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Political theories and ideas are a key component of politics and international relations, however, they rise in interaction with the institutions that make up social and political systems. This module introduces key ideologies, explaining their origins, concerns and influence upon processes of political change at different levels (from the local to the global). It provides the basis for level four modules on global challenges and democracy as well as more advanced studies in political ideas and social change.

Assessment: Essay/Article Review (60%), Presentation/Roundtable (40%).

This module addresses the significance of journeys and places as key concepts in your studies. You will attend lectures with students from across the School of Creative Industries and Culture and gain an insight into the value of interdisciplinary study whilst engaging with concepts that include place, migration and travel, belonging, identity, intercultural spaces, and sustainable living.

You will attend History subject workshops and produce History assessments in order to apply these concepts within the historical discipline. The historical themes covered during this module include travel writing, migrant experiences, national identity, multicultural cities, and international trade.

Assessment One (30%) and Assessment Two (70%)

Contemporary politics and international relations are marked by an acceleration in social and political challenges associated with the pace and nature of capitalist development. This module builds on previously introduced ideological perspectives to understand the material drivers of contemporary challenges, from sustainability, poverty, inequality and inclusion. It introduces students to these challenges from a critical political economy perspective. Students learn about different contemporary challenges, as well as constraints and opportunities for their resolution.

Assessment: Portfolio (100%).

This module introduces you to the way the world has evolved throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. It does so by focusing upon specific events such as the First and Second World Wars, the collapse of European empires, and revolutions in Europe. The module will also explore key ideologies and themes related to rise of extremism and terrorism, socialism, capitalism, genocide, and the development of new world order through the spread and clash of civilisations and globalisation. You will also be introduced to the key historiographical approaches which have shaped historical writing over the past two centuries, such as empiricism, Marxism, postmodernism, and history from below.

Assessment: Essay (40%) and Exam (60%).

This module introduces students to the history of the Cold War in a global context. It explores the roots of the Cold War and its impact upon the nations and people of Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and the Americas. Alongside geopolitics and diplomacy, this module assesses major themes and topics such as race, culture, propaganda, military conflict, decolonisation, and espionage. Students will engage with competing historiographical interpretations of the Cold War and assess its global legacy through a diverse range of regional case studies.

Essay (50%) and Presentation (50%)

In this module you will explore the history of work, labour, and employment in a variety of contexts and gain support towards the pursuit of post-degree pathways. You will attend lectures with students from across the School of Creative Industries and Culture that focus on enhancing your graduate attributes and transferable skills as well as developing a familiarity with the world and politics of work. You will attend History subject workshops and produce History assessments that will allow you to gain an understanding of the significance of work to human history.

The historical topics covered on this module include the history of work, organised labour, businesses and firms, work in imperial contexts, gender and work, and migration and labour.

Portfolio (100%)

Far too often, we think about politics as a set of remote processes that happens in the corridors of Westminster, far away from our day-to-day life. This module seeks to challenge this, focusing on the ‘everyday’ dimension of politics and assessing how/why local democracy matters.

To achieve this, the module starts with an overview of the key principles of the ‘British political tradition’ and then challenge them by exploring what’s happening beyond ‘the Westminster bubble’ and central/formal institutions/loci of power (e.g. covering key topics and issues such as multi-level governance, devolution, local government, democratic innovations, community power, etc.). The module focuses on the tension between structures and agency, looking at why local democracy matters and what we – through individual, group, and community action – can do to affect and improve in politics.

You will have an opportunity to experience local democracy first-hand, through a range of activities, fieldtrips and engagement with local democracy institutions, groups, activists and practitioners

Assessment: Portfolio 100%, comprising two written and one audio components

Global political economy is a field of study which asks who gets what, why, and how can this be changed? It is interested in how power is used in the state, market, family and society to influence outcomes across national borders. In this module, you will examine the key features of the contemporary global economy, including finance, trade, production, social reproduction and development, asking what historical specific form do they take, how have these come about and how might they be reconstructed?

Using key concepts and theories from critical approaches to global political economy, you will unpack the ways in which the global economy is gendered, raced and classed to pay attention to issues of inequality and social injustice. To shed new light on these big issues and consider how we might experience them in our everyday lives, the module takes a ‘bottom-up’ approach, examining the process and structures of global politics and the global economy through the lens of the objects and practices of everyday life.

Assessment: Portfolio (100%).

The module will introduce you to a range of historical sources and research methods used in project work. The module will examine core themes in history and the sources/methods associated with them. The methodologies studied will then be adapted to a personal research project, which will lead to the Level 6 dissertation. Study of sources may include maps; economic data; census; national and local government records; diplomatic and military records; press and media; records of education, health, poverty/charity and criminality; church and religious history; oral history; visual sources. There will be visits to archives and relevant research depositories.

Assessment: Primary Source Analysis (40%) and Project Portfolio (60%)

This module critically introduces the approaches and methods that shape the creation of empirical knowledge in politics and international relations. The module advances the significance of the relationship between empirical knowledge and the methods used for investigation. The module provides you with an up-to-date understanding of research methods, and the ways these methods are applied in contemporary politics and international relations research. The module considers the characteristics of quantitative and qualitative approaches, and the comparative strengths and limitations of these approaches. It teaches you practical skills in research methods that can be applied in their future academic and professional work, thereby enhancing their employability.

Assessment: Portfolio (100%).

This module will introduce students to cutting-edge research drawn from the expertise of the History team. It will be led by members of the teaching team on a rotating basis and will provide you with the opportunity to discuss specialised research topics with leading experts on a diverse range of topics. You will study two topics on this module from the list below and specialise in one of them in the final assignment. You will acquire in-depth subject knowledge and gain first-hand experience relating to the research process, including the identification of suitable archives, the interpretation of the archival evidence, and the current historiographical debates and controversies related to each subject.

Each year, two subjects from the following will feature on this module:

• The Late Ottoman Empire and its Legacies – Explore the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and its aftermath and assess its consequences in Greece, Cyprus, Armenia and the Western Balkans.
• Sport in Britain, 1850-1945 – Explore the social history of sport in Britain between 1850 and 1945.
• Photography and Medicine in the Nineteenth Century – Explore the ways in which photography shaped medical practice during the nineteenth century.
• The Disintegration of Yugoslavia – Explore the disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990s and discern its lasting impact into the twenty-first century.
• The Zimbabwean Diaspora in the UK – Explore the history of Zimbabwean migrants who settled in the United Kingdom.
• Jews in Twentieth Century Britain – Explore the social, cultural, political, and economic experiences of British Jews from the late Victorian era to the present.
• The United States and the First World War – Explore the diplomatic, social, and military history of the United States during the First World War.

Portfolio (40%) and Essay (60%)

This module introduces you to the history of anti-imperialist independence movements and the creation of new nation-states through case studies drawn from South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Central and South America. It will explore different case studies in the decolonisation processes across time and space. The module also explores the relationships between ideologies and resistance against imperial rule, as well as post-colonial conflicts in nation-building and the social and economic legacies of imperial rule in the post-colonial world. You will study these processes in a broad and theoretical way in lectures, seminars, and workshops, as they deepen their understanding of specific case studies. You will develop an understanding of the key factors instrumental in developing post-independence relations of neo-colonialism in post-colonial nation-states as a historical unit of analysis in the context of global politics The module will further introduce you to relevant historiographical approaches such as post-colonialism and Subaltern Studies.

Assessment: Essay (40%) and Portfolio (60%)

This module focuses on the growing canon of work around decolonising politics. The module will address legacies of empire and imperialism and their continued impact on politics today. The module draws on and critically examines the contemporary intersections of colonialism and colonial legacy on the experiences of marginalised communities with increasingly diverse societies, and the bodies of theory associated with these often-politicised lived realities, including queer theory, disability theory, black feminisms and intersectionality, and critical race theory.

The module will continue to draw on common themes throughout the programme, such as the centrality of place in the decolonisation of politics through the explicit focus on national case studies and the ways in which these address the lasting impacts of colonialism both inside and outside of the former colonial metropole. The module also problematises notions of decolonising within the frame of current political, social and cultural debates.

Additionally, the module invites you to develop critical understandings of the ways in which colonial legacies impact political representation of minorities and policies around minoritized communities across a range of political settings, both at the structural and interpersonal level.

The module ties into Â鶹Íø initiatives such as Decolonising Â鶹Íø, EDI groups and the extracurricular student-led anti-racist reading group. The module will afford you the opportunity to speak with leading scholarly experts and practitioners in the field of decolonising politics.

Assessment: Essay/Literature Review (60%), Presentation/Roundtable (40%).

This module provides you with an opportunity to apply learning from across the International Relations pathway, developing collective policy proposals through negotiation and collaboration to resolve a range of contemporary international crises. Focusing on issues that may include global development, international trade, corruption, global conflict and (in)security, migration, and the environment, students are provided with a series of simulation exercises in which they play the role of different stakeholders within a relevant international institution. Learning activities focus on introducing students to key practices and structures of these institutions, while they undertake independent, collaborative research on their assigned stakeholder role and interests to develop policy positions for negotiation in the roleplay scenario.

The module affords you the opportunity to participate in and hear from external research experts, politicians and/or practitioners, for example, via University research seminar series and events.

Assessment: Portfolio (100%).

The dissertation provides an opportunity for sustained work of an independent nature in an area of personal interest, allowing the exploration a particular issue, topic or problem in considerable depth. You will define and analyse a question or problem, or test a hypothesis, arising from their historical interest. The dissertation provides an opportunity to look beyond the textbooks and other secondary sources and to get to grips with primary evidence including textual, material or visual sources. The dissertation will draw out research, critical and writing skills in several ways.

Assessment: Presentation (10%) and Dissertation (90%).

This module offers a capstone experience, culminating in an individual final year project. It comprises an extended piece of work conventionally seen as a dissertation. Other forms of extended coursework could be applied, for example, a politics or international relations real-life project. You are encouraged to work with a supervisor to develop, negotiate and agree on an area of focus and project feasibility. This relationship and scoping work develop during Blocks 1-4 and culminates in the final project delivery in Block 4. If you wish to pursue a traditional dissertation, you’ll be required to undertake a research project, which may form the basis of an extended essay, or include primary research, subject to ethical approval. Other options for real-life learning projects are possible on the module. These also need to be informed by academic literature and evidence. This final module is the culmination of the degree and offers opportunities to support you in your next steps beyond the qualification, for example, further study and/or working in politics and international relations careers.

Assessment: Dissertation - 8000 words (100%).