Philosophy, Politics and Economics BA

This module adopts a broad focus on factors influencing growth and development, concentrating on core economic policy areas and the role of international organisations.

Topics covered include macroeconomic policies, in particular exchange rates and the role of the IMF; aid policy and the World Bank, effects of aid on growth, macroeconomic and fiscal policy, and poverty; trade policy and performance and the WTO; economic reforms and growth experiences in East Asia, China and Africa; human development and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

This module discusses aspects of some of the main sub-areas of experimental and behavioural economics. This includes applications related to individual decision-making, strategic behaviour and market behaviour.

The module encourages reflection on both the role of experiments in economics and the assumptions that economics does (and should) make about people’s motivations. Both experimental economics and behavioural economics are still comparatively new fields within the wider discipline.

The module considers their potential and main achievements, relative to more traditional economic techniques. It encourages development of critical skills and reflection on specific research contributions in experimental and behavioural economics.

This module covers:

• saving, focusing on how agents make intertemporal decisions about their savings and wealth accumulation
• saving puzzles and household portfolios, focusing on credit markets and credit markets' imperfections, and why do households hold different kinds of assets
• asset allocation and asset pricing, focusing on intertemporal portfolio selection, asset pricing and the equity premium puzzle
• bond markets and fixed income securities
• the term structure of interest rates
• the role of behavioural finance in explaining stock market puzzles

This module provides an advanced economic analysis of the theory of organisation of firms and industries. It will analyse a variety of market structures related to the degree of market competition with a special emphasis on imperfectly competitive markets. It will also analyse issues related to the internal organisation of firms.

This module looks at:

• trade policy
• economic policy for trade and international factor mobility
• theory and evidence
• trade policy and imperfect competition
• trade and distortions
• the political economy of protection
• trade policy reform

This module covers:

• models of intra-industry trade
• trade policy in oligopolistic industries
• multinational enterprises
• testing trade theories
• the WTO and "new issues"

This module covers an economic analysis of the labour market, with an emphasis on policy implications and institutional arrangements.

This module investigates different kinds of contemporary logic, as well as their uses in philosophy. We will investigate the syntax and semantics of various logics, including first order logic, modal logics, and three-valued logics, as well as ways to apply formal techniques from these logics to philosophical topics such as possibility and necessity, vagueness, and the Liar paradox.

We’ll cover ways to reason and construct proofs using the logics we study, and also ways to reason about them. We’ll look at proofs regarding the limits of formal logic, including proofs of soundness, completeness, and decidability.

This module covers:

• dynamic general equilibrium models, focusing on how the time path of consumption, and saving, is determined by optimising agents and firms that interact on competitive markets
• growth in dynamic general equilibrium, focusing on the Solow model and the data, and the role played by accumulation of knowledge (endogenous innovation) in explaining long run growth
• Real Business Cycles (RBC), focusing on how the RBC approach accounts for business cycle fluctuations, and what links short run fluctuations and growth processes

This module is intended to provide an introduction to mathematical techniques used in economics. In particular, examples of economic issues that can be analysed using mathematical models will be discussed in detail.

Particular attention will be given to providing an intuitive understanding of the logic behind the formal results presented.

This module will cover topics in advanced microeconomics and decision theory. The precise content may vary from year to year, but the module will start from the basis established by the Microeconomic Theory module.

This module provides a rigorous introduction to formal models of money in the macroeconomy. Following this, applications for areas of central banking, finance and international macroeconomics will be explored.

This module covers: 

• Foundations:
  • The rational political individual?
  • Voter participation
  • Collective action and the role of the state
• Core Political Economy:
  • The economic approach to politics
  • Political aspects of economics: rights and the limits of the state
  • Political aspects of economics: inequality and the duties of the state
• Political Economy in Action:
  • Political economy in action: some current issues in political economy

The module will introduce some major themes of the economic analysis of government. Using the tools of modern microeconomic theory, it will explore how government institutions are designed, how they could be designed better, and how they shape economic policy.

This module explores key themes and debates in the study of African politics. It aims to provide a broad introduction to African domestic and regional politics as well as Africa’s evolving position within an international political arena.

This module concerns these three themes: Authenticity, Freedom, and Ethics, and their relations. We will be exploring these themes via a focus on how they are handled by three different schools of thought: Kantianism; Existentialism; and Contemporary Compatibilism.

Philosophers on the agenda include: Kant, Korsgaard, and Velleman (from the Kantian School); Sartre, Camus, and Beauvoir (from the Existentialist School); and Frankfurt, Watson, and Wolff (from the Contemporary Compatibilist School).

China, as the new and upcoming superpower, has become a focal point of global attention. This module introduces students to the major topics in China's interaction with the evolution of China's foreign policy since 1949 as well as its role in the international affairs and international political economy.

Much of the module will be an examination of China's political and economic relations with major powers and regions such as the US, the EU, the UK, Russia, Asia, and Africa, major initiatives of China, the responses towards China from these powers and regions, and major issues in their relations. This module will also survey main aspects of China's power and its role in critical global issues.  

The module will explore how domestic politics and other developments have contributed to the rise of China as a great power of the first league on the one hand, and to the emergence of strong nationalism or its manifestation on the other.

This module will teach you how to communicate philosophy through a variety of different mediums, assessing them in each. We will look at how philosophy can be communicated through legal documentation, press releases, handouts, lesson plans, webpages, funding bids and posters (with optional presentations).

A number of the sessions will be delivered by professionals from outside the university, with support from the module convener. Seminars will be used to develop each of the items for assessment. You will be invited to draw upon your prior philosophical learning to generate your assessments, except in the case of handout where you will be set a specific philosophical task and asked to complete some (very basic) independent research.

Disasters are defined by the United Nations as ‘a serious disruption of the functioning of a community or society involving widespread human, material, economic or environmental losses and impacts, which exceeds the ability of the affected community or society to cope with using its own resources.’ The failure successfully to reconcile human behaviour with environmental threats has, throughout time and in different places, led to multiple disasters.

This module will examine the relationship between natural hazards and human society, how and why disasters happen and how the impact of disasters can be ameliorated. With reference to cases across the globe, there will be a focus on how social life has mitigated, adapted and evolved in the face of environmental hazards.

We will examine the social, economic and technological processes that mediate the relationship between human society and the natural world. We will examine key themes such as governance, technological innovation, urbanisation and migration, gender, culture and identity, global patterns of production and consumption, health and pandemics, race and class to understand why disasters impact on different people in different ways.

The aim of this module is to provide you with an opportunity to write an 8,000-word dissertation on a philosophical topic, the precise subject of which is by agreement with the supervisor. At the completion of the module, you will have had an opportunity to work independently, though with the advice of a supervisor.

This module will introduce you to economic policy analysis. It will focus on the role played by different institutional rules in shaping the behaviour of elected governments by providing incentives to elected governments.

This module will introduce students to economic policy analysis, using examples from environmental economics and international trade. The first part of the module is about climate change. We first examine the practice of discounting future outcomes. We will look at the evidence for climate change in the past and predictions for future damage. Combining this with information about abatement options and costs, we can devise a globally optimal policy path, depending on the discount rate. Finally, we will trace actual climate change negotiations, evaluate climate change policy and examine why it is so difficult for countries to agree on greenhouse gas emission reductions. 

The second part of the module will focus on the issues around and methods for policy evaluation. We also draw some lessons for policy prescription/design. There is an increasing consensus as to the appropriate methods for evaluation but the topic of policy prescription remains contentious. It considers the main empirical methods of policy evaluation and the fundamental question of evaluation studies (what would have happened if the policy had not been undertaken). It discusses trade liberalization and exporting firms. This allows us to think about aggregate outcomes for policy change using evidence from microdata. It considers the question of whether there is systematic, reliable evidence that government policies stimulate growth in the long run and if so what those policies are. This topic is used to explore the issue of policy prescription.

In this module we'll ask questions like:

• How should human beings interact with the non-human natural world?
• Is nature intrinsically valuable, or does it possess value only by being valuable to us?

As part of this we'll cover topics such as:

• the moral status of animals
• the ethics of zoos
• responsibility for climate change
• whether there is any connection between the twin oppressions of women and nature
• the environmental impact of having children
• the ethics of restoring nature after it has been damaged by human development

This module is worth 20 credits.

What are the proper concerns of an egalitarian society? If we’re concerned about equality, what kind of world should we be working towards? What does it mean to treat one another as equals? Should we treat each other that way? If so, why? And what are the political implications of such obligations? 

In this module we will be exploring these and other questions at the heart of the egalitarian project. Subjects will include equality of condition, relational equality, moral equality and political equality. We will also touch on issues around welfare, luck, rights, dignity, status and democracy. Writers covered may include Dworkin, Sen, Parfit, Anderson, Kant, Rousseau, Scanlon, Christiano and Rawls.

What does it mean to be represented in politics? This module uses gender as a prism through which to view intersectional debates on political representation. We ask what women’s representation is, what it looks like in political institutions, how gender norms shape access to and participation in political institutions, why women's representation matters for policy outcomes, how it impacts on social movements and voting behaviour, and how it matters in global governance.

Our approach is broadly comparative, focussing on theories and case examples from both high-income countries in the Global North and low- and middle-income countries in the Global South. Our wide selection of countries also allows us to consider what role women’s participation can have in quality of governance and democracy. We recognize that global norm diffusion is key to boosting women’s representation, from gender quotas and gender mainstreaming in the UN's Beijing Platform for Action to the gender equality provisions in the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, and our discussions will also be of interest to students of international relations. The module engages with diverse perspectives and methodologies and will enable students to develop transferable skills in analytical literacy that can be applied across the social sciences.

This module will provide an introduction to international monetary issues, including the determination of exchange rates and international spill-over effects. 

This module examines how Muslims have addressed fundamental theological and philosophical questions relating to their faith. These questions concern the foundations of religious knowledge and authority, God's unity and attributes, God's relationship to the world, divine determinism and human freedom, prophecy, and human destiny beyond death.

Key figures will include the Mu'tazili and Ash'ari philosophical theologians, the philosophers Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and Ibn Rushd (Averroes), Isma'ili esotericism, and the influential medieval intellectuals al-Ghazali, Ibn al-'Arabi, and Ibn Taymiyya. Selections from primary sources will be read in translation, and special attention will be given to the integration of late antique philosophical traditions into Islamic thought about God, God's relation to the world, and human destiny. 

Politics and truth have always had a complicated relationship. Lies, bullshit, spin, and propaganda are nothing new.

Polarization is on the rise in many democracies and political disagreements have spread to disputes about obvious matters of fact.

But have we really entered the era of 'post-truth' politics? Is debate now framed largely by appeals to emotion disconnected from the facts?

In this module, we'll explore questions such as:

• Should the existence of widespread disagreement in politics make us less confident in our own views?
• Are voters morally or epistemically obligated to vote responsibly?
• Is it rational for citizens to base their political views on group identity rather than reasoned arguments?
• Should we have beliefs about complex policy questions about which we are not experts?
• Is democracy the best form of government for getting at the truth?

This module is worth 20 credits.

Contemporary politics often shows two seemingly contradictory phenomena. On the one hand that many political analysts and political actors proclaim that ‘left’ and ‘right’ are outdated and not relevant anymore in contemporary politics as organising principles. On the other hand, that these terms are persistently and ubiquitously used to describe and interpret policies, events, and behaviours.  

The module focuses on the question of the role of ‘left’ and ‘right’ as structuring principles in a variety of political domains, ranging from party competition, policy formation (domestic as well as foreign policy), public opinion, public political discourse, voting behaviour, media production and consumption, etc.

Karl Marx's thoughts and words have had an enormous impact on history. Revolutions have been fought, economic policies pursued and artistic movements established by followers (and opponents) of Marxism.

Together we'll examine some of Mark's original writing and explore his thinking. Specific themes we'll cover include:

• alienation
• the materialist conception of history
• ideology
• the labour theory of value

By the end of the module you should have a good overview of Marx's attempt to synthesise German philosophy, French political theory, and British economics.

This module is worth 20 credits.

This module focuses on a range of econometric methods used in policy evaluation and in the identification and estimation of causal effects. Topics to be covered include:

• potential outcomes framework
• regression analysis and matching
• instrumental variables
• difference-in-differences
• regression discontinuity

This module will consider mind, psychology, and mental health from a philosophical angle. The module will cover a range of exciting and fundamental topics in the philosophy of mind and psychology (chosen from topics such as, the social mind, animal minds, the nature of consciousness, the mind-body problem, the emotions, imagination, pain, will and action, belief, perception, mind as machine, and artificial intelligence - selected topics will vary from year to year).

We will always ask how these relate to mental health. But the module will also have a more specific focus on mental health as we will take the tools of philosophy of mind and psychology to mental health: we will consider how philosophy of mind and psychology can help us better understand mental health, but also how reflection on mental health can impact work in philosophy of mind and psychology. So the module will also cover content chosen from topics and areas such as the nature of mental health (and mental illness), delusion, thought-insertion, therapy, self-deception and the philosophy of specific mental disorders (for example, addiction, schizophrenia, depression) - specific topics varying from year to year.

So, in sum the module will combine focus on specific topics in philosophy of mind and psychology (with a mental health angle), and specific topics in philosophy of mental health (with a philosophy of mind and psychology angle).

This module covers the following:

Static numerical methods

• Numerical solution methods
• Numerical static optimisation methods
• Applications: resource allocation, computable general equilibrium

Dynamic numerical optimisation

• Discrete dynamic programming
• Implementation of the methods
• Applications: optimal growth, rational expectations, asset management

Agent-based economic modelling

• Foundations of agent-based modelling
• Basics of computer programming
• Applications: evolutionary games, markets   

Illness, ageing, death and dying are universal experiences. Yet discussion about them often only happens in times of emotional distress.

Together we'll explore philosophical issues related to human mortality in an open, supportive and compassionate way.

As well as a deeper understanding of the issues you will also build capacity to think sensitively and humanely about the human experience of ageing, illness, and dying.

Typical topics might include:

• experiences of being chronically ill
• psychiatry and mental health
• the oppression of ill persons · illness narratives
• the moral and spiritual significance of illness
• the experience of dying
• empathy, grief, and mourning
• death and the meaning of life
• the significance of human mortality to wider philosophical issues and concerns

This module is worth 20 credits.

There is perhaps no more vivid example of the exercise of state power over individuals than through the institution of criminal law. This power relationship raises a host of important philosophical questions, such as:

• Is there a general obligation to obey the law? If so, what is the basis for this obligation?
• What sorts of acts should be criminalised, and why?
• What does it mean for someone to be responsible for a crime, or for the state to hold someone responsible?
• Is criminal punishment justified? If so, why?
• What is the proper role for the presumption of innocence: Who must presume whom to be innocent of what? 
• Is the state ever justified in imposing legal restrictions on offenders even after they have completed their punishment?
• How should the criminal law function in the international context?

We'll look at thinking from across history, from seminal figures such as Plato, Bentham, and Kant, to more contemporary philosophers such as Hart, Hampton, Duff, and others.

No experience of criminal law necessary. Ideal for both philosophers and practitioners.

This module is worth 20 credits.

Education plays a fundamental part in all our lives. It shapes who we are as individuals, our value systems, our political and religious outlooks. As a consequence it changes how society looks, how it operates, and what we think society ought to be like. Education then, is of the most profound importance.

As philosophers we are uniquely placed to think long and hard about education:

• what is its role?
• what should its role be?
• who gets to decide what is taught?

Rising to this challenge this module creates the space, and provides the tools, for you to do just this.

This module is worth 20 credits.

Much of our life is filled with compulsory work but when free of obligation, when at leisure, we play in many different ways. We voluntarily chose to engage with the arbitrary rules and restrictions of games. We roll dice and push the pieces round a board. We twiddle thumbs and shoot fictional computer game zombies. We get involved in organised physical activities, sports such as football or athletics. We seek to escape our everyday lives by hiking up mountains in the wild, or by drinking and dancing in nightclubs. We may play with others, seeking friendship, intimacy or sex. We may relax alone, reading literature or practising art. We may mix these different activities together. 

The global economy presents a wide variety of political challenges and can create multiple types of crisis for states and the actors within it. Most recently, the Covid-19 pandemic has put the whole system under pressure and revealed its fragility.

This module analyses some of these challenges and crises, which range from sovereign default to the global free trade system and the impact of climate change, to help us understand and explain the international political economy. It draws on scholarship from the fields of international relations theory, international political economy, security studies, and economic history to provide students with a more nuanced understanding of global politics. 

This course will offer an overview of political party development and the functioning of party systems in democratic states around the world, with a special focus on post-transitional democracies in Eastern Europe, Latin America and Asia.

Applying a variety of analytical concepts, theoretical approaches, and empirical indicators to the study of party politics, the course will highlight the institutional and sociological determinants of party organisation development and system stability as well as the consequences of party failure and party system collapse.  

This module examines the controversial relationship between populism and democracy. It surveys key theoretical developments in democratic theory and the populist literature to compare mainstream and alternative definitions/conceptualisations of populism. The modules examines the problematic relationship of elites (‘the 1%’) – whether financial, social or political – in relation to liberal democracy and the masses (‘the 99%’). It explores concepts and events key to the populist surge, such as ‘post-truth’ politics, the polarisation of politics, the ‘friend/enemy’ relation, ‘us versus them’ relation, ‘elites’, ‘democratic leadership’, ‘representation’, the 2019 prorogation of the British Parliament, and ‘identification’.

You will have the opportunity to examine a range of different progressive and regressive populist leaders/associations, such as: Donald Trump, Vikor Orbán, Hugo Chávez, Brexit 2016, the UK general election 2019, the Yellow vests movement, the Danish People’s Party, Fidesz, the People’s Party, Occupy, Syriza, Podemos, Jobbik and Alternative for Germany.

This module will bridge the gap between academic study and pragmatic policy. It will consider how extremist ideas come into politics through extremist versions of ideology and religion, based on theories of prominent writers in the field.

It will consider political ideologies’ reliance on power and the role of violence through past case studies such as anarchism, Nazism and religious extremism. The module will also look at responses to terrorism utilising a case study approach that explores the United Kingdom’s and United States of America’s methods.

"Russia is a Great Power or it is nothing” – this belief has dominated Russian foreign policy thinking in the past as it does today. The module develops an understanding of Russia’s international politics in historical perspective – from the October Revolution in 1917 until today. Why is being a Great Power so important to Moscow and how successful has the country been in achieving and maintaining this status in the international system? What is Russia’s self-perception as an international actor and how does this contrast with the country’s international image?

Within the framework of relevant theoretical approaches to the study of international relations, the module will focus on a wide range of historical events and developments that will lead to a better understanding of Russia’s role in the world today. Themes to be discussed will include, amongst others:

• Stalinism and Soviet foreign policy
• Gorbachev’s ‘New Thinking’
• Military power and foreign policy
• Russia and its neighbours
• The annexation of the Crimea
• Human rights and international relations

The Anglo-American so-called 'Special Relationship' has provoked controversy since the term was coined after World War Two. To some commentators it has represented an attempt by the UK to hide its decline by lofty rhetoric and becoming the 'poodle' of a Superpower. To others, it has been a relationship that has served the interests of both countries and provided a foundation for Western cooperation. This module explores the salient aspects of a relationship that has been built around security, conventional and nuclear. 

One often hears the opinion that ethics is subjective. But what does this mean, exactly?

And one often hears the view that ethics is relative. But relative to what?

And what is ‘ethics’ anyway?

And if ethics is subjective, or relative, what does that mean for ethics as a discipline? Does it mean, for example, that our ethical pronouncements can never be incorrect, never be challenged, or never disagreed with?

This module addresses these and other questions about the foundations of ethics, and gives you the material to develop your own views of this peculiarly human phenomenon.

This module is an extended discussion of utilitarian approaches to moral and political philosophy, including utilitarian accounts of:

• the nature of wellbeing
• reasons and rightness
• rights and justice
• democracy
• individual decision-making
• praise and blame

Is it possible to provide Capitalism with solid ethical foundations and moral justifications? Many critics argue no. They point to resulting phenomena such as poverty, exploitation, North-South divides, discrimination, and many other ills. But at its inception Capitalism swept away the privilege of birth-right and ossified socioeconomic structures that condemned all but a tiny percentage of the world’s population to inescapable and grinding poverty, misery, illness, and premature death as the tools of others. It was widely praised as socially and politically progressive, particularly for the poorest in our societies. Its institutions of free markets and open productivity released those individuals into a world of opportunity, potential financial security, and rapid rises of the standard of living. Capitalism was a significant step in the pursuit of social justice. But what has gone wrong? Those early hopes evaporated for many.

This module asks whether capitalism can be given an ethical justification – one that would fulfil what it means for societies to be fair and just – and what that world would have to look like; how would it differ from our current world in terms of practices, laws, norms, and attitudes? It examines the good, the bad, and the ugly of capitalism and its associated practices.  

This is a module in applied political theory. It brings the tools of analytical political philosophy to bear on contemporary economic problems and arrangements. It develops the skills of rigorous philosophical analysis and develops knowledge and understanding of contemporary political economy. It builds on those skills previously introduced in earlier levels. It applies abstract reasoning to concrete real-world problems.

Questions relating to nationalism and ethnic conflict have become more prominent in political debate since the end of the Cold War, and the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrated the continuing importance of constitutional crafting as a means to manage ethnic diversity within states. 

This module evaluates differing definitions of the 'nation' and 'ethnic group', examines different state strategies to manage diversity such as multiculturalism, assimilation and integration, and considers different explanations of conflict between different ethnic groups. 

It then examines in more detail strategies adopted by particular states to manage their diversity. The countries of India, America, France, Afghanistan, the UK, and Germany are focused upon, but students are encouraged to use material relating to other countries if they have particular knowledge of these cases.

Why are some states better at protecting, respecting, and fulfilling their human rights obligations, while others are not? Understanding the conditions under which governments protect human rights is crucial for the field of International Relations and policy makers alike. This module will discuss cutting-edge research within and beyond the human rights field.

You will learn about autocratic state behaviour, safeguards within democratic systems, the campaigns and challenges of NGOs and international organisations, and the wide-ranging effects of globalisation across the different categories and dimensions of human rights. The module will apply theory and empirical insights from these different fields of inquiry in order to understand the relative protection and enjoyment of human rights across different country contexts.

By the end of the module, you will have a clear understanding about human rights research and its effects on the real world.

The module will look at a selection of science fiction novels and films from the standpoint of a student of political theory. In particular, it will consider the way in which works of literature and film have dealt with the issue of the relationships which exists between politics on the one hand and science/technology on the other.

To provide students with a basic understanding of the way in which social and political theorists have dealt with the impact of science and technology upon society; to familiarise students with a variety of works of literature and films which fall under the category of ‘science fiction’.

The state is the predominant site of power and authority in the modern world. Where modern states do not exist there is usually civil war or occupation; where they are ineffective, politics, society and economy tend to be unstable. But the modern state is also itself a site of violence and coercion in the name of which much suffering has been inflicted on those subject to its power, at home and abroad. Modern politics, then, simply cannot be understood unless we also understand the modern state.

By taking this module, students will become familiar with some of the most important theories of the modern state in the history of political thought, from Bodin and Hobbes, through Hegel and Schmitt, to Carole Pateman and Charles W. Mills, very much in the present. Students will come to appreciate how the power and authority of the modern state have been characterised, justified and repudiated during the modern era.

When we evaluate scientific theories there are a number of criteria not directly connected to predictive success, or even the ability to accommodate the empirical evidence, that collectively are called “theoretical virtues”. For example, we often evaluate theories partly on their simplicity, explanatory power, coherence with other theories, ability to unify disparate domains, fruitfulness for future research, etc.

In this module will focus on one of these theoretical virtues in order to address in detail if and how it is related to epistemic success. Can we, contrary to first impressions, account for the virtue in terms of predictive success? Can we give an epistemic defence of the virtue? Can it be defended on pragmatic grounds? How does our answer to the previous question affect the attitude that we should take towards our best scientific theories?

While we may consider various examples from the history of science, no background knowledge of science or logic (beyond elementary first-year logic) is presupposed. All reading assignments for this module are accessible to students with no training in science. More technical/formal reading materials will be made available to those who are interested, but such readings will not be compulsory for this module.