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Sage Politics Webinar Series
We host a groundbreaking line-up of contemporary politics experts, practitioners, and instructors to help you enhance your politics teaching. Engaging with the hot topics of the day, each of these webinars unpack an aspect of politics teaching, from political theory to IR theory; from policy making and UK Politics to the politics of development.
Explore our webinar library:
Teaching concepts as windows into international relations
with Dr Felix Berenskötter, Dr Somdeep Sen and Professor Tanja Aalberts
Teaching undergraduate students to understand and engage with IR theory through the traditional ‘isms’ can be challenging. But what if we introduced concepts as an alternative and accessible way of thinking about - and teaching - international relations? In this webinar and panel discussion, Dr Felix Berenskötter will discuss the relevance of, and pedagogical approaches to, working with concepts as windows into world politics. It is premised on the view that concepts play a crucial role in ordering and giving meaning to reality for both academics and practitioners.
Teaching students to critically examine the world
with Dr Catherine Goetze
In this webinar, Catherine Goetze will discuss some of the ‘tricks’ she uses in World Politics that can help teachers and students alike to think outside the box and critically examine the world. By teaching students how to see the world using approaches to IR like feminist, queer, and post/decolonial IR or critical IPE and historical sociology, we offer a toolkit of transferable skills around thinking critically and robust, rigorous analysis in a way that’s not dogmatic.
Teaching research design in Politics and International Relations
with Dr Anouk Rigterink and Dr Mareike Schomerus
Are your students anxious about learning methods? How to teach research methods without resorting to a quant-qual divide? Do your students struggle to decide on a research project? Would you like your students to be sensitive to knowledge hierarchies? Join Anouk S. Rigterink and Mareike Schomerus, authors of the newly published textbook Research Design in Politics and International Relations as they introduce ways in which teaching research methods can empower students to think like researchers, help overcome common student anxieties and reignite students’ curiosity for political questions.
How can we teach political theory in a global and comparative way?
with Professor Leigh Jenco, Professor Paulina Ochoa Espejo & Professor Murad Idris
What would political theory look like if we taught it as inherently global and comparative from the beginning, rather than adding “non-Western” voices as piecemeal additions? This webinar introduces Political Theory by Jenco, Ochoa Espejo, and Idris, a textbook that challenges the idea of a neutral core by juxtaposing political thought across time and space, offering fresh insights and practical teaching techniques to transform the discipline.
Beyond Westminster: an innovative new approach to teaching UK politics
with Dr Alan Convery
Teaching UK politics goes beyond institutions and Westminster—join our exclusive webinar with Alan Convery to explore new strategies for making lectures more engaging and accessible. He’ll introduce UK Politics, a textbook that rethinks the UK as a ‘post-Westminster’ polity, covering the nation’s multi-national nature, representation, and key political topics, while offering flexible approaches for lecturers.
Why big ideas matter when teaching political theory
with Dr Simon Stevens
Political theory lecturers must balance decolonization with maintaining canonical knowledge while managing heavy workloads, which often hinder curriculum enrichment. This webinar will introduce a disruptive canonical approach, which Simon Stevens writes about in his textbook, Political Theory: Why Big Ideas Matter, showing how it supports both lecturers and students in navigating these challenges.
How do identities shape UK Politics? And how can we engage today's students more effectively?
with Joanie Willett and Arianna Giovannini
With a general election on the horizon, questions about whether formal mechanisms like elections are truly representative of the UK society as a whole have become vital. This webinar explores these tensions and demonstrate how identities are not only crucial for political change, but also for the way we teach and study UK politics.
Teaching the politics of development when everything about development is political
with Claire Mcloughlin, Sameen Ali, Nic Cheeseman, and David Hudson
This webinar explores how instructors can usefully define, analyse, and teach the politics of development through a pathbreaking new perspective. By looking at the three 'I's – interests, institutions, and ideas – listeners will be guided through the politics of development as a process of contestation, and how this process happens everywhere and anywhere.
Teaching students to engage with International Relations Theory
with Hubert Zimmermann and Alex Burkhardt
Drawing on debates around international intervention– from Afghanistan and Syria, to Ukraine, and the war in Gaza– this webinar illustrates how educators can cultivate a class where theories are treated as indispensable tools to develop a critical eye in the ambiguous and complex realm of international politics.
Teaching the next generation of policymakers: How to prepare them for the challenges ahead
with Arjen Boin and Martin Lodge
In a world where countries are being routinely threatened by 'polycrises' such as international conflicts, climate change, and cyber vulnerabilities, it falls on dedicated policymakers to help translate complex political goals into tangible results. This webinar tackles how to infuse the next generation of policymakers with the resilience and enthusiasm to deal with these threats
But can it be applied? Teaching theory with practice in Security Studies
with Norma Rossi, Malte Riemann, Maria Stern, Johny Arokiaraj P, Soumita Basu, Tim Stevens
A panel of Security Studies instructors and practitioners discuss how to engage students of security studies with an innovative 'problem-based approach'. Panelists presented on topics such as cybersecurity, gendered violence, and development with vital theoretical lenses to answer the question: How do we decipher the meaning of security in the complex contemporary landscape?
Making statistics accessible and relevant in Politics and IR
with Matthew Loveless
“What accounts for some political conflicts escalating to war?”
This webinar answers key questions and discusses how to best engage students with statistics. Sharing his 20+ years of experience, Matthew explains how teaching statistics as a combination of intuition, creative skill, and a wider contextual understanding is more effective than rote ‘number crunching’.