Description
Course Overview
Political science is a recognized academic discipline that combines the best aspects of the liberal arts tradition. It trains students to think critically while arming them with important information about the 21st century; thus, it prepares them for the workforce and for the demands of democratic citizenship today. It draws on contemporary issues such as geopolitics, immigration, changing demographics, cyberspace politics, and terrorism, and provides students with strong analytic skills in order to analyze these. Moreover, with its combined focus on critical thinking and empirical knowledge, political science empowers students to question the values of our society and to orient our democratic ideals to the changing realities of the current century. Its broad, liberal arts framework inspires active citizenship and offers training that will serve students’ needs throughout their entire lives.
UNIVERSITIES IN BENIN REPUBLIC…
Course Objectives
The basic objectives of the course are for the student to:
- Gain an awareness of different fields within political science.
- Develop basic concepts within political science.
- Develop theoretical and analytical skills.
- Develop comparative skills.
- Develop an understanding of international relations and foreign policy concepts.
- Develop independent critical thinking skills.
- Understand the theoretical nature of what government is.
- Critically explore such concepts as republic, democratic theory, and liberalism.
- Develop an understanding of rational choice theory.
Admission Requirements
Any applicant who meets the minimum entry requirements for admission into the University may be granted admission, the requirements are :
- O’level Result
- Birth Certificate
- Passport Photograph
REGISTRATION PROCESS
To register for any of the available courses take the following steps
- Click on courses on the menu bar or apply now button to pick a course
- After selecting the course, click apply now to add to cart
- View the cart to fill the application form
- Submit the form to go to the payment page
- Complete the payment form and select method of payment and submit.
- You will receive an email letting you know of your registration and your application status
- You will be contacted by one of our admission team member to guide you on the admission.
- After making the payment of application fee admission letter will be sent to your email with fee structure.
- You will need to make payment of at least 70% of the tuition and acceptance fee for you to be granted access to the course applied for.
- After making the payment an email will be sent to your email with access link to your registered course.
- You study online and can come to school every semester for exams.
FEE STRUCTURE
100 level Fee Structure
180,000 Naira Tuition fee
10,000 Naira Application fee
20,000 Naira Acceptance fee
20,000 Naira Examination Fee
30,000 Naira study kit (t-shirt, course guide, workbook, pen, digital material)
Total 260,000 naira
200 level Transfer Fee structure
180,000 Naira tuition fee
10,000 Naira application fee
20,000 Naira acceptance fee
30,000 Naira transfer fee
20,000 Naira Examination Fee
30,000 Naira study kit (t-shirt, course guide, workbook, pen, digital material)
Total 290,000 Naira
Transfer final year 300 level Fee structure
180,000 Naira tuition fee
10,000 Naira application fee
20,000 Naira acceptance fee
20,000 Naira Examination Fee
30,000 Naira transfer fee
20,000 Naira Project supervision fee
60,000 Naira Certificate fee
20,000 Naira convocation fee
30,000 Naira study kit (t-shirt, course guide, workbook, pen, digital material)
Total 390,000 Naira
CURRICULUM
INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL SCIENCE (CSS 131)
The Nature and Scope of Political Science
In this unit, you will be introduced to what Politics is all about. In your day to day activities, you must have heard of the word Politics without actually understanding its meaning. What do you think is Politics? This question has been asked many times in every age before the birth of Jesus Christ – when the Greeks first introduced the idea of the ‘polis’ meaning city-state. It is from ‘polis’ that we derive our modern word politics. Aristotle (384-322 BC) in his book POLITICS first used the term politics to refer to the affairs of a Greek city-state. Aristotle observed that ‘man by nature is a political animal’. By this he meant that the essence of social existence is politics and that two or more men interacting with one another are invariably involved in a political relationship.
Aristotle observed that whenever men seek to define their position in society or as they attempt to achieve personal security from available resources and as they try to influence others to accept their points of view, they find themselves engaged in politics. In this broad sense, every one is a politician.
Today, the word politics is an elastic one. To some authorities, politics is concerned with the ordinary day-to-day activities of the community in which we are all personally involved. To others, including Harold Lasswell, politics has been equated with the study of power or the study of influence and the influential. In fact, Lasswel went as far as to define politics as “who gets what, when how” which underlines the importance of power as the major ingredient of politics.
The Concept of Sovereignty
The term ‘sovereignty’ is from French and means ‘above’ or ‘one who is superior to other’. The term was originally used to identify the king and in this context, the king represents the supreme and final authority of a state. The king by exercising this enormous power of state sovereignty is known as the “sovereign”. Thus, any country/state that is able to conduct its own affairs independent of other states is a sovereign state and as such is equal to other states in international law.
ESSENTIALS OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND DIPLOMACY (POL231)
MEANING, NATURE AND SCOPE OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
International relations (IR) is a continuously popular subject. It concerns peoples and cultures all over the world. The scope and complexity of the interactions between the various groups makes IR a challenging subject to master. IR is new and dynamic and has a special appeal to everybody. However, some people perceive IR as a distant and abstract ritual conducted by a small group of people like presidents, generals and diplomats. This assumption is not accurate because despite the fact that leaders play a major role in international affairs, many other people participate as well. For instance, students and other citizens participate in international relations every time they vote in an election or watch the news. In fact, the choices we make in our daily lives ultimately affect the world we live in.
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, INTERNATIONAL POLITICS AND INTERNATIONAL LAW
In the past, some scholars used the terms, international relations and international politics interchangeably. However, modern students especially those who study political behavior have come to question this usage. They postulate that a distinction ought to exist between the two terms. They believe that failure on the part of the earlier writers and practitioners of international affairs and diplomacy to make a distinction led to the semantic confusion in the study of IR today.
THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM
The unit discusses the structure and characteristics of the international system. It identifies the character of the actors and describes the extent to which power determines the structure of inter-relationships within the system.
POLITICS OF DEVELOPMENT AND UNDERDEVELOPMENTP(POL324)
UNDERSTANDING DEVELOPMENT AND UNDERDEVELOPMEMT
INTRODUCTION
This unit explains what development is all about. Also, it brings into play the contributions made by various scholars in defining the concept of development. It equally identifies the characteristics and scope of development.
What is Development?
Today, we live in a world where many societies are extremely poor, while few others are exceedingly rich. In many countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, millions of people are living in abject poverty. Lack of development has been said to be responsible for this appalling situation. What then is development?
While some people see development as Industrialisation and Modernity or even Westernisation and its artifacts such as cars, trains, refrigerators, television, computers, phone-sets, radio, electricity, textiles, schools, tarred roads, et cetera, for others, development has come to mean the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In other words, to them, development is the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, illiteracy, maternal and child mortality, malaria and HIV/AIDS, gender inequality, and so on.
Development is often used in an exclusive economic sense – the justification being that the economy has a pervasive influence in all societies and also, the economy is itself an indicator of other sociopolitical features of a society. But, development is a multidimensional concept, thus it could be economic, political, social, cultural or even human.
EXTERNAL AGENTS OF DEVELOPMENT AND UNDERDEVELOPMENT
INTRODUCTION
This unit examines the impact of international capitalism and globalisation on the Third world. It interrogates the present construction of the global economic system which from all indications is enriching some few countries in the North while at the same time deepening poverty and underdevelopment in the South. In other words, it unveils the evils of global capitalism and how globalisation is a veritable instrument for their perpetuation.
THE EMERGING ECONOMIES OF ASIA AND SOUTH AMERICA
INTRODUCTION
China is the most populous country in the world and the fastest growing economy in the world as well. It is also a significant political power. It hosts one-fourth of the global population. China’s global impacts are highly significant in terms of trade, investment, the environment and governance. The birth of China as a nation in recent history lies on the bitter civil war between the Communists and Nationalists in the twentieth century, when the nation was harassed by Japanese colonialism which was not only exploitative, but also oppressive and inhuman. The atrocity committed by Japanese during this occupation has remained a subject of discord between two Asian powers, especially when the Japanese tried to justify her action in a history text which generated the “textbook controversy”. However, the victory of Mao Zedong led communist fighters over Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang (KMT) in 1949 and the declaration of People Republic of China on October 1 same year marked the turning point in the struggle of China against perceived imperialism. The war against Japan was effectively won with end of the World War II and the defeat of Axis powers in 1944. Consequently, the Mao led government inherited dilapidated state,wrecked by both civil and international wars, embedded in agrarians economy in a subcontinental scale, but mobilised under the communist ideology which became the foundation of state building. This unit is the brief story of the rise of China from the dust of civil and international wars in 1949 to the second biggest economy, sixty years after, highlighting the revolution; the post Mao reforms on trade and foreign investment and the restructuring of the industrial sector in the light of competitive mode and the need for profitability in State- Owned Enterprises (SOEs).
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND SECURITY (PCR 417)
UNDERSTANDING THE GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM
INTRODUCTION
Understanding the international system is complex as it requires adequate appreciation of nation-building and the maintenance and improvement of relations with other nations in the global community. The system has gone through series of developmental processes until berthing at the contemporary international system that is characterised by a high degree of interaction and interdependence. This unit would deepen knowledge on the various conditions of the international system. The international system is dynamic in nature, and there has been polemics as to whether there is orderliness or not within the system amongst scholars. However, whether there is orderliness within the system or not has implications for global security, which we must understanding is all encompassing.
INTEGRATION THEORY
INTRODUCTION
Integration theory is one of the major approaches to the study of international relations. Within the realm of this theory, there are models that lay the basis for cooperation and collaborations among states. All of these approaches would be thoroughly treated in the unit.
MAIN CONTENT
Integration theory is one of the major approaches of studying international relations. A lot of scholars have shared their views on the meaning of integration theory giving plethora of analyses, but what seems to be generally accepted by all scholars is that integration is the process of merging hitherto isolated parts into a formidable whole, in order to make the newly found co-operations meet the lapses and fill the
lacuna brought about by being isolated. This thereby brings about a co- operative understanding among the component units which enables each to unite to make available to others in the group, its strength, for instance, technology, market, labour, natural resources etc. and be able to tap from other groups to fill its weaknesses, for instance, lack of market, manpower, technology etc. thereby creating opportunities for itself that may not have been possible if it stands alone, and such integration goes a long way in helping it to combat what would have originally threatened its existence.
State Actors in International Relations
INTRODUCTION
International relations is presumed to encompass the whole gamut of relationships in the international system. It involves the issues of high and low politics, the volatile to the mundane, and the conflictual and the cordial. In these very types of relationships, there are actors and players that initiate and carry out the various types of interactions. These actors include the state and the non state actors. There have been debates about the importance of the state in contemporary international relations, the debates remain on going thus, the importance of focusing on the state as an actor without necessarily comparing the state with other actors in the system.
