This is my notebook for the degree, opened in public. BA in International Relations, University of Minho, first year. It is not a textbook and does not try to be: it is what I use to study, left out in the open for anyone taking the same courses.
I write this as the semester goes. Whatever is marked open is readable now; the rest is still being written and appears when it is ready. I would rather show an honest empty shelf than an invented summary.
The notes that are already written, in Portuguese. Markdown to edit, PDF to print. They are mine, but the work is meant to be used — take it, cut it, and correct me if something is wrong. Where a text's authorship was not confirmed, I left the warning in the note rather than deleting it.
Hover the spines or use the list. Arrows and Enter work too.
⚠️ POR CONFIRMAR: autoria e ano da obra das leituras 1-4 não estão visíveis nos PDFs distribuídos. Confirmar na bibliografia do docente antes de citar em trabalho avaliado.
1,577 words · Updated 2026-09-28
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Six ways into the same notes. Each on its own page, so this one does not grow without end. Everything runs in your browser and nothing is stored on any server.
First semester. Each one has its own corner: lecture notes, required reading, unresolved questions, and whatever counts for assessment.
The course that hands you the map: how to look at the international system, which schools exist, and what each one can actually explain. It is the spine of everything else.
Power, regimes, institutions, and what makes a state work or seize up. Much of the vocabulary the other courses assume you already have starts here.
Where economics and politics stop being separate subjects. Trade, interests, distribution — and why economic decisions are almost always political ones.
How to build a question that can actually be answered, and how to know the answer is not an opinion with footnotes. The course I use most outside the degree.
Language work applied to the international context: technical vocabulary, reading sources, and academic writing outside Portuguese.
Before opening a text I write down the question it has to answer. If ten pages in it is not answering it, I close it and note why.
No giant per-course summaries. One idea per file, in my own words, with the reference beside it. Ideas come back in other courses — and by then they are already written.
A concept without a real example is a concept that will not survive an exam. Every theoretical note carries at least one case attached.
The essay starts being written long before it is ready to be written. It is the fastest way I know to find out what I have not understood yet.
If you study IR at Minho and want to swap notes, point out a mistake of mine, or ask for a shelf I have not opened yet, write to me.
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