| Qualification | Start dates | Entry requirements | Full- or Part-time | Assessment | |
| Master of Arts (MA) | January September | First or Second Class degree or relevant work experience | Level of English required | Full-time | Exam, written assessment and dissertation |
Course outline
The MA in Security, Intelligence and Diplomacy combines elements from our existing Security and Intelligence MA and our new MA in Diplomacy. Like all of our MA programmes, it aims to help to prepare graduates for careers in foreign and other ministries, international organisations, international journalism and global civil society organisations or for further research. Areas of study include intelligence and international security since 1939; intelligence, tradecraft and machinery; case studies in intelligence success and failure; international law and diplomacy; foreign policy analysis; global diplomacy; security challenges and other global issues. The modules are taught intensively in lectures, seminars and small group tutorials; they assume little prior knowledge but rapidly bring students to an advanced level of understanding. Buckingham is a small academic community and students have personal and frequent access to their instructors. The programme is also suitable for those without a specific career aim in mind but who wish to acquire an advanced understanding of these subjects.
Teaching staff
David Armstrong, PhD (ANU), Professor of Global Politics. Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and founder / editor of Diplomacy and Statecraft and editor of the Review of International Studies. He has many publications, initially on aspects of East Asian international relations and in the last twenty years on international organisation and international law.
More information about David Armstrong.
Anthony Glees, MA MPhil DPhil (Oxford) is professor of Politics at the University of Buckingham and directs its Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies (BUCSIS). He was a student at St Catherine’s College, Oxford and then an associate and senior associate member of St Antony’s College. His previous full-time appointments were at the universities of Warwick and Brunel (where he was latterly professor of politics).He has a specialist concern with Security and Intelligence issues and has written and lectured on aspects of the history of British intelligence, on the Stasi, on Islamism, on terrorism and counter-terrorism, on subversion in western democracies both today and in the past. He takes a particular interest in European Union and German affairs and contemporary history (on which he has also published extensively).
More information about Anthony Glees.
Julian Richards, PhD (Cantab). Joint founder of Buckingham’s Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies, Associate of the Pakistan Security Research Unit (PSRU) at Bradford University, and an active member of the European Ideas Network (EIN). Previously member of the Ministry of Defence.
More information about Julian Richards.
Assessment
Assessment will take the form of written assignments and examinations and an individually supervised 12,500-word dissertation. Candidates whose total average mark is above 70 are awarded the MA with Distinction; those whose total average mark is between 60 and 69 are awarded the MA with Merit; those whose total average mark is between 50 and 59 are awarded the MA and those whose total average mark is between 40 and 49 are awarded the Diploma.
