In your prior education, some topics might not have received the attention you hoped for, considering the choice for the master's programme in International Public Management and Public Policy. In this respect, you might feel the need to catch up before you start the programme. Below you will find a list of suggested readings to choose from that provide an introduction to the major themes that we will discuss during the master's programme and that might help you in preparation for it:
Catch-up readings
On the European Union:
- Lelieveldt, H. & Princen, S. 2023, The Politics of the European Union, Cambridge University Press.
- As a primer to the EU: How Does the EU Actually Work? (By The Atlantic).
On international organizations/global governance:
- McGlinchey (Ed.) (2017). International Relations [Part One: The Basics]. Bristol, UK: E-International Relations Publishing. Available at https://www.e-ir.info/publication/beginners-textbook-international-relations/.
- Walt (1998). International Relations: One World, Many Theories. Foreign Policy(110), 29-46. Available from https://doi.org/10.2307/1149275.
- Jervis (2016). Theories of International Relations. Costigliola & Hogan (Eds.), Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations (pp. 9-24). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Available from http://www.siwps.org/wp-content/uploads/Robert-Jervis-Theories-of-International-Relations.pdf.
On international economics:
- Leigh A. (2024), The Shortest History of Economics, Collingwood : Black Inc.
- A podcast: Banik Dan (2025) In Pursuit of Development, in-pursuit-of-development.simplecast.com. You can pick (a few themes) you are interested in and get more familiar with how international development is approached from diverse scholarly perspectives.
On comparative public policy:
- Bekkers, Fenger and Scholten (Eds.) (2017) Public Policy in Action. Perspectives the policy process. Edward Elgar Publishing.
- Howlett, Ramesh and Perl (2020). Studying Public Policy. Principles and Processes (4th edition), Oxford UP.
On international public management:
- Christensen & Lægreid (2013). Administrative Reforms in Western Democracies. In J. Pierre & B. G. Peters (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Public Administration (pp. 577–589). SAGE Publications Ltd. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446200506.n38.
- Ongaro, van Thiel. Massey, Pierre, & Wollmann (2018). Public Administration and Public Management Research in Europe: Traditions and Trends. In The Palgrave Handbook of Public Administration and Management in Europe (pp. 11–39). Palgrave Macmillan UK. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55269-3_2.
- Pollitt, van Thiel, & Homburg (2007). New Public Management in Europe. Management Online REview, 1–6. Available at: https://repub.eur.nl/pub/11553/.
On social science research design and methods:
- On thinking like a social scientist: Causality https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAAxQW_TB0A&t=4s; Conceptual models https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9T_992QeUqI.
- Van Thiel (2014).Research Methods in Public Administration and Public Management: An Introduction, Routledge (new edition forthcoming).