Core modules
This degree is split 75:25 between Politics and International Studies and Chinese.
It is four years and includes a year of study abroad in China during the third year.
In each year you study core modules that provide a strong foundation in the academic discipline of Politics and International Studies as well as Chinese language study. You then have the choice to tailor your degree with optional modules.
Optional modules are divided into four specialisms or pathways:
- Political Theory and Public Policy
- International Relations and Security
- Comparative Politics and Democratisation
- International Political Economy
Pick modules from one pathway to specialise your degree or mix and match across different pathways to suit your interests.
Develop an ability to understand complex theoretical positions. Learn how to apply them to political problems and issues from a local to the global level.
Learn from world-class researchers and develop independent research skills. Gain the confidence to debate with colleagues and give individual and group presentations.
Year One
Introduction to Politics gives you a broad overview of the main issues and theoretical perspectives within Politics. You'll learn first to understand and then apply the core concepts of comparative political science and theory to processes, institutions, ideologies and practical policy-making. You'll conduct a comparative study of different political systems and political change, both in writing and in open debate.
Information correct as of 2024-25 year of entry
In this module, you'll be introduced to world politics and the role that international relations play in the interactions between nations. You'll gain a solid understanding of the historical underpinnings of the structure and systems of states and become familiar with major theories of international relations post-1945. You'll analyse contemporary writings on world politics and engage critically, both orally and in writing, with key concepts and theoretical debates on the nature of international political systems.
Information correct as of 2024-25 year of entry
Chinese language (depending on prior level of language learning)
This module will give students the opportunity to build upon previously learned knowledge to use more complex grammar and sentence patterns, and further develop listening, speaking, reading and writing skills to deal with a wider range of predictable situations, and gain more insights into Chinese culture. Simplified Chinese characters will be taught and assessed.
Students will learn and reinforce the basics of the Chinese language. This module will offer an opportunity to continue to work on basic sentence patterns, grammar and ways of expressions, to develop listening, speaking, reading and writing skills in a range of predictable everyday tasks and to gain greater knowledge of Chinese society. Simplified Chinese characters will be taught and assessed. Successful completion of Chinese 2 qualifies students to progress to Chinese 3.
This module will give students the opportunity to build upon previously learned knowledge to use more complex grammar and sentence patterns, and further develop listening, speaking, reading and writing skills to deal with a wider range of predictable situations, and gain more insights into Chinese culture. Simplified Chinese characters will be taught and assessed.
This module will be offered to students who already have a good knowledge of Chinese from 6 months or more intensive study or work in the native speaking countries, AS level or lower grades of IB or A level, or those who have completed Chinese 3 or equivalent levels. It will give students the opportunity to build upon previously learned knowledge and use more complex grammar and sentence patterns and some formal register on a wider range of social, study and work-related topics. Simplified Chinese characters will be taught and assessed.
Year Two
The aim of this module is to introduce you to some of the foundational arguments and debates in modern (mainly) European political theory, as well as some of the discipline’s most important primary texts. To this end, you will critically examine claims about freedom, equality, democracy, revolution and crisis made by some of the most important political thinkers from 1640 onwards.
Politics considers how the political world operates, and how it ought to operate. In this module, we consider the “oughts” of politics. Building on Foundations of Political Theory, the module examines key thinkers and topics in contemporary normative political theory. The module is divided into two parts: key thinkers in contemporary normative political theory, including John Rawls, Robert Nozick, and Susan Moller Okin; and key topics in contemporary normative political theory, including issues such as immigration, education, representation, microaggressions, and climate change.
Chinese language (depending on prior level of language learning)
This module will give students the opportunity to build upon previously learned knowledge to use more complex grammar and sentence patterns, and further develop listening, speaking, reading and writing skills to deal with a wider range of predictable situations, and gain more insights into Chinese culture. Simplified Chinese characters will be taught and assessed.
This module will be offered to students who already have a good knowledge of Chinese from 6 months or more intensive study or work in the native speaking countries, AS level or lower grades of IB or A level, or those who have completed Chinese 3 or equivalent levels. It will give students the opportunity to build upon previously learned knowledge and use more complex grammar and sentence patterns and some formal register on a wider range of social, study and work-related topics. Simplified Chinese characters will be taught and assessed.
This module will be offered to students who already have a good knowledge of Chinese including one year or more of intensive study or work in the native speaking countries, good A level, or those who have completed Learning Chinese 4 or equivalent levels. It aims to further develop linguistic and cultural competence in using Chinese in different social situations, and to enable students to live and work more effectively in the relevant countries. Students will also learn to reflect their own strengths, weaknesses and strategies in language learning. Simplified Chinese characters will be taught and assessed.
Optional core modules (also available as Optional modules)
This module is about what international development means, how it comes about, and what kinds of life it makes possible.
It will unpack the different ways in which 'development' has been theorised. In doing this, it provides a chronological overview of key intellectual interventions and how they responded to - and informed - 'real world' changes.
he aim of this module is to introduce students to some of the foundational arguments and debates in modern (mainly) European political theory, as well as some of the discipline’s most important primary texts. To this end, students will critically examine claims about freedom, equality, democracy, revolution and crisis made by some of the most important political thinkers since about 1640. Key texts will include Hobbes’s Leviathan, Locke’s Second Treatise of Government, Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Marx and Engels's The Communist Manifesto, Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk, Clara Zetkin’s Fighting Fascism, and Franz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth.
The module will also consider how these theories speak to contemporary debates in political theory, such as debates about gender and sexual difference, economic crisis, reparations for colonialism and the resurgence of the far right. The module builds on ideas explored in Introduction to Politics during your first year, and it leads towards the term two module Topics in Political Theory, which deals with present-day arguments about social justice.
Political Economy as an intellectual tradition was already vibrant in the 18th & 19th Centuries, with the disputes between Adam Smith’s liberal vision, Mercantilists such as List, and radicals such as Marx. Its starting point is the recognition that social orders, and the institutions which make them up, need to be studied as complex wholes in order to understand the interrelationships between the political and economic aspects. Political economy is also interested in the power relationships that characterise the broader political and economic context in which particular institutions are embedded. Political economy focuses attention on the interaction of states and markets, and on the interplay of structures and the role of agency. It is political economy because concerned with how a particular social order works –and with how it might work, how it should work.
This module will provide you with a comprehensive introduction into theories, concepts and practices of international security. You will examine the study of strategy and warfare, debates about the meaning and scope of security, and key security actors, institutions and mechanisms in world politics. By the end of this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge using theoretical debates about security in international relations and their relationship to security practices.
Year Three
You will spend this year studying in China
Year Four
Should parents send their children to private schools? Is freedom of movement a moral right? Is it unjust to rear animals for food? Who should bear the costs of climate change? You'll explore fundamental questions of political morality by critically analysing complex arguments from contemporary political philosophy. You'll study closely John Rawls’s theory of justice, and consider the rival theories of Robert Nozick, G. A. Cohen and Ronald Dworkin. You'll have practical opportunities to develop and defend your own ethical standpoint through your considered judgements on current dilemmas, taking into account opposing arguments and perspectives.
Chinese language (depending on prior level of language learning)
This module will be offered to students who already have a good knowledge of Chinese from 6 months or more intensive study or work in the native speaking countries, AS level or lower grades of IB or A level, or those who have completed Chinese 3 or equivalent levels. It will give students the opportunity to build upon previously learned knowledge and use more complex grammar and sentence patterns and some formal register on a wider range of social, study and work-related topics. Simplified Chinese characters will be taught and assessed.
This module will be offered to students who already have a good knowledge of Chinese including one year or more of intensive study or work in the native speaking countries, good A level, or those who have completed Learning Chinese 4 or equivalent levels. It aims to further develop linguistic and cultural competence in using Chinese in different social situations, and to enable students to live and work more effectively in the relevant countries. Students will also learn to reflect their own strengths, weaknesses and strategies in language learning. Simplified Chinese characters will be taught and assessed.
This module will be offered to students who already have a good knowledge of Chinese, for example, 2 years or more of intensive study or work in the native speaking countries, good A level, or those who have completed Chinese 5 or equivalent levels. It aims to develop linguistic competence and cultural awareness in accomplishing a broad range of complex and non-routine tasks across a wide and often unpredictable variety of business contexts. Simplified Chinese characters will be taught and assessed.
Optional modules
