Programme content

This Module is only available to final year PPE students.

Why do citizens vote (or not)? What forces political parties to fight elections on the centre ground? How should collective goods, such as environmental protection, be provided, both within and between countries? What influence do special interest groups have on governance? Are business interests in a privileged position? How can we account for the growth of altruistic interest groups? Is it possible to devise micro-level solutions to global problems such as climate change? What causes institutions to change over time? This module addresses these questions and others from the perspective of both economics and politics, exploring their particular methodological contributions. In doing so, we exposit and critically evaluate the public choice approach to collective decision-making, which for some, represents the “colonization” of part of the traditional territory of political studies by microeconomics.