Postgraduate Studentships - Search for funding opportunities.
Postgraduate Studentships - Search for funding opportunities.
Study Details: MSc 1-year full-time; 2-years part-time
The MSc in Politics is designed to deliver a set of core competencies or sub-disciplines within political studies, and to provide students with a balance between strong training in fundamental skills and a carefully selected range of choices on modules that will provide intensive training in the specialist branches of political studies.
The course conforms closely to the professional standards and core competencies in the discipline which organisations such as the Political Studies Association and the Economic and Social Research Council are actively seeking to promote.
This programme is designed to provide students with a comprehensive competence across the four main sub-fields of political science coupled with a strong research methodology skill set which places central emphasis on quantitative techniques and research design. Students graduating from the programme will have a broad understanding of the principal sub-fields of political science as a professional as well as academic discipline, i.e. research methods, behaviouralism, theory and institutions/policy and an understanding of the inter-relationships between the four ‘core competencies’ of the field.
Students will gain experience and expertise in the critical use of evidence and argument to support policy recommendations and decisions. They will also have the opportunity to plan, design and carry out a coherent strategy for a research project, and to present findings in a coherent and persuasive form appropriate to the context of the project criteria.
The programme is designed specifically around methodology and competences, and develops qualitative and quantitative skills. Students are able to make option choices that allow them to follow interests in areas of study in political science and politics-related disciplines, delivered by internationally renowned scholars who work at the cutting edges of their fields.
Thus students combine strong training in fundamental skills with advanced-level study of intelligence, security, international relations, war and peace and globalisation, thus gaining both breadth and depth, with a significant element of self-management of content of their course, while also developing key transferable skills.
Normally applicants will hold an upper second class honours degree in arts of social science from a British University or an equivalent overseas qualification. Candidates with other qualifications will be considered on an individual basis.
English Language Requirements
Brunel also offers our own BrunELT English Test and accept a range of other language courses. We also have a range of Pre-sessional English language courses, for students who do not meet these requirements, or who wish to improve their English.
Home/EU students: £5,060 full-time, £2,530 part-time; International students: £12,650 full-time, £6,325 part-time
PhD research; research assistant positions; government/party political and policy research staff (e.g. parliamentary researchers); third sector and NGOs; pressure groups and lobbyists.
The core competencies essential to political studies, and delivered in this course, are:
1. Methodology and design in political science;
2. Political behaviour (also known as ‘behaviouralism’);
3. Political theory;
4. Institutions and Policy.
Within these four, Methodology (1) and Behaviouralism (2) with their emphasis on research design and quantitative methods are viewed as the two defining elements of political science. Consequently, these will be delivered through a pair of compulsory modules (course units).
For Political theory (3) and Institutions (4) there are pools of modules from which students may choose one option each. These pools will be drawn from modules that are also part of other course, and consequently provide students with substantive training in the designated sub-fields in specific areas where Brunel has internationally-recognised expertise. This enables students to include within their own learning experiences materials and methodologies in intelligence and security, international relations, international history and war studies.
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