Course catalogue

This class is tailored to students with prior knowledge and/or training in (micro) economics. The course will cover a selected set of policy-relevant topics in applied microeconomics. In doing so, we will discuss conceptual foundations particularly empirical methods for establishing causal relationships and apply these to a rich set of policy domains. Starting from evidence on income inequality, the first part of the class (Sessions 1-8) discusses redistributive policies: income taxation, welfare programmes (incl. universal basic income), and minimum wages. We will empirically explore (and quantify) responses to these policies and analyse welfare implications. The last third of the course (Sessions 9-12) discusses corrective policies in the context of externalities. Next to traditional environmental externalities (and conventional, Pigouvian responses such as CO2 taxation), we will also explore the correction of internalities (e.g., in the context of sugar taxation). Note that the course will be centred on policies affecting individual and household decision-making. We will not tackle Macroeconomic questions and hardly discuss the choices of firms.

This course gives students an advanced theory-driven overview of global politics, focusing on how states approach governance problems that they cannot solve alone, and on the international institutions created to provide public goods. The guiding theme is the contestation of global authority and governance structures. By the end of the course, students will be able to understand and explain the trajectory and the challenges of global politics from a political science perspective. They will be able to review academic literature relating to global politics and formulate research designs at the Master level. The goal is to practice evidence-based scientific arguments on these topics. The course will also provide insights into various topics that relate to the three streams of the Master of International Affairs. This course is suitable for more advanced students who have already done substantial coursework in international relations (IR). Choose this class if you have an undergraduate degree/major in International Relations, International Politics, and/or Political Science and if you know the basic theories of IR such as realism, (liberal) institutionalism, or constructivism and if you are familiar with introductory-level governance concepts. Students who do not have a full IR degree but have done substantial coursework on IR topics should also take this class.

The course is on exploratory statistical methods for data analysis. Hence its aim is somewhat comparable to Hertie's Statistics I and Statistics II. However, it will go beyond these courses in terms of methodological/mathematical depth. Advanced quantitative methods and modeling tools will be introduced and used for making sense of numbers. Examples and data are taken mainly from economics and health sciences. Data analysis will be performed using R.

This course teaches basic sociological concepts and empirical methods that enable students to study mobility across the life course. How long does it take to leave poverty or unemployment? What determines upward mobility in the labour market? When do individuals leave education, the parental home, get divorced or have a child? How do patterns vary by gender, education, family context, migration background and country? In order to answer questions of this kind, we use micro-level data from various sources. Moreover, students will get familiar with classical methods for longitudinal data. These include, in particular: Event history modelling, sequence analysis and fixed-effects regression. Some R skills (usually obtained in STATS I) are useful.

The incredible pace of technological change during the past 20 years and the impacts on national security have posed enormous theoretical, practical and policy challenges for policymakers and legal systems throughout the world. Technological disruption has forced the law to grapple with rapidly changing conceptions of jurisdiction, privacy, national security, intellectual property and copyright protection, government regulation, competition, hacking and other technology-based criminal activity.

This course will focus on cutting-edge issues in technology and the law. The course will focus on the national security and public policy aspects of advanced technologies such as 5G wireless broadband technology, autonomous vehicles, drones, artificial intelligence, virtual/augmented reality, Blockchain, crypto-currency, location-based technology, facial recognition, biometrics and social media.

We will examine the emerging legal and public policy responses to these advanced technologies in the United States, the European Union and elsewhere, as well as special problems arising in the areas of national security, terrorism, crime, and cybersecurity.

The course centres on advocacy and the politics of change. The purpose is to help participants understand the tools and approaches to evidence-based policy influencing and learn to use strategic advocacy analysis and planning tools. The course blends learning discussions about agenda-setting, policy design and decision-making institutions, with systems and stakeholder analysis, and practical work for a client to understand their context and design an advocacy campaign.

We start by introducing concepts and methods for analysing political contexts and meet the client civil society organisation. We deepen our understanding of the client’s political, economic and social context to better design an advocacy campaign on their priority issues. Looking at policy influencing approaches on anti-corruption and human rights issues, we will discuss their comparative strengths, limitations and impact. We present the client with our advocacy strategies for feedback.

By the end of the course, participants will be able to:

Understand and describe tools for analysing political contexts and actors, and setting advocacy objectives

Present an advocacy strategy designed for a client to make the case for policy change

Share ideas and discuss common aspects of advocacy campaigns

Understand and communicate about systems thinking about decision-making institutions, mechanisms and modes of agenda-setting

How do local governments across the world integrate artificial intelligence into public administration, and what can German cities and municipalities learn from them? This project course explores international approaches to public-sector AI adoption, with a special focus on cases from the Global South. Students will conduct guided country case studies in collaboration with the IPAI Foundation and Possible Digital. Their findings will directly contribute to the empirical foundation of an ongoing project to develop an index of transferability for local government AI initiatives, assessing how successful approaches abroad can inform German public sector modernization efforts. Students will work closely with practitioners and experts and, if the Index is published, will be publicly credited for their contributions.

This course begins with an introduction to game theoretic analysis. We study the concepts and models used to analyze strategic behavior, including normal and extensive form games, games of incomplete information, finite and infinitely repeated games, auctions, and mechanism design. We then review recent advances in computer science in the development of algorithms to analyze these problems, and to design a better world. Finally, we explore applications of algorithmic game theory to the development of AI; to structuring social interactions in markets and on the Internet; and to the future of social science research. This course requires as a prerequisite Mathematics for Data Science or a similar course, in particular a working knowledge of multivariate calculus and optimization. The course will occasionally rely on some methods of mathematical proof (e.g., proof by contradiction, proof by induction, etc.), but prior exposure to them is not assumed.

The course examines the foreign and security policy trajectory of current EU candidate countries: Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia and the Western Balkans and their place in evolving European security architecture between 2014 and 2025, focusing on public administration reforms and security cooperation as two ways to eliminate ‘grey zones’ of influence by non-democratic state actors, primarily Russia. The course will include case studies on Moldova (resisting the pull of Russian influence), Serbia (negotiating a borderline position between the EU and authoritarian partners) and Georgia (succumbing to authoritarian backlash despite many years of successful reforms).

This course provides "hands-on" experience with logistic regression analysis. This course does not teach "dry" statistical techniques. Instead, all lectures start with a social policy-relevant research question. Together with the instructor, students will develop an understanding of how to choose the right data set, how to prepare the data for empirical investigation, and how to conduct simple but sound empirical investigations. We focus on methods for discrete data. This is because most processes in political science are discrete. To give some typical examples: What determines xenophobic attitudes? What affects poverty and social exclusion? What factors relate to intimate partner violence? To answer such questions in a regression framework, logistic regression techniques are commonly used. We draw on data from across the globe, including data from Latin America, Africa and Asia.

This course will cover applied research methods frequently used in health policy research. The course will cover causal analysis methods applied to policy problems in the field of healthcare. Students will be introduced to randomized control trials and other quasi-experimental methods with a focus on recent development in health economics and policy. This is a methods course and therefore a significant portion of the course will be dedicated to in-class application of research methods.

This course critically examines the ethical dilemmas and societal transformations driven by artificial intelligence (AI), equipping students with analytical frameworks to engage with these developments responsibly and strategically. Students explore fundamental questions at the heart of contemporary AI debates: How does AI reinforce or disrupt existing power structures? Who is accountable when algorithmic systems replace or shape human judgment in hiring, welfare administration, democratic processes, and defence? What forms of work, creativity, and leadership remain distinctly human in an AI-driven economy? How should AI be governed to balance innovation, fundamental rights, democratic legitimacy, and sustainability?

Through interdisciplinary engagement with scholarship, expert practitioners, and scenario-based simulations, the course examines how AI reshapes public administration, business models, creative industries, democratic discourse, and global competition. Particular attention is given to the transformation of labour markets, the role of AI in information ecosystems, and the environmental and geopolitical dimensions of large-scale AI systems. Students develop competencies in evaluating AI deployments across technical, ethical, legal, and governance dimensions, preparing them to navigate AI's integration into institutional practice. The course situates AI within broader questions of regulatory design, organizational capacity, and long-term societal resilience.