Introducing the Florentine thinker and political theorist, Niccolò Macchiavelli:

What happens when one of the worst terrorist attacks in history strikes the densest cluster of networks on the planet? How did the largest communications provider in the United States handle the surge in demand? Despite surviving earthquakes, hurricanes and other man-made and natural disasters, the staff at AT and T struggled to cope with the flood of calls that followed the tragic events of September 11th. Over the course of the day they handled in excess of 400 million calls as people in America, and all over the world tried to contact friends and family in New York. This collection gives a snapshot of how the communications company dealt with the unprecedented technological challenges by using techniques such as call gapping to help free up other services.

What are the prospects for cooperation or cooperation in the international system? Will states always be primarily concerned with their own security or is progressive change possible in international politics? Does it matter to international politics if states are democratic or not? And what is the importance of economic change, or gender relations to international politics? In the following seven films, some of the world's leading experts on international relations explore what determines how states and their agents behave in a globalised world and the different theories and analyses that have been developed to make sense of today's international system.

How can the World Trade Organisation (WTO) control international states
without one central world government? Is the WTO just a club for the extremely rich and powerful? The Open University’s Dr William Brown leads discussions around the themes of co-operation, interaction and interdependencies. Dr. Jef Huysmans and Dr. Simon Bromley delve into the political differences between the realist and liberal models used to control large non-governmental organisations.