining structural adjustment programmes in developing countries.

INTA 682:         SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN THE MODERN WORLD

A.            NUCLEAR REACTIONS; USES OF NUCLEAR ENERGY

This course considers such issues as nuclear power generation; problems of safety; waste disposal; safety against nuclear weapons proliferation; Welfare in the Nuclear Age; the Atomic bomb and the Hydrogen bomb; missiles and deterrence; Economic viability and alternative sources of energy.

B.            INTERNATIONAL ASPECT OF NEW DEVELOPMENT IN BIOLOGY

Areas that covered in this course are: Environment and Development; Climate change; Water resources development and its impact on health; Biodiversity and conservation; Genetics; Biotechnology.

C.            PSYCHOACTIVE DRUGS: THEIR SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL
IMPLICATIONS

This course covers the following areas: definitions and Terminology: Drug Abuse, Non-medical Drug Use, Compulsive Drug Use, Tolerance, Physical Dependence, Chemical Dependence, and Addiction. The course also examines issues associated with the genesis of drug use and dependence: motivation for drug use, curiosity, spiritual search, pleasure or recreation, psychological alienation, and apathy. Individual drug types, their action on the body, and their social impact and politics are also explored.

INTA 684 AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY
The United States of America emerged as the most dominant state in the international system at the end of the Second World War in 1945. Rejecting its traditional foreign policy of ‘isolation’, it adopted an ‘internationalist’ and ‘interventionist’ foreign policy between 1945 and 1990. It shared pride of place with the Soviet Union as joint superpower; but since the demise of the Cold War and the dawn of the new era, the United States of America has been the sole superpower, whose whims, policies and strategies have constituted the thrill of international relations and are likely to remain so into the foreseeable future. It has also drastically altered the both the international systemic structure and the conduct of foreign relations in the military, political and socio-economic spheres.

The Course is designed to explore the historical and dynamic forces which explain and influence the choices and decisions of the sole superpower in the international system. It provides an opportunity to critically examine the historical roots and undercurrents of the American foreign policy as well as the controversies which mark America’s relations with other actors in the system. It also examines the role of the different branches of the American government – the Judiciary, Executive, Congress and the Mass Media in American foreign policy-making and her foreign policy towards specific regions and actors of the world: namely Africa, Europe, the Middle East, Russia, China, Japan, NATO, and the United Nations.

INTA 686       International Humanitarian Law
The History, Scope and Development of International Humanitarian Law. Sources of International Humanitarian Law. International Humanitarian Law and Concepts of War and Armed Conflict. The Relationship between International Humanitarian Lawand International Human Rights Law. The two Principle Sectors of International Humanitarian Law: Law of Geneva and Law of the Hague. Fundamental Rules and Principles of International Law including implementation mechanisms and sanctions for violations. International Humanitarian Law Non-International Armed Conflict. International Humanitarian Law in Non-Structured Conflicts of Today. Treatment of Combatants and Prisoner-of-War Status. Protection of Civilians during Hostilities. Means and Methods of warfare: the Problems relating to the Prohibition of certain Weapons such as anti-Personnel Mines.

INTA 688       Gender and International Relations
The Course is a study of gender in the international context, with particular attention being paid to gender issues in African politics and development. Important to the overall study of gender and global affairs is developing a critical understanding of key concepts and assumptions that form the foundation of international feminist theories. In addition the Courseconsiders the extent to which gender division of power and labour converge with other social divisions (e.g., class, religion). Another important focal point of the course is gaining an understanding of the struggles to redefine human rights and to promote gender equity, especially where women are concerned.

INTA 603:    The Ghana Armed Forces, the Ghanaian State, and the International System
The aim of the course is to introduce students to origins, foundations, aims and purposes of the Ghana Armed Forces since the colonial times. It is also structured to highlight the changes, performances, controversies and debates that characterised the Armed Forces roles in the annals of the (post-colonial) GhanaianState. It covers the colonial times; transition to independence; the early post-independent Ghana; the Armed Forces and the Constitutions of Ghana; the Armed Forces and Ghanaian Politics; the Armed Forces and the Ghanaian Society (Military-Civilian Relations, Disaster Management, Internal Crisis, and Ceremonies); and, the Armed Forces and Contemporary Democratic Dispensation. It stresses the Armed Forces’ restructuring and adaptation to the changes and exigencies of the national and international arena.

The second segment explores Ghana Armed Forces’ roles vis-à-vis National Security; Ghana’s Foreign Policy especially in terms of International Peacekeeping and United Nations’ Observer Missions (Cold War Era), Contemporary International Security Exigencies, and the West African Sub-Region (ECOWAS and ECOMOG). It concludes with a projection on Ghana Armed Forces and the Future of National Security and Defence Policy parameters in anticipation of the changes that the world is undergoing. On the whole, the Course offers the students the chance to relate and interpret the concrete Ghanaian situation to the idea they picked up in the Course on International Relations (INTA 601). The Course should enable the students who take it to take active part or provide leadership in the formulation of national defence policy or segments of it.

INTA 605:    Security and the African State
The aim of the course is to introduce students to the origins and foundations of the African state and the nature of security of problems that are common to it. It opens with the (legal, juridical, and empirical) definitions of the state. It also explores the theories and concepts that explain Traditional African Institutions, Colonialism, and Social Change (political, economic, cultural, and social structures, normative values, and human agency) that occasioned the emergence of nation-state in Africa.

The course explores post-colonial state, and the processes, contradictions and conflicts of state-building from the perspective of the colonial legacy, nationalism, (state and elite) legitimacy, institutions, international system, Cold War, and post-Cold War neo-liberal policies. It highlights issues such as ethnic heterogeneity, porous borders, sub-nationalism, weak economic and political institutions, weak social cohesion, internal threats to national security, vulnerability and marginalisation, lack of technology, demography, environmental degradation, health threats, civil wars, regional security complexes, refugees, poverty disease, irredentism, resource inadequacies, unemployment, and corruption. The course also examines integration/regionalisation processes and experiences the Africa had undergone and the inherent implication for the continent. Particular emphasis is laid on OAU, AU, NEPAD and the various sub regional integration organisation.


INTA 662:    Conflicts and Conflict Management in Africa
The course is designed to be in two parts. The first part explores the theories, and concepts that explain the types, sources, nature, (internal and external) dynamics and causes of conflicts in Africa since the 1950s. It covers the foundations, nature, and contradictions of African states and societies, and highlights their inherent implications for conflict formation in Africa. Contemporary internal and international developments and issues such as globalisation, terrorism, end of Cold War, Structural Adjustment Programmes, neo-liberal policies, ‘warlordism’, irredentism, demography and the environment, ethno-politics, and their impact on conflicts and conflict management in Africa are also explored with particular emphasis on contemporary civil strife.

The second part reviews the concepts and practice of conflict management and resolution in Africa under the UN, and OAU during the Cold War. It proceeds to highlight the sea-change in post Cold War conflicts and their management mechanisms (ADR instruments, including mediation, negotiation, ceasefire, peacekeeping, peace enforcement, humanitarian assistance and aid, disarmament-demobilisation-reintegration (DDR), peace-building; issues of impunity and transitional justice; truth and reconciliation commissions, and human rights tribunals), with particular emphasis on the role of international and regional organisations such as the AU, and ECOWAS; as well as other actors such as states, statesmen, traditional institutions, and religious bodies. The Course would enable students engage in meaningful conflict mapping exercises with a view to developing appropriate intervention policies for their management and resolution.

INTA 664:    Globalisation: States, Non-State Actors and Issues
The course seeks to improve students’ understanding of the term globalisation in its multi-faceted dimensions. It explores globalisation as a continuing process by examining Institutional Clusters (surveillance, coercion, capital and industrialisation) as integrative forces along the tribal societies-nation states-state system continuum. The course provides the linkage between the restructuring of trans-national corporations (increasing technological innovation and obsoleteness, cost of research and development, and diversification and integration in quest of stable market shares in order to achieve economies of scale amortise capital ‘debt’); emergence of trans-national corporations as major players in the international political economy; Reaganomics and Thatcherism in the pre-post Cold War era; heightening communication, and the emergence of globalisation as a phenomenon.

The course joins the debate of whether the phenomenon is globalisation or regionalism, by critically examining its complex processes manifestations, and paradoxes of globalisation-localisation, integration-fragmentation, harmonisation-differentiation, the interdependence and competition between states, MNCs, and International Institutions as well as NGOs. It examines its forms and manifestations in terms of neo-liberal policies (SAP, ERP, mono-economics, mono-politics, socio-culture and communication) at the end of the Cold War. The course highlights the effects of globalisation on states, especially post-colonial states and societies (changes in global and intra-state distribution of wealth and direct foreign investment, withdrawal of the developmental state, redeployment, unemployment, privatisation etc), and the emergence and currency of non-state actors such as NGOs, rebirth of ethnic, religious, sub-national and other forms of popular identities. It also examines the neo-medieval, post-modernist back-to-the-future discourse that characterise (new) social morphology of globalisation and the inherent implications for international development, peace and security, especially with reference to NEPAD and its implication for African states.

INTA 692:         PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

This course focuses on the meaning and scope of Public Administration, classical models; Weberian Bureaucratic model; mixed models, including prismatic and exploitative models. It also examines the organisation of Public Administration; Central Government Administration; Decentralisation, Deconcentration and devolution; public enterprise and international civil service.

INTA 694:         ISSUES IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
This course examines the merit system; performance appraisal; administrative adjudication; public accountability; revenue mobilisation; public expenditure; financial control; administrative development; civil service law, rules and regulations.

University of Ghana International Relations Contact

Legon Centre for International Affairs and Diplomacy, University of Ghana,

: P.O. Box LG 25,; Legon – Accra; Ghana
: [email protected]
: https://www.leciad.ug.edu.gh