Course description
Politics and International Relations BA Honours.
Course summary:
Our Politics and International Relations BA Honours provides an integrated approach for understanding the comparative dimensions of politics at the local, regional, national and global level. Your political studies will encompass philosophical, theoretical, institutional and issue-based concerns relating to governance. While international relations shares these interests, it focuses on the regional and global levels of political activity.
You will also concentrate on areas such as globalisation, patterns of conflict and co-operation between states, and the shift from 'anarchy' in the global sphere to co-ordination through intergovernmental organisations and non-state actors (such as corporations and groups based in civil society).
The course enables you to develop specialist knowledge of important political actors and key trends in international politics, and your critical and analytical skills in the understanding of political problems at both the national and international levels. You will also gain the transferable and cognitive skills necessary for lifelong personal and professional development. We make full use of our unique location, and many of our students gain placements through our successful internship programme with members of Parliament, governmental and non-governmental organisations.
We also enjoy excellent links with employers, and our graduates go on to develop careers in various sectors, including the Civil Service, NGOs, international organisations such as the EU or UN, policy and research, teaching, journalism, and politics.
Our teaching programme is structured to support students' transition to higher education and progression through each academic year.
The first-year programme provides an introduction to key concepts and structures of government, and how these impact on political behaviour and decision-making. It also embeds the study of politics and international relations in a wider context by providing a grounding in development studies.
In the second year you will deepen your understanding of theoretical approaches, and your critical awareness of conflicting narratives of the state and of governance, particularly since the Cold War, in relation to society and to the international community.
In the final year you can tailor your degree to a more 'academic' pathway or a more 'professional' pathway, completing either a traditional academic dissertation or a professionally-oriented research report. The third year programme revolves around linked studies of postcolonial theory and practice, ethics and morality in international relations, and the contestation of sovereignty.
Teaching and learning includes small group work, problem-based tutorials, review sessions, workshops, symposia, debates, Q&A sessions, document analysis sessions, and structured role-plays. A wide range of assessments includes essays, exams, policy reports, project work, individual and group presentations, blogs, posters, and debates.
The teaching is offered within the Department of Politics and International Relations. We are in the centre of one of the world’s greatest cities and we use this vibrant, multicultural setting to ensure that our students discover innovative solutions to the problems facing our world. In 2016 the University of Westminster was named the most diverse university in the UK, representing 169 nationalities. As a department we also host the world-renowned Centre for the Study of Democracy. The Centre undertakes research across a range of critical challenges to the theory and practice of politics and international relations. We have an innovative initiative called the Democratic Education Network that facilitates dialogue and the sharing of knowledge between our students, international universities and diasporic communities in London.
