History, Politics and International Relations BA (Hons) module details

Year one

Block 1: Ideas and Change

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%).

Block 2: Journeys and Places

This module, with its focus on journeys and places, offers an opportunity for you to explore some of the key concepts underpinning your History, Politics and International Relations studies. You will take a post-disciplinary approach to your subject area, using techniques from diverse areas to address key questions related to journeys and places.

You will attend interactive lectures with students from across the School of Humanities and Performing Arts. You will have opportunities to apply the concepts addressed in these lectures to your programme within History, Politics and International Relations workshops and assessments.

The themes covered during the module may include journeys, spaces and the concept of welcome; (im)mobilities and journeys through time and space; representation and imaginative geographies; gender and placemaking; belonging and place attachment; journeys, places and identities; as well as themes related to sustainability and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

Assessment: Subject-specific Coursework: 1 (30%) and 2 (70%).

Block 3: Global Challenges

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%).

Block 4: Ideology, War and Society in the 20^th century

This module introduces students 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. Students 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: e.g., Essay (40%) and Exam (60%).

Year two

Block 1: Global Cold War

This module introduces students to the history of the Cold War in a global context. It explores the roots of the Cold War and how it played out in specific theatres such as Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America. The course deals with a variety of historical topics, which aside from global geopolitics might include sport and diplomacy, the nuclear arms race, the space race, and culture and society in the Cold War era. It also explores the ideological underpinnings of the Cold War, the role of propaganda as a weapon of the conflict and how these ideologies functioned in practice in different societies. The module will also address historiography and the competing interpretations of the Cold War by scholars and practitioners and assess the global legacy of the conflict. Students will study a broad range of themes, issues and controversies related to the Cold War and its legacies and gain an understanding of the parameters of it.

Assessment: e.g., Essay (50%) and Digital Presentation (40%).

Block 2: Exploring Work and Society

This module is designed to prepare and support you towards the pursuit of post-degree pathways. It will focus on the specific skills, capabilities and knowledge needed to adapt and flourish in professional environments and contexts. There will be an emphasis on enhancement of core attributes, competencies and transferable skills as well as developing familiarity with the world and politics of work. The module will prepare you for diverse and dynamic working environments beyond university by introducing reflective practices to support your long-term professional development.

You will be introduced to the UN Sustainable Development Goals and invited to engage critically around themes including race, gender, identity, and geopolitical issues, to conceptualize a more equitable society, and environmentally sustainable world, as relevant to your career aspirations.

You will engage with subject-specific workshops to gain greater understanding of worlds of work connected to your History, Politics and International Relations programme. You will take part in lectures, seminars, group discussion, independent learning, tutorial support and engagement with your peers.

Supported independent learning activities may include responding to real-world briefs, placements/shadowing, engagement with community projects or initiatives, creating proposals for projects or initiatives in a professional setting. These activities will be tailored to your History, Politics and International Relations course.

Assessment: Written Portfolio or Recorded Presentation (100%).

Block 3: Not in Westminster

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.

Students 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%)

Global Political Economy

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, students 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, students on the module 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%).

Block 4: Investigating the Past: Theory and Method

The module will introduce students 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%)

Political Research in Action

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 students 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 students practical skills in research methods that can be applied in their future academic and professional work, thereby enhancing their employability. 

Assessment: Portfolio (100%).

Year three

Block 1: Special subject

This module will introduce students to cutting-edge research drawn from the expertise available in the History team. Two subjects will be drawn from the following: Photography and Medicine in the Nineteenth Century; the Disintegration of Yugoslavia; the Olympic Games; the United States Empire; the United States and the First World War; the Zimbabwean Diaspora in the UK; the Partition of India/Pakistan; History and Memory in Post-colonial Africa; The Ottoman Empire in Europe: Disintegration and Legacies; Sport in Britain, 1850-1945. The module will be led by members of the teaching team on a rotating basis and will provide students with the opportunity to discuss specialised research topics with leading experts on those topics. Students will acquire in-depth knowledge of those topics, as well as first-hand experience on the research process, including the identification of suitable archives, the interpretation of the archival evidence and the current historiographical debates and controversies related to the subject. Students will study two topics and will specialise on one of them through to the final assignment.

Assessment: Portfolio (50%) and Essay (50%).

Block 2: Empire and its Aftermath

This module introduces students 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 decolonization 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. Students will study these processes in a broad and theoretical way in lectures, seminars, and workshops, as they deepen their understanding of specific case studies. Students 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 students to relevant historiographical approaches such as post-colonialism and Subaltern Studies.

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

Decolonising Politics

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 students 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 in to 51吃瓜app initiatives such as Decolonising 51吃瓜app, EDI groups and the extracurricular student-led anti-racist reading group. The module will afford students the opportunity to speak with leading scholarly experts and practitioners in the field of decolonising politics.

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

Block 3: Tackling Global Crises

This module provides students 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 students 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%).

Block 4:

History Dissertation

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. Students 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%)

Politics Dissertation

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. Students 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. Students wishing to pursue a traditional dissertation are 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 students in their next steps beyond the qualification, for example, further study and/or working in politics and international relations careers.

Assessment: Dissertation - 8000 words (100%).