Comparative Security and Sustainability
MIT OpenCourseWare offers this graduate seminar on how states define and pursue security and sustainability in international relations. The course is organized in three parts, each built around seminar sessions that pair theoretical frameworks with methods for empirical analysis. Topics move from classical and critical security theory through environmental and resource sustainability to comparative case studies of how different states balance the two under pressure from conflict, scarcity, and climate change. Materials include the syllabus, weekly readings drawn from political science and international relations scholarship, and discussion questions that structure each seminar meeting. The course is intended for students already familiar with basic international relations theory who want to compare how different national contexts frame the tradeoffs between military and environmental security. As with other MIT OpenCourseWare offerings, all lecture notes and readings are free to access, there is no instructor interaction or certificate, and the course is meant for self-directed study rather than formal credit.