Dublin City University offers Ireland’s largest and most popular set of MA programmes in international studies.
We offer small class sizes with an internationally diverse student body. No other Irish university can offer the same range of electives - delivered by high quality academic staff with real expertise in their areas.
We offer MA programmes in ‘international relations’ , development and international security and conflict studies. Each is offered on a one year intensive full-time basis.
The MA in International Relations is also delivered on a 2 year part-time basis (classes on Fridays from 2m to 8pm), while the MA development is also offered on a 2 year part-time basis with classes over 4 weekends and a one week summer school each year.
DCU has run a Master of Arts in International Relations programme since 1997 which has attracted graduates of every Irish university, as well as students from every other EU member state and beyond to Australia, Bosnia, Brazil, Canada, China, DRC, Ethiopia, India, Israel, Korea, Lesotho, Malaysia, the Maldives, Mexico, Nigeria, Norway, Palestine, Serbia, Switzerland, Vietnam, and the USA. In a typical year about 160 MA students will be studying in DCU – divided into classes of 20 to 25 students, with shared core modules on your chosen programme and a choice of options from which to choose 3 electives.
We offer a wide spread of area studies expertise – delivered by staff who have worked and researched in the regions on which they offer modules – including Africa, Latin America, South Asia, China and East Asia, Russia and the former Soviet space, Central Asia, the Caucuses, the Balkans, Central Europe and the USA (see staff links for details). We also offer a unique mix of traditional political studies, international law and formal language studies in French, Spanish and Chinese and extra curricular classes in Arabic. Finally you can choose thematic options such as human rights law, democratisation, development theory and practice.
Our graduates have gone on to work in a wide variety of interesting positions in diplomacy, international organisations such as the UN and EU, development NGOs, international think tanks and advocacy groups, international businesses, the media, education, the wider social and voluntary sector and on to further PhD level research in DCU itself and in world class universities from Cambridge to Washington DC and Beijing.
An integral part of the M.A. programmes is their extensive use of high profile guest speakers, which include international politicians, officials, academics and diplomats (please see our sample list of guest speakers on the back of this brochure). This practical dimension perfectly complements the theoretical grounding that students gain in other parts of these programmes.
