Warwick’s Department of Politics and International Studies (PAIS) is one of the largest and most highlyregarded departments of its kind in the UK. We attract the best postgraduate students from around 50 different countries, ensuring an essential mix of diversity and vitality, a broad range of opinion, and valuable international expertise.
PAIS’s thriving postgraduate community comprises well over 100 taught postgraduates and around 60 PhD students at any one time. Our 40 or so permanent academic staff, many of whom are world leaders in their chosen fields, teach MA students in two-hour seminar sessions with a maximum group size of 15, ensuring an excellent learning experience. PAIS consistently appears in the top ten Politics departments in the Guardian Good University Guide and Research Assessment Exercises. Our thriving research culture is enhanced by the numerous research centres and programmes based in PAIS. The Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation (CSGR) brings together globally-recognised International Political Economy experts. CSGR scholars recently won European Commission funding for the Global Re-ordering: Evolution through European Networks (GR:EEN) project. PAIS is also home to the interdisciplinary Centre for Ethics, Law and Public Affairs, the Centre for Studies in Democratisation, and the international, action-oriented research initiative ‘Building Global Democracy’.
Research Areas
International Political Economy (IPE)
Warwick has a global reputation as a leading centre for the study of IPE. Particular areas of focus include the political economy of trade and finance, comparative regionalisms (East Asia and Europe), the political economy of European economic governance, the global and regional political economy of civil society and social movements, definitions and discourses of globalisation, the historical evolution of theories and discourses of political economy, and the notion of a ‘transatlantic divide’ between British and American IPE.
International Politics and Security Studies
Over the last decade PAIS has developed IPSS as a major research area. Key themes include critical security studies, including the role of gender; analysis of new security challenges; the international history and diplomacy of intelligence and security; regional politics (especially East Asia and the Middle East); regional economic processes and security issues; regional arenas of governance and regulation, and the EU’s external relations including security and the politics of enlargement.
Public Policy and Comparative Political Systems
These separate research strands have grown together, forming a coherent grouping. Key research areas include EU policy-making; the role of nongovernmental organisations, think tanks and pressure groups in policy processes; theories of justice and equality applied to the environment, education and international finance; and environmental policy, including the relationship between trade and the environment, agriculture and the environment, and the politics of sustainability.
Research Degrees
Master of Philosophy (MPhil)/ Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Standard Duration: 3 years full-time; 5 years part-time
With the guidance of a supervisory team you will undertake a significant piece of original research within the academic discipline(s) of Political Science and/or International Studies, ultimately producing a doctoral dissertation which you must defend in an oral examination. Training in research methods is provided by the Department, and your progress is formally reviewed at the end of each year. You will be part of a large and thriving research community both within and beyond your home department. PAIS PhD graduates go on to hold academic and other researchrelated posts across the world.
All students initially register for the degree of MPhil and usually upgrade to PhD status following the successful completion of their first year review.
Taught Master’s Degrees
A postgraduate degree from PAIS will prepare you for a range of analytic, research and consultancy roles in national and international organisations in the public and private sector, as well as for doctoral research. In each of our MAs, you will have a choice of optional modules to complement your core study.
MA in Globalisation and Development
Standard Duration: 1 year full-time, 2 years part-time
This MA explores and assesses the ways that globalisation has fundamentally altered the context of, and poses new challenges for, development. A selfreflexive approach to existing theoretical frameworks is encouraged: how do we construct knowledge? What assumptions and normative judgments do we make? What explanations and solutions do we propose? The core module blends this theoretical exploration with empirical case studies, and considers some of the prominent substantive items on the policy agenda of development institutions and agencies.
MA in International Political Economy (IPE)
Standard Duration: 1 year full-time, 2 years part-time
Our MA in IPE allows you to develop an in-depth critical understanding of this large and vibrant field of study. The core module will give you an historical overview of the key features of international capitalism. With this historical and theoretical background you will examine substantive issues including trade, production, global finance, the role of the state, and the environment. One of our recent graduates is now an assistant to a Member of the European Parliament.
MA in International Politics and East Asia (IPEA)
Standard Duration: 1 year full-time, 2 years part-time
PAIS has one of the greatest concentrations of disciplinary-based East Asia experts in the UK and Europe, making its MA in IPEA a leading programme of its kind. This is not a traditional area studies course but a Political Science degree that focuses on the region for its case studies, a combination offering advantages over other degrees. You will study the International Relations and International Political Economy of the East Asia region, developing a strong theoretical and historical foundation which will allow you to construct powerful arguments and explanations. One of our recent graduates now works for the European Chamber of Commerce in Taipei.
MA in International Politics and Europe (IPEU )
Duration: 1 year full-time, 2 years part-time
PAIS’s MA in IPEU is distinct from many other European Studies programmes. Our programme analyses European politics in the context of International Relations and International Political Economy. In your core module you will examine the European Union, its significance for the world system and the various ways in which it engages with the global political economy. Does the EU represent a novel and distinctive presence on the international scene? Can it contribute to a more open, democratic and human rights-based global polity, or is it merely a prop of neoliberal globalisation? Several graduates of this programme in recent years have gone into jobs at the European Parliament, the European Commission, their national foreign ministries, the UN in New York and think tanks across Europe.
MA in International Relations (IR)
Duration: 1 year full-time, 2 years part-time
This taught MA is one of the foremost programmes in Britain for the study of International Relations. The core module will give you an in-depth understanding of the ideas and approaches that IR scholars use to make sense of the practices of international politics. IR is more than the study of war and peace. You will also consider, for example, international cooperation, identity politics, and global governance, and the roles of actors other than nation states. One of our recent graduates from this programme is now a member of the European think tank FRIDE.
MA in International Security
Duration: 1 year full-time, 2 years part-time
Over the past decade PAIS has developed security studies as a major focus of research activity, making its MA in International Security one of the most comprehensive graduate programmes of its kind in the UK. In your core module you will explore both the theoretical apparatus of International Security and its real world objects. What does ‘security’ mean? Whose security are we talking about? In what ways might phenomena such as climate change and food shortages, as well those such as terrorism and nuclear proliferation, be considered security issues?
MA in Politics
Duration: 1 year full-time, 2 years part-time
This programme is recognised as a ‘Research Training’ Master’s by the Economic and Social Research Council and is designed to prepare you for doctoral research in Political Science, but can also serve as a standalone qualification. Its four compulsory modules, ‘Quantitative Data Analysis and Interpretation’, ‘Qualitative Methods, Data Collection and Analysis’, ‘Comparative Politics’ and ‘Explanation in Social Science’, provide training in key research skills. You will learn how to handle and interrogate large data sets. You will consider the theoretical and ethical issues that underpin Social Scientific research, and explore the methodological challenges of comparative approaches and interdisciplinary study. The research skills used could be deployed in market research and research officer roles in the public, private and third sectors.
MA in Public Policy
Standard Duration: 1 year full-time, 2 years part-time
Launched in 2011, the MA in Public Policy draws upon PAIS’s expertise in new scholarly approaches towards global/transnational public policy to offer a unique and cutting-edge programme of study. In the core module you will learn about the scholarly tradition of policy studies, explore core concepts in policy analysis, and evaluate the main theories of policy change and innovation. You will encounter perennial questions pertaining to democracy and representation in policy formulation and ‘speaking truth to power’.
Double Master’s Programme with NTU Singapore
Standard Duration: 1 year full-time, 2 years part-time
Launched in 2010, PAIS is collaborating with Nanyang Technological University, S Rajartatnam School of International Studies (RSIS) to offer a programme that allows students to gain a Master’s from two world-class institutions. Students spend the first year at Warwick before transferring to Singapore in July, and completing in July the following year. In addition to the taught components of each Master’s, students complete a 15,000 word dissertation, jointly supervised by academic staff from both institutions.
The two institutions’ approaches are mutually enhancing. PAIS’s particular strengths include theoretical and methodological training; RSIS is highly committed to policy-oriented education. Students will benefit from the complementary perspectives and wide-ranging expertise offered by leading institutions in two very different cultural settings.
Podcast
Persistence in economic and political institutions
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Most research in political economy starts with the presumption that institutions persist and shape the political-economic interactions of different groups and agents. Many societies, however, experience frequent changes in their political institutions. Certain economic institutions also change. In the face of this picture of frequently changing institutions, do such institutions really persist? Professor James Robinson, Harvard University, discusses the nature of institutional persistence and examines the mechanisms whereby elite minorities are able to manage the distribution of economic and political authority. (Length: 20mins)
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