Politics

Department statement

The Politics Department is a large, dynamic and inclusive department that forms one of eight discipline areas within the School of Social Sciences (SoSS). As a key discipline in SoSS, our mission is to offer students the intellectual rigour and analytical techniques to understand contemporary and past societies. We provide a programme that helps students to develop solid intellectual foundations within the discipline at the same time as offering a wide selection of choices and diversity of subject matter in years two and three. The programme aims to develop (i) students’ capacities for intellectual independence and autonomy, (ii) the skills necessary to undertake independent research to a high standard and (iii) intellectual flexibility and adaptability – the ability ‘to learn how to learn’ as well as ‘to learn how to succeed’.

We have one of the largest politics departments in the United Kingdom with over 60 full time members of staff active in both teaching and research. We offer a wide breadth and depth of expertise, with five research clusters that bring together experts in the areas of Political Theory, Comparative Politics, Democracy and Elections, Global Political Economy, and Critical Global Politics. The Department also plays an active role in a number of  interdisciplinary centres across the University including: Policy@Manchester; the British Electoral Study (BES); the Manchester Jean Monet Centre of Excellence; the Sustainable Consumption Institute (SCI), the Manchester China Institute, the Cathie Marsh Institute; the Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity (CODE); the Manchester Urban Institute; the Political Economy Centre (PEC), and the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute (HCRI). Politics is driven by research-informed teaching of the highest quality, and we offer a unique range of courses that fall into the three teaching areas of Political Theory, Comparative Politics, and International Politics.

Our students value the knowledge, passion and commitment of their lecturers, and teaching staff in Politics are always well represented among those receiving teaching awards given by the University as well as external academic societies.

In Politics we work in partnership with our students to create the best possible learning environment. For instance, we have a very active student-led peer mentor scheme that runs revision sessions, socials, talks, etc., and which won best scheme in the University in 2016-7. Politics has a Student Action Fund budget that supports student-led and run activities – both for long-standing activities and activities planned in response to current events, which this year included a number of events linked to the war in Ukraine. In 2018, staff and students in Politics worked together to launch an undergraduate journal called, Juncture, which is edited by students. The team at Juncture also work with the Undergraduate Director in hosting an annual undergraduate conference where students are able to present their dissertations or other work to their colleagues and lecturers. This event is one of the highlights of the year and offers everyone a chance to engage in in-depth discussions about those topics that students care about the most.  The department runs a student-facing lecture series, called the Pankhurst Seminar Series, featuring presentations by Politics staff and/or high-profile speakers such as the first female leader of Manchester City Council (and former student), Bev Craig.  We also host numerous other events throughout the year, including pub quizzes, ‘Question Time’ panel discussions, plays and performances, and more.

We believe that student engagement with learning takes place beyond the classroom, and a number of our modules organize excursions that encourage students to engage with their city and broader environment. For instance, class trips have been organized to the Peoples’ History Museum, the Peterloo Massacre Site, the Manchester Museum, and the Imperial War Museum. Students have been taken to visit not-for-profit organisations such as ‘Chrysalis’, and to attend various political events in the city. The Parliamentary Studies module includes a trip to Parliament where students can see national politics at work, and talk to some of the people involved. The Department has also hosted walking tours around Manchester, which reveal important and often unknown parts of Manchester’s radical history. 

Throughout their three years of study, Politics students are encouraged to engage in independent inquiry-based research. One of the main ways that we challenge Politics students to develop independence, knowledge and skills is through the third-year dissertation module. All students on the Politics & IR degree are required to do a dissertation of max 15,000 words while students on joint programmes are able to do dissertations of max 8,000 or max 15,000 words (worth 20 or 40 credits respectively). These students attend lectures and tutorials as a group and are assigned an individual supervisor who meets with them at frequent intervals throughout the process of researching and writing. Dissertations are the culmination of an academic and intellectual journey, allowing students to draw on the full range of subject material covered in the previous two years of study. They offer students the opportunity to develop intellectual independence while specializing in-depth in a topic of interest. The emphasis is on constructing an independent, inquiry-based study. Past students have often noted that defining, researching and writing a dissertation is one of the most satisfying and interesting experiences of their undergraduate days. We have also dedicated a considerable amount of resources to supporting students wishing to develop their research methods skills. Students start learning about the different types of research done in politics, both qualitative and quantitative, from their first year of study. Then they have the option of going on to specialize in quantitative research, so that by their third year they are able to use advanced quantitative analysis (e.g., regression analysis) in their dissertations.

Students are exposed to professional practice through teaching. An exemplary module here is the Parliamentary Studies module, which is a paragon of professionalization and interactive learning. Funded in part by the Parliamentary Outreach team, this module includes a class fieldtrip to Parliament where students tour the building, hear from invited speakers, and observe the two Houses in action. The classroom portions of the module are highly interactive and involve small group work, role-play activities, and mock debates. To firmly embed the module in the broader Politics learning community, we have appointed as Honorary Professors, Peter Mandelson and Howard Bernstein, who have visited the University on several occasions, as have other key political actors such as  Baroness Beverly Hughes, the MPs David Willetts and Vince Cable, and parliamentary officers Nicholas Besly and Margaret McKinnon. The module has nurtured student interest in Parliament and encouraged them to focus on the institution in other areas of their degree, including their final year dissertation. It has further encouraged students to consider UK Parliament careers as well as postgraduate study in this area. In the future, we hope to develop options for students to complete work-based learning dissertations related to Parliament.

Postgraduate Taught Students (MA students) are regularly encouraged to attend academic research seminars. On one political theory MA module (Political Theory Research Training) this idea has been taken even further, and the regular political theory research seminar series, which is attended by all members of teaching staff in political theory and which previously had nothing to do with MA teaching, has been linked directly to the taught module. Each fortnight, students on the MA module are required to read a research paper that has been pre-circulated by that week’s guest speaker at the research seminar. The convenor of the MA module helps the students analyse the paper and come up with questions that might be asked directly to the guest speaker at the research seminar. Students are then invited to attend the research seminar itself and 15-20 mins at the start of the seminar is reserved for MA students to ask their pre-prepared questions. It’s a great way to give advanced MA students the chance to engage with academics in a professional setting, it builds their confidence, and it is terrific for building a sense of community because it regularly brings MA students directly together with PhD students and staff (indeed the MA students often join PhDs and staff for drinks and dinner after the seminar).

The Politics Department is committed to creating an encouraging and supportive environment that is conducive to improving diversity in the curriculum. We have been continually involved in discussing and debating how best to do this since 2016, when we held our first workshop on the topic. The Department is committed to addressing issues of racial inequality in higher education, and have a standing group on race, inequality and diversity. We also have a BAME support network for students and staff. And in several instances (e.g., the first year course Introduction to Political Theory) PhD students have been given resources to go through the syllabus and look for opportunities to decolonise it, leading directly to the incorporation of a higher proportion of women and ethnic minority writers in the list of readings.

Information about studying Politics at The University of Manchester

People in the Politics Department