Bachelor 2025/2026

International Development Cooperation

Type: Elective course (International Relations)

Delivered by: School of International Affairs

When: 4 year, 1, 2 module

Open to: students of all HSE University campuses

Language: English

Contact hours: 36

Course Syllabus

Abstract

This course will expose the students to international development cooperation as a multidimensional realm of international relations with a distinctive anthology of milestone documents and terminology.It will help the class navigate through a dynamic ecosystem of international development cooperation of the XXI century, familiarize with its core elements – both state and non-state - and differentiate between modalities of their interaction. The students will learn to think critically about the agendas and actions of bilateral and multilateral donors and understand the complexity of interlinkages between politics, economics and humanitarianism in development policies. They will gain the knowledge about management models, strategic priorities and practices of the leading Western and non-Western providers of development cooperation – the United States, the European countries and the EU as a collective donor, China and other participants in the South-South cooperation, as well as the Russian Federation.They will also acquire skills to identify and explain variations in sectoral and geographical allocation of development finance by a given actor and to track development finance flows from/to any country or region on the globe. The course will include a tailored set of assignments implying the use of both qualitative and quantitative methods: colloquiums, debate participation, tests and several tasks on exploring statistical data. Collectively, these assignments will help acquire the skills which might be useful for any other educational or career trajectory but might have particular relevance for those students who will choose international development as their area of specialization.