ASRK22001U Security Studies

Volume 2023/2024
Education

Security Risk Management
Only open for students from MSc in Security Risk Management

Content

The course introduces students to theories, concepts and methods within security studies, thus enabling students to analyse the contemporary complex security environment. It provides students with state-of- the-art knowledge of major issues and subfields within security studies, including the relationship between security and risk. The course places particular emphasis on the expansion of the field beyond core questions of state power, military force and armed conflict, the rapidly changing nature of security threats and new global trends in security policy. Moreover, the course focuses on the contested meaning and political effects of security as issues and decisions are increasingly securitised. The course combines a theoretical and methodological approach to these issues with a practical focus on concrete policy and security dilemmas. Throughout the course, students will be asked to conduct strategic analysis and provide policy solutions through casework and exercises.

Learning Outcome

Knowledge

  • master the important theories, schools and methods within security studies and understand advanced knowledge about currents developments in the field.
  • critically discuss today’s complex threat scenarios, changes in the realm of security policy and the political dynamics of securitisation processes.

 

Skills

  • analyze complex security challenges in a comprehensive and theoretically informed manner.
  • critically evaluate a variety of theories and methods and apply these reflexively in the empirical analysis of security threats.

 

Competences

  • assess the adequacy of concrete strategies and policies.
  • develop and communicate own strategic responses to the complex security threats and dilemmas of contemporary society.

Course literature is a syllabus of 900 pages.

The course is a combination of classroom lectures, exercises and discussions.
  • Category
  • Hours
  • Class Instruction
  • 28
  • Preparation
  • 168
  • Exam
  • 79
  • Total
  • 275
Written
Oral
Individual
Collective
Continuous feedback during the course of the semester
Feedback by final exam (In addition to the grade)
Peer feedback (Students give each other feedback)
Credit
7,5 ECTS
Type of assessment
Written assignment
Type of assessment details
The examination is a five-day written assignment. The exam paper must apply required readings and include an exercise from the course.

The length of the written assignment must not exceed:
• For one student: 24.000 keystrokes (10 standard pages)
• For two students: 40.800 keystrokes (17 standard pages)
• For three students: 55.200 keystrokes (23 standard pages)

For further details on what constitutes a standard page, please refer to the Curricula’s Common Part for the Faculty of Social Sciences.
Exam registration requirements

Eligibility for the exam is premised on the completion of the prescribed exercise, to be approved by the lecturer.

 

Marking scale
7-point grading scale
Censorship form
External censorship
Re-exam

- In the semester where the course takes place: Free written assignment.

 

The re-sit exam is a free assignment. The length of the assignment must not exceed:

  • For one student: 36,000 keystrokes (15 standard pages)
  • For two students: 60,000 keystrokes (25 standard pages)
  • For three students: 84,000 keystrokes (35 standard pages)

 

For further details on what constitutes a standard page, please refer to the Curricula’s Common Part for the Faculty of Social Sciences.

Criteria for exam assesment

Criteria for achieving the goals:

  • Grade 12 is given for an outstanding performance: the student lives up to the course's goal description in an independent and convincing manner with no or few and minor shortcomings
  • Grade 7 is given for a good performance: the student is confidently able to live up to the goal description, albeit with several shortcomings
  • Grade 02 is given for an adequate performance: the minimum acceptable performance in which the student is only able to live up to the goal description in an insecure and incomplete manner

 

The exam and re-sit exam are assessed by an internal and external examiner according to the seven-point scale.