Politics and Economics

PO51009B
UK and European Comparative Governance and Politics
(4 credits, Autumn; 4 credits, Spring; 2 credits, Summer; )
This unit introduces students to the comparative approach to politics and government, in addition to building a foundation understanding of the politics and governance of four key members of the European Union: the UK, Germany, Italy and France. The first half of the unit is focused on the UK and also considers the EU as an institution, while the second half concentrates on the other three countries at the unit’s core. Students will not only build an essential foundation for studying the politics of the UK/EU polity in which we live, but will also develop their skills in comparative methods.

PO51010B
World Politics
(4 credits, Autumn; 4 credits, Spring; 2 credits, Summer; )
This unit will introduce students to the study of world politics, emphasising that there are different and competing perspectives on how to approach the subject. In the first term, it will introduce students to the three dominant paradigms (Realism, Pluralism and Structuralism) that have defined the discipline of International Relations (IR) since the end of the Second World War. It will situate those paradigms in the particular historical context in which they were developed and critically examine both their contribution to our understanding of world politics and their shortcomings.

The first term will end by highlighting the challenges posed by the end of the Cold War to these traditional ways of studying international relations. In the second term, the unit will critically examine how the three main IR paradigms sought to respond to the new post-Cold War world, in particular the phenomena of American power, globalization and regionalism, climate change, terrorism and the financial crisis. Focusing on practical case-studies such as the Bush vs. Obama administrations, the rise of the BRIC countries and the increased consolidation of regional blocs such as the EU, the anti-globalization and climate change campaigns, the War in Iraq and the more recent new media revolutions. The second term will seek to critically examine how these events challenged our understandings of both the notion of ‘politics’ as well as the notion of the ‘international.’

PO51012B
Ideas, Ideologies and Conflicts
(4 credits, Autumn; 4 credits, Spring; 2 credits, Summer; )
This course will explore key ideas such as political authority, democracy and freedom; major political ideologies such as socialism, liberalism and conservatism; as well major theoretical and political conflicts around issues such as the role of the state, the rights of the individual and the operation of power. The course works on the assumption that politics is not something that is confined to formal political parties and institutions, but something that is practiced at all levels of society and which can be seen in conflicts over identity, gender, rights, the environment and the organization of social and economic life.

PO52002B
Modern Political Theory
(4 credits, Autumn; 4 credits, Spring; 2 credits, Summer; )
Prerequisite: college-level political science or philosophy.
In this course we examine the modern tradition of political thought. Students will be introduced to the major figures in this tradition – English thinkers such as Hobbes, Locke and Mill – and continental thinkers such as Rousseau and Marx. Through these thinkers, we will explore key themes and concepts such as sovereignty, justice, human nature, property, rights, liberty, democracy and equality.

PO52004A
Comparative European Politics
(4 credits, Autumn; 4 credits, Spring; 2 credits, Summer; )
Prerequisite: college-level political science.
This course investigates the evolution of European society since 1945. Starting with an historical overview, the course is divided into five sections. These are: The Political Cultures of Europe, The Political Ideologies of Europe, West European Party and Electoral Systems, West European Constitutions and Parliaments, Centre and Periphery - Local, Regional and Federal Government in Western Europe.

PO52010A
Themes and Issues in British Politics since 1945
(4 credits, Autumn; 4 credits, Spring; 2 credits, Summer; )
The course will bring a historical perspective to key issues in British politics from the end of the Second World War to the present day. It will do that by examining themes such as the post-1945 political ‘consensus’, the move from Empire to Europe, and the subsequent rise of Thatcherism. It will also focus on specific policy issues such as education, health and the environment, examining the development of political debates from 1945 to the present.

PO52012B
Contemporary International Relations: Theory and Practice
(4 credits, Autumn; 4 credits, Spring; 2 credits, Summer; ) Only available to students staying for both the Autumn and Spring terms.
Prerequisite: college-level political science, ideally including some coverage of international relations.
This course builds on the first year course, World Politics, with the first term consolidating some of the discussion on the classical theories of international relations from the first year (realism/neorealism, liberalism/neoliberalism and Marxism) with new interpretations of these theories, and introducing a series of critical approaches to international relations through theories of constructivism, post-modernism, gender studies and aesthetics and IR. The second term introduces a number of contemporary thematic concerns within the study of international relations, such as democratization, human rights, just and unjust wars, imperialism, inequality and insecurity, transatlantic relations, nuclear states and terrorism, and discusses both their different theoretical underpinnings as well as their practical implications.

PO52013A
Chinese Politics
(4 credits, Autumn; 4 credits, Spring; 2 credits, Summer; )
Mao Zednong was the most important leader of communist China and it was his works that helped define the nature of the new state in 1949. On the first line of the first page of the first Selected Works he poses a question that would haunt the state right down to the present time: “who are our enemies, who are our friends, this is a question germane to the revolution’ he would say and this course follows the unfolding of that question as it proceeds from state building to economic reform. Yet this particular division of the world into friends and enemies is not unique to China but plays a crucial role in defining all forms of political commitment. Understood in this way, the early history of the Chinese revolutionary state, unfolds as a series of problems, not just of importance to an understanding of the dynamics of Chinese politics but also to an appreciation of political theory more generally. This basic thesis underpins this subject.

Beginning in the 1920s (with the formation of the Communist Party of China), the subject explores the power of 'the political' to drive people to revolution, Cultural Revolution and ultimately economic reform. It examines the various attempts to harness and re-channel political intensity which in turn helps us understand how governmental institutional building took place in China in a quite unique way. It is this legacy that forms the crucial and often misunderstood backdrop to the Chinese economic miracle of today. So the second part of this course uses these insights to then ask just how economics forces have changed this political code of the early Communist Party. These questions are explored alongside an account the stunning developments that have led China to become the economic dynamo it is today. This dynamism is not without problems and these too will be explored in the course.

PO52014B
Africa in the Global Political Economy
(4 credits, Autumn; 4 credits, Spring; 2 credits, Summer; )
The course examines Africa’s role in the making of the modern global political economy. The course begins with an introduction to the methodological and political issues related to the production of knowledge about Africa. The first part of the course examines Africa’s role in the historical development of the modern world, from the transatlantic slave trade to struggles for independence, with a particular emphasis on the experience, character and legacy of colonialism.

The second part of the course explores Africa’s postcolonial condition and examines a range of contemporary issues, such as authoritarian rule; debt, structural adjustment and neoliberal reform; the politics of ‘slums’; the role of NGOs; and the current discourse about ‘failed states’ in Africa. Throughout the course contending perspectives and interpretations of Africa’s politics and international relations will be considered, paying attention to questions of eurocentrism, and the writings of African scholars. The course also includes screenings of films, mainly by African directors, which complement the exploration of the themes of the course through academic literature.

PO52016B
An(Other) Japan: Politics and Popular Culture
(4 credits, Autumn; 4 credits, Spring; 2 credits, Summer; )
This course begins by looking at contemporary popular culture in Japan as a particularly significant site for understanding contemporary political concerns. It traces the trajectory of Japan from its emergence as a modern nation-state in the 1860s, through its fraught wartime history, up to its emergence as a major global economic power in the late twentieth century. The course seeks to approach questions of politics through a very expansive definition of the term, and to demonstrate that cultural forms and practices can often provide a unique perspective through which to understand politics, a perspective not available through a study of political institutions alone.

The course will address a number of themes that relate to questions of nationalism, imperialism, identity and gender, focusing on Japan’s war-time legacy – its troubled relationship with its Asian neighbours, its post-war success, the price of affluence and its emergence as a soft power in the Asian region. The course focuses on literature, cinema, animation, manga and a variety of popular cultural forms and practices to demonstrate that political anxieties and concerns, even where they do not get articulated in political debates, are often given voice through these mediums.

PO53011B
Beyond All Reason
(4 credits, Autumn)
Politics is often conceived as the attempt to rationally control our collective life. Yet so much of human existence seems utterly irrational: inter-communal violence and civil conflict, genocide, social inequality and environmental degradation. For all our hopes of a rational politics, modern life since the Enlightenment has often seemed beyond all reason. But can politics be rethought to embrace the limits of rationality, to face up to the horrors of human destructiveness? If so, can it avoid succumbing to irrationality? How then might we cope with the possibility of enmity and violence? This course surveys efforts to conceptualise politics and reason in modern philosophy. It examines classic ideas of freedom and community, power, critique and judgement, asking how we might conceive of political life without recourse to ‘rational foundations’.

PO53015A
Risk and Politics: Theory and Practice
(4 credits, Autumn)
The course is designed to stimulate and reward the curiosity of undergraduates who want to know more about the relationship between politics and the assessment, communication and management of risk. It invites students to explore the ways in which the discussion of risk has become one of the most pressing concerns in contemporary politics and to consider the leading role ideas about risk now play in shaping public debates and the formulation and evaluation of public policy.

The study of risk is a multi-disciplinary enterprise and the specialist sub-field of risk politics affords students a highly attractive and rewarding opportunity to consider the ways in which politics, economics, legal studies, social psychology, media studies and sub-disciplines in the natural sciences, such as toxicology, inform each other. The course is designed to provide undergraduates with a good working knowledge of key concepts and findings, including many drawn from adjacent academic areas, and their political import. It will foster the student’s ability to consider and critically evaluate the development of risk politics in response to specific risks and to consider the ways in which particular risks have been politicised.

PO53017A
Public Policy Analysis
(4 credits, Autumn)
This course is a systematic analysis of the various stages of policy making, from initiation to implementation, examining the role of various actors, ideas and interests at each stage. The problems faced by policy makers, especially the issues of implementation and evaluation will be investigated in light of the limitations to perfect administration in the real world. The focus of the course will be on the nature and the role of policy analysis, the concept of the policy cycle, and the ways in which government and other actors shape public policy.

We will examine in detail, the prominent models of policy making - pluralism, corporatism and other belief-system models analysing concepts such as rationality, bounded rationality, incrementalism and mixed scanning. The role of major institutional actors, interest groups and policy specialists will be evaluated using examples and case studies from selected policy areas with special reference to the UK and the European Union.

PO53018B
Discourse, Power, Politics
(4 credits, Autumn)
Much of Western political theory is based on Enlightenment ideas about reason, and in particular on a paradigm of the autonomous, rational individual derived from liberalism. However, a number of contemporary thinkers in the Continental tradition have challenged these preconceptions, showing that we also have to take account of certain external, and often ‘irrational’ forces – such as language, the unconscious, ideology and power relations – that often shape our perception of the world and our place in it, therefore influencing the way we do politics. This course examines some of these alternative approaches to the political, exploring themes such as discourse, power, subjectivity, passion, resistance – as well as contemporary approaches to radical politics today. While largely a theoretical course, it also deals with concrete questions and issues such as the role of language in the construction of political and gender identities, how power functions in society, and how people resist domination.

PO53019A
Politics and Welfare
(4 credits, Spring)
This course is focused upon current controversies, issues and developments in social welfare policy including controversy about the nature of social exclusion and the existence of an underclass, the need for rationing access to health services, the development of service frameworks for social care and the relationship between economy, taxation and social welfare. The course will be particularly concerned with inviting students to consider and critically examine different views about the scope, organisation and role of social welfare in contemporary society.

PO53022A
Anarchism
(4 credits, Spring)
"Anarchism": 'political concept and social movement that advocates the abolition of any form of State, which is regarded as coercive and its replacement with voluntary organisation.' (C. Levy, 'Anarchism', entry for the Encarta Encyclopaedia)

This unit focuses on the history, politics and ideology of anarchism chiefly from its origins in the nineteenth century to 1939. There were will be a discussion of anarchism in the post-1945 period but the main aim of the unit is to trace the origins and development of anarchist ideology (Godwin, Proudhon, Stirner, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Malatesta, Goldman etc) and the associated social and labour movements in Europe and the Americas (from the Paris Commune of 1871 to the Spanish Civil, 1936-1939, and from the Haymarket Riot of Chicago in 1886 and the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920 to the Russian Revolution and Civil War of 1917-1921). But there will also be a substantial time devoted to anarchist-type movements and ideas which developed throughout the world before 1800 and as well as a discussion of the 'ism', anarchism, its reception and interchange with thinkers, ideas, and movements in Asia and Africa.

PO53029A
An(other) China
(4 credits, Spring)
This subject is built around glimpses of, and insights into, the lives of ordinary Chinese people and the rules and rituals that govern their existence. Students will discuss the ways everyday life was governed under socialism and the ways that control is now breaking down with the emergence of a consumer culture, enabling a close scrutiny of the politics of everyday life. Picking up on themes as diverse and quirky as Mao badge fetishists, hoodlum slang, and taboo’s and tattoos, the subject examines the way a range of people not only live but resist dominant social discourse.

This subject also employs an array of new critical thinking from Western social theorists to highlight these themes. Students will therefore gain a grounding not only in the politics of everyday life in China but also in Western theoretical engagements with the everyday. Students who complete the subject should gain some insight into the difference culture makes in terms of practices of everyday life and, at the same time, gain a different view of China by examining things at street level. They will also get some grounding in certain schools of social, cultural and political theory.

PO53023A
Party Systems and Electoral Systems
(4 credits, Spring)
Party systems vary across polities and have important political, social and economic consequences. It is therefore important to study the characteristics and determinants of party systems, and the nature of electoral competition. This course includes a study of the prominent theories of the party systems and electoral competition. The course examines the size and the competitiveness of party systems, focusing on the institutional and sociological explanations. We also investigate different electoral rules and formulas such a majoritarian and proportional representation, and their effects on party systems. The course will use empirica analysis from the UK, the USA, France, Germany, India and Canada to provide a comparative perspective on the subject.

PO53024A
Nationalist Conflict and International Intervention
(4 credits, Autumn)
Since the end of the Cold War the overwhelming majority of conflicts in the world have been internal – often resulting from nationalist grievances and policies. This course will examine the causes of nationalist conflicts, as well as the various tools and policies adopted by international actors towards them. After providing an overview of the two main scholarly approaches to nationalist conflict (primordialism and modernism), we will focus on the structural, cultural, political and economic causes of such conflicts and on the forms of international intervention employed to resolve them – ranging from ‘cooperative’ approaches such as diplomacy and peacekeeping to ‘coercive’ measures like economic sanctions and military intervention.

We will also assess the debates surrounding international ‘state-building’ projects and partition along ethno-national lines and methods applied to achieve post-conflict justice and reconciliation. Throughout the course students will be encouraged to focus on a case study of their own choosing and to apply the more general theoretical and policy debates to their specific case in the weekly discussions and in their assessed coursework.

PO53032A
Politics of the African City
(4 credits, Spring)
This course focuses on the African city as a specific site to explore politics in various dimensions and expressions. The course considers the precolonial, colonial and postcolonial African city as a concrete site which hosts and is shaped and reshaped by changing and contradictory power relations, ideologies, struggles, economies and cultures. The course considers a variety of case studies and contexts such as Maputo, Johannesburg, Kinshasa, Dar Es Salaam, Nairobi, Accra, Lagos, Dakar.

With the help of urban theory and postcolonial theory as well as the literature on African cities, we explore themes such as the politics of urban space and the spatial articulation of power; African and Western cultures of planning and organisation of urban life; the character of colonial urbanism, and its legacy in the postcolonial, neoliberal present; the city as site of resistance, everyday life and popular culture. The later part of the course explores the treatment of these themes and experiences in postcolonial African film, novels and art. The final seminar explores Africa’s presence in this postcolonial city of London.

PO53028A
Rhetoric and Politics
(4 credits, Spring)
Rhetoric is the art of speech and persuasion. In classical Greece and Rome, rhetoric held a central place in politics. To speak and argue well was an integral part of being a citizen. In modern, democratic societies, speeches and arguments remain a primary source in political life. But we have become more suspicious of what we hear, and perhaps less attentive to the ways we are being persuaded. This course examines the techniques of rhetorical analysis and applies these to the study of contemporary political speeches.

PO51011B
Political Economy and Public Policy
(4 credits, Autumn; 4 credits, Spring; 2 credits, Summer; )
The course is team-taught by two lecturers and is divided into two segments. It provides an introduction to the main theories and concepts in economics as well as important problems and questions in the field and to debates about major issues in public policy that are informed by economic analysis. As an introductory course it aims to acquaint students with key issues in economics and familiarise them with central tenets and theorems. Previous knowledge of economics (at the standard of the ‘A’ level in economics) is recommended, but not required. However, it is expected that students will acquire a good working knowledge of the most pivotal concepts in macroeconomics over the course of the year and gain a through understanding of the forces at play in the interaction between markets and the state.

PO52007A
Political Economy
(4 credits, Autumn; 10 credits, Full year;)
Prerequisite: one year of college-level economics (micro-economics and/or macro-economics).
The aim of this course is to familiarise students with central theoretical propositions, key concepts and core issues of political economy and demonstrate their application to practical issues in everyday policy-making processes. The course thus enables students to gain familiarity with the chief theoretical approaches to the field of political economy and encourage them to explore the insights incurred from the adoption of their analytical lenses to the ongoing reconfiguration process affecting the volatile and shifting boundaries between public and private sphere, government and market, state and individual. The module also focuses on questions and issues in global political economy.

PO53033A
The European Union and Immigration
(4 credits, Autumn)
The Contours, Politics and Economics of a New Policy Domain.

Immigration is rapidly emerging as one of the key concerns for public policy makers in the 21st century in Europe and beyond. Net immigration levels to Europe have increased dramatically since the fall of the Iron Curtain. This has spawned pressing questions about national identity, multiculturalism, integration and assimilation, the role of religion, language and symbolic marks of common representation.

While pragmatic policy-makers are rediscovering the benefits of labour migration, nativist, nationalist and chauvinist parties from the Far Right are making electoral inroads based on radical measures stopping or even reversing immigration. Arguments about labour shortages and demographic considerations encounter nativist reservations towards the prospect of fresh immigration. Humanitarian channels of migration, especially asylum, are facing a somewhat uncertain future. The European Union has created the foundations of a Common Asylum and Migration Policy (CAMP) and rapidly developed a complex network of policies that overlap, modify and in some instances change substantially national policies in this domain. This course examines the politics and economic of immigration throughout Europe and beyond, exploring actors, symbols, politics and policies that coalesce to form a complex pattern of regulation of one of the most politicized policy domains.

PO53007A
Political Economy of the European Union
(4 credits, Autumn; 4 credits, Spring; 2 credits, Summer; )
Prerequisite: one year of college-level economics (micro-economics and/or macro-economics), plus one term in European politics, ideally including some coverage of the EU.
The aim of this course is to familiarise students with the central traits of the economic and political architecture of the European Union (EU), explore recent milestones in closer economic integration, analyse the ramifications that this economic and political integration process is having on the contours of politico-economic governance in the member states, and explore some of the policies generated by the EU in fields such as labour and social policy, migration, competition policy, environmental policy, and industrial policy. The course also aims to provide an analysis of the key events and institutions shaping the European integration process. There will be also be a debate about future challenges facing the EU, including past and future rounds of enlargements and the formulation of a common security and defence policy.

PO53010A
New Radical Political Economy
(4 credits, Autumn; 4 credits, Spring; )
Prerequisite: college-level economics.
This course will provide students with an understanding of key issues in the field of contemporary radical political economy. The course will outline and critically evaluate orthodox economic approaches to globalisation as well as challenges from the anti-capitalist movement. Marxist, autonomist and green economics will be examined and criticised. The course will look at the effects of global capitalism on poverty, equality and environmental sustainability. Alternatives to the market and state regulation of economic activity such as commons regimes, open source and social sharing will also be put under the microscope.