Core Requirements
The following are the core requirements for the International Relations Master's Degree programs. All the requirements must be completed successfully for degree completion.
Core Courses
The Department has established four core areas of study within international relations: Theory and Policy, Economics, Security Studies, and Regional Studies. A variety of courses are offered within each of those four core areas. All students must successfully complete (at least) one course in three of the four core areas to satisfy the core requirement. The list of core courses appears below. (These courses are subject to change due to fluctuations in teaching schedules.) In accordance with Graduate School policy, students must achieve a B- or higher to receive degree credit for any course. Any grade lower than a B- will be considered as failing. Additionally, students must take at least one IR course at the 700 level (either core or elective) in order to complete their degree program.
CAS IR 508 Islamic Political Movements and U.S. Policy
CAS IR 522 Ideas and American Foreign Policy
CAS IR 535 Diplomacy & Statecraft
CAS IR/UNI SS 544 Comparative Political Systems
CAS IR 546 Power & Legitimacy
CAS IR/RN 560 The Politics of Religion, Ethnicity, and Nationalism in International Relations
CAS IR 573 Introduction to Public International Law
CAS IR/PO 574 Ethics and International Relations
CAS IR 594/GE 594 Global Environmental Negotiation and Policy
GRS IR 712 International State Systems
GRS IR 770 Public International Law
GRS IR 772 Classics of International Relations
GRS IR/GE 794 International Environmental Affairs
CAS PO 581 National Development and International Policies
Economics
CAS IR 527 Political Economy of China
CAS IR 575 Political Economy of Mexico and NAFTA
CAS IR 587 Political Economy of the Middle East
CAS IR 590 Political Economy of Latin America
CAS IR 596 Globalization and Contemporary Capitalism in Advanced Industrialized Nations
CAS IR 597 Sustainable Development in Latin America
GRS IR 704 Global Economic and Development Policy
GRS IR 759 International Institutions for Finance, Development, and Trade
GRS IR 760 Political Economy of the European Community
GRS IR 765 Japanese Political Economy
GRS IR 789 Globalization, Development, Governance
CAS PO 523 Global Justice
GRS PO 842 Comparative Development and Underdevelopment
GRS SO 720 Development and Underdevelopment
CAS IR 503 U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East
CAS IR 504 The Persian Gulf / Arabian Peninsula
CAS IR 506 India: An Emerging World Power
CAS IR 509/PO 573 Islam in Middle East Politics
CAS IR 538 France, Europe, and the World: The History of French Foreign Policy
in Modern Times
CAS IR 539 State-Formation and Nation-Building in Southeastern Europe: From
Byzantium to Brussels
CAS IR 540 Committing to Defend Europe: The U.S. and the U.K.
CAS IR 541/UNI SS 541 Russia's International Policies I
CAS IR 542 Reemergence of Russia
CAS IR 543 Changing Face of Eastern Europe
CAS IR 545/UNI SS 545 European Diplomatic History
CAS IR 549 Politics and International Relations of the Federal Republic of Germany
CAS IR 550 West European Integration
CAS IR 551 Social Europe: Identity, Citizenship, and the Welfare State
CAS IR 552 Nordic Europe
CAS IR 562 Politics and Religion in Modern Europe: Church-State Relations in
Comparative Perspective
CAS IR 567 Latin American Politics
CAS IR 568 U.S.-Latin American Relations
CAS IR 570 Politics and Social Change in Postwar Japan
CAS IR 577 Foreign Policy of China
CAS IR 586 Islam in South Asian Politics
GRS IR 706 The Iranian Revolution and Its Impact on the Middle East
GRS IR 764 Seminar on China in the Contemporary World
GRS IR 767 Latin American Comparative Politics
GRS IR 787 The Latin American Policies of the United States
GRS IR 788 International Relations of Asia-Pacific
GRS IR 802/UNI SS 802 Russia's International Policies II
GRS HI 731 Topics in Modern France
Security Studies
CAS IR 516 Homeland Security
CAS IR 521 Congress and National Security
CAS IR 557 Guerrilla Warfare and Terrorism
CAS IR 578 Foreign Intelligence and Security Systems
CAS IR 581 The Evolution of Strategic Intelligence
CAS IR 583 Aspects of Defense Planning and Technology
CAS IR 589 North Atlantic / European Security
Issues
GRS IR 722 U.S. Foreign Policy after 1989
GRS IR 750 Defense Policies of Nations
GRS IR 778 Problems of Strategic Intelligence
Elective Course Requirement
In addition to the core courses, students also take elective classes. The number of elective classes a student takes varies depending on the specific degree program in which the student is enrolled. For our One-Year MA program, the number of electives is five. For other programs, please see the page for the program you are interested in to learn the number of required electives. Approved electives include all graduate (500-level and above) courses offered in the Department of International Relations, non-IR classes included in the lists of core courses, and the courses listed below.
GRS AN 718 Southeast Asia: Tradition and Development
GRS AN 771 Political Anthropology of the Modern World
COM CM
531 Intercultural Communication
CAS PO 565 Government and Politics in Contemporary Africa
GRS PO 621 The Political Economy of Advanced Industrialized Societies
GRS PO 841 Quantitative Research Methods
GRS SO 820 Women and Social Change in the Developing World
Language Requirement
All students in the Department of International Relations are required to demonstrate graduate level reading proficiency in a foreign language prior to completion of the degree program. Graduate level proficiency is the ability to accurately understand newspaper and professional journal articles in the field of foreign relations, using standard reference materials. For more details on the Foreign Language requirement, see our page on the foreign language exam.
In the case of non-native English speakers who were required to submit a TOEFL score report as part of their application for admission, knowledge of English fulfills this requirement.
Statistics Requirement*
Students must pass a two credit (or more) undergraduate (or higher) level course in statistics prior to completion of the degree program. Students may satisfy this requirement by presenting documentation of previous course work or successful completion of CAS MA 113 or CAS MA 115 at Boston University, or an equivalent course outside the University.
Instead of a dedicated statistics class, students may elect instead to take IR 702, Research Methods for International Relations Practitioners. This class will fulfill the statistics requirement and will also count as an IR elective toward the MA. Students who have not completed the statistics requirement prior to beginning their studies at BU are strongly encouraged to take IR 702 to satisfy this requirement.
For IR/MBA students, GSM QM 716 or GSM QM 717 will fulfill both the statistics requirement and a GSM core requirement. For IREP students, GRS MA 614, GRS MA 684, GRS GE 516 and GRS GE 712 will fulfill both the statistics requirement and a CEES elective. For IRIC students, COM CM 722, Communication Research, will fulfill the statistics requirement and will also count as either a COM core class or a COM elective.
Please note that all statistics classes must be taken for a letter grade (A-F), and any class taken at BU will be reflected in the student's grade point average. Online classes are not accepted.
It is recommended that students in the one-year program either fulfill the statistics requirement prior to beginning their studies at BU or plan on taking the IR 702 course. Students in the other programs may wish to do so as well.
*The statistics requirement does not apply to students in the International Relations and Religion degree program.
Master's Paper and Comprehensive Examination Requirement
All candidates for the Master of Arts degree in International Relations are required to write a Masters paper for degree completion. The paper may take one of two forms. Students can choose to write either a traditional research paper or a policy paper and are given broad latitude in selecting topics and approaches, in consultation with their advisors. A policy paper addresses a current issue and makes recommendations for a course of action to introduce new ideas or change an existing policy. Additional information on the paper guidelines may be found here.
All papers must be defended orally in front of a panel of three professors, who are chosen by the Department (one of the three professors will be the student's advisor). The purpose of the oral examination is to test the student’s knowledge in the area of research related to the MA paper and to test the student’s ability to discuss that knowledge at length in a clear and organized manner. Oral Defenses are held three times each year, in September, December, and April. Further information as well as current exam schedules may be found here.
Although it is possible to complete the MA Paper while also fulfilling the course requirements of the degree, most students do most of the work on their MA Paper after completing their coursework. Therefore, most students will require one additional semester after finishing their course work in order to complete their degree program. While working only on their MA Paper, students register as a continuing student each semester until work on the MA paper is completed. See below for more details on continuing student status.
Students are not permitted to defend their MA Paper until all other requirements of the degree have been met. Exception: in the case of students defending in December or April, it is understood that the students' current semester courses may not yet have concluded at the time of the Oral Defense.
Continuing Study
Most students complete all of their coursework and other requirements and then spend a summer or one additional semester at BU working on, and then defending, their MA Paper. During this final semester, students do not pay full-time tuition. Instead, they register as a 'continuing student' and pay tuition equal to that for a two-credit class. Click here to see current tuition and fee information.
Students in any of the six GRS based programs (IREL, IRRN, IREP, IRIC) are permitted a total of three years to complete their MA program, dating from the time of their matriculation into the program. Students in the IRJD and IR/MBA programs should check with the Law School and Graduate School of Management, respectively, for the time to degree limits of their programs.
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