British Political History

15 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 1

This module provides an overview of the major developments in British political history since 1900, focusing mainly (but not exclusively) on the post-war period. You focus on the major challenges domestic and international which have confronted political elites and masses during the period. It provides a critical understanding of some of the major debates between and within the UK's major political parties, and introduces some of the academic arguments generated by them. Politicians, and indeed political scientists, often make use of particular versions of history in order to persuade people that what they are offering is either tried and trusted or, on the other hand, new and improved. Pundits are also fond of making casual allusions to political events of the past in order to illustrate or support their arguments about the present often based on little more than second-hand knowledge and outdated received wisdom. This module provides a firm foundation of knowledge on which to build the more advanced understanding promoted by more advanced modules. And, by subjecting to critical analysis what is often taken for granted, it encourages a degree of healthy scepticism towards any references to politics in the past made in both public and academic discourse.

Explanatory Concepts in Political Science

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 1

This module aims to provide you with firm understanding of some of the basic theories of the state including pluralism, elite theory, Marxism and public choice theory. You will apply these theories to British politics in order to gain a better understanding of particular political issues and interests, for example, the Constitutions, political parties, voting, interest groups and globalisation. This will enable you to engage in a dialogue that confronts established theories concerning the changing reality of British politics.

Foundations of Politics

15 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 1

This module provides an introduction to some of the central concepts and issues in political theory. It offers you an opportunity to think not just about the way politics is, but also about the way it ought to be. We will ask questions such as ‘why should we obey the state?’, ‘is democracy the best form of government?’ and ‘what makes a just society?’ By the end of the module you should have acquired a basic understanding of the central questions that political theorists spend their time thinking and writing about, and you should have begun to develop some of your own answers to these questions.

Research Skills and Methods in Political Science

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 1

This module is designed to introduce you to some of the fundamental issues faced by scholars as they try to analyse the political world around them.  We begin by examining the discipline of political science, what 'studying politics', and introduce some of the key terms such as epistemology, behaviouralism, quantitative methods.

You will be introduced to the basics of quantitative methods and the advantages and disadvantages of using surveys, questionnaires and statistical packages to analyse real world political activity. 

The next set of lectures analyse a completely different mode of enquiry; those based on interpretist understandings of political affairs. There are, obviously, all sorts of ways of collecting evidence to support your case/answer a question, and some of the most popular involve doing interviews, focus groups, simple participation etc. We discuss some of the strengths and weaknesses of using these methods, analysing why they are chosen in the first place and how they link with more quantitative approaches. 

By the end of the module, you should have an enhanced understanding of what the political science discipline is, how political scholars conduct their research and how they reach the conclusions that they do. You should also be able to critically interpret many of the claims and counter-claims, often based on statistical indicators, that are a feature of contemporary political debate.

Most of the lectures will necessarily focus on presenting various, often rather abstract, concepts and procedures. However, the relevance of these in modern political analysis will be demonstrated by incorporating practical exercises in which the concepts and methods learnt will be applied in seminars and computer workshops.

The Early Modern World

30 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 1

This module introduces you to the early modern period by exploring some of the central themes of early modern history, and the various ways in which they have been debated by historians. It also equips you with the writing and research skills essential for a successful university career.  Focusing on the period 1500 to 1700, you will examine the debates surrounding social polarisation, cultural differentiation, cultures of Protestantism, the context of the English civil war, issues of gender, and the meanings of monarchy and republicanism.

The Making of the Modern World

30 credits
Spring teaching, Year 1

This module will introduce a period of momentous social, political and cultural change in British and European history by focusing on some of the key debates that have preoccupied its historians.

Historical controversies over events such as the British Union, the Industrial Revolution, the Enlightenment, and the French Revolution will be examined and used to introduce various historiographical approaches. You will consider central themes such as gender, popular culture, concepts of the state (from absolutism to democracy), sociostructural and demographic change, and empire and nationalism, which will give you a range of perspectives on the past and issues of continuity and change.

European Politics

15 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 2

The political map of contemporary Europe is changing fundamentally and rapidly, as the traditional boundaries between East and West and – between domestic and international governance – break down. This module provides a pan­-European introduction to the continent's politics,­ taking a comparative rather than country­-by-­country approach.

After setting the historical and socio­economic context, the module tackles not only institutions (the nation-­state, government and policy­making, legislatures, parties, pressure groups and the media) but also issues of ­participation, immigration, the supposed blurring of the left-­right divide, and Europe's role in the world.

Global History 1500-2000: Trade, Science, Environment and Empire

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

Global history has emerged as an innovative and powerful approach to understanding the past and its implications for the present and future. Global history is a history of connections. It addresses the contexts and the structures through which societies and communities interacted with one another. The overarching theme of global history is the emergence of an ever more integrated global society, but the field looks to explain and understand particular circumtances as well as universal experiences.

The topics of global history transcend any particular national or local history. You study a theme for between two and three weeks, and lectures support the thematic concerns of the modules. The course looks at several topics in detail:

• communication and war
• race, slavery and anti-slavery
• colonial encounters and environments
• civil and human rights
• global order and disorder
• empire, science, trade and environment.

Alongside these themes the course addresses particular questions such as the emergence of the 'great divergence': the widening gap in the 19th century between living standards in the Atlantic basin and those in the rest of the world and the global expansion of European empires.

Ideas in History

15 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 2

This module begins with the revival of classical ideas about politics during the Renaissance and Reformation, goes on to consider the debate between ancients and moderns in the 17th and 18th centuries, and finally looks at the nature of modern political thought as it developed from the middle of the 19th century to the present. The aim of the module is to give you an ability to place modern ideas about politics in their historical context, through the study of central figures and themes whose writings continue to be cited in political argument.

The authors considered include: Machiavelli, Milton, Hobbes, Locke, Harrington, Mandeville, Montesquieu, Hume, Rousseau, Smith, Bentham, Hegel, Constant, Tocqueville, Marx, Weber, Lenin, Gramsci, Schmitt, Arendt, Chomsky, and Rawls.

The topics of the module include:

• virtue and security
• the origins of democracy
• absolutism and empire
• perpetual peace
• reason of state and amoral politics
• the debate about commerce, luxury and markets
• the size of the state and its form of government
• the nature of liberty and the means of maintaining it
• totalitarianism and slavery in politics
• modern democracy, philosophy and the modern state
• civil liberty, war and empire.

Modern Political Thought

15 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 2

This module addresses some of the most important texts in the history of western political philosophy. It covers the work of seven major political thinkers and aims to provide you with knowledge of the broad contours of modern political thought from the 17th to the 20th century. You will develop your ability to analyse philosophical arguments and to situate the texts studied in the appropriate historical contexts. Throughout, the aim will be to encourage close textual reading whilst developing an awareness of the wider themes and concepts that inform modern political thought.

History Short Period: American History 1877-2000

15 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 2

This module probes the social, political and economic development of the United States since the end of Reconstruction. It is organised on a broadly chronological basis with primary stress on key topics such as the emergence of racial segregation in the South, the construction of a modern, industrial society, the emergence of the United States as a Great Power, progressive reform, the economic crisis of the 1930s, the American experience in World War II and the ensuing Cold War, the civil rights and New Left movements of the 1960s, and the concomitant rise of conservativism. Notable themes include the growth of federal power, the steady erosion of localism, the development of a corporate-dominated consumer society, the limitations of modern liberalism and the political influence of American religion. The module introduces you to landmark political change such as the failure of Populism and the changing Republican party constituency in the South as well as important legal rulings such as Brown v Board of Education and Roe v Wade. A close analysis of the New Deal, a transformational moment in twentieth-century US history, frames an extended assessment of the rise and fall of the so-called New Deal order. In addition the module familiarises you with critical historiographical debates over the role of American labour, the impact of war on American society and culture, and the growth of the imperial presidency. Although the focus is primarily on domestic events and structural trends, the United States' growing engagement with the wider world receives full attention.

History Short Period: Britain in the 20th Century

15 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 2

This module concentrates on British history since 1914. You will be introduced to the major themes in the social, cultural and, to a lesser extent, economic and political history of twentieth century Britain. You will critically examine the most important contributions and debates within the historiography of each topic. You will also be introduced to some of the historical sources available for this period. The module covers a number of topics chronologically including War, Work, Leisure, Youth Culture and Immigration.

The module will equip you with the knowledge and skills necessary for a historical understanding of Britain across the twentieth century.

History Short Period: Europe in the 20th Century

15 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 2

This module addresses the main political, economic and cultural issues that continue to shape the history of Europe since World War II. Cold War confrontation and division will inform much of the module structure, with particular attention to broad thematic topics such as: the politics of memory regarding the war and the Holocaust; economic and political integration in both Cold War orbits; the crusade for, and resistance against, Americanisation and Sovietisation across a divided Europe; the end of Empire; the crisis and collapse of European communism; and the prospects and perils confronting post-Cold War Europe.

History Short Period: South Asia Since 1880

15 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 2

This module examines the history of South Asia since 1880. It concentrates on the impact of colonialism on the Indian subcontinent and on the formation of the modern South Asian States of India and Pakistan. You will also learn about the culture of colonialism, the nature of the colonial state and the emergence of nationalism. Gandhi and his non-violent struggle for Indian independence emerges as one of the defining moments of Indian nationalism. The module comprises both lectures and seminars.

Politics of Governance: Eastern Europe

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

The module begins by examining the kind of legacies that the communist period left in these countries before moving on to consider their institutional structures and party and electoral politics of the new post-communist democracies. You then considers some of the major issues raised by the process of post-communist democratisation. These include: how to deal with functionaries of the previous non-democratic regime, how to introduce radical economic reform, and how to accommodate the existence of the numerous ethnic minorities that most of these states encompass? The impact of attempts to integrate into Euro-Atlantic international structures (the EU and NATO) on Central and East European domestic politics is considered before a final session that attempts to evaluate the nature of the regimes that are emerging in the region.

Politics of Governance: France

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

Democracy in France has a troubled history, which continues to impact on contemporary politics in significant ways that have contributed to the representation of France as being in many ways 'exceptional'. This idea of 'the French Exception' will serve as a context for this module, which aims to give you a basic understanding of the institutions, policies and issues which dominate political life in France today. The module uses current affairs in France as its starting point in order to encourage engagement, and will use this to build up a grasp of the institutional framework in which political power operates. Important themes to be analysed will be: institutional and constitutional change, party dynamics, and policy reforms.

Politics of Governance: Germany

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

The overall intellectual aim of this module is to provide a comprehensive analysis of the structure and norms of governance in the Federal Republic of Germany. The module examines the structure of German governance post-1945, looking at the formal codified arrangements of German federalism and the relationship between the constitution, parties and the wider polity. Particular emphasis is placed on Germany's role within the broader international community and the effects that unification has had on the structures and practices of German governance. We will also look at two particular policy fields (foreign policy, asylum and immigration policy) in order to see how the structures of governance affect policy making and policy development in individual policy areas. Learning objectives are specified by week for each topic. You should use these to think about when reading the material and preparing for each seminar.

Politics of Governance: India

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

Politics of Governance: International Institutions and Issues

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

This module critically analyses the evolution of the international institutional order since World War II up to contemporary times. It examines the emergence and transformations of these bodies in the face of evolving and emerging issues and challenges. You will focus on institutions such as the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organisation, as well as non-state actors and then gauge and assess their response to the issues and challenges in their respective fields of competence (for example, the environment, global ethics, intervention, failing states, self-determination, the changing nature of war and global governance).

Politics of Governance: The European Union

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

This module treats the EU as a system of governance and examines it on that basis looking at the nature of executive, legislative and judicial politics as well as looking at the nature of interest representation and examining the nature of democracy in the EU and the impact of the EU on European states. It does so the basis of a variety of theoretical accounts derived from international relations and political science that have been applied to the EU

Politics of Governance: USA

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

This module examines four approaches to understanding contemporary US politics that emphasise the role of institutions, ideas, individuals and interests. These approaches are applied to the three main institutions of the Presidency, Congress and the Supreme Court and to the nature of political parties and voting in the US.

Short Period: The Middle East and North Africa since 1908

15 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 2

Time and Place 1851: Science, Empire and Exhibitionism

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

Time and Place1926: The General Strike

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

At one minute to midnight on 3 May 1926, the British Trades Union Congress called a general strike in support of coal miners, who were refusing to accept their employers' demands for a longer working day and reduced wages. What followed was one of the most dramatic episodes in the history of the British labour movement. Up to two million men, along with one million miners, downed their tools with more poised to follow before the general strike was called off on 12 May. The miners continued their fight for a further seven months before they finally returned to work. This was a defining moment in an era of economic, social and political strife. It had a huge impact on working-class identity for decades to come, and remains one of the most significant examples of industrial action Britain has ever seen.

During the module you will explore the experience of the General Strike in depth, looking at its causes and its consequences, and the impact it had on the lives of those involved. Using oral history, autobiography, contemporary writings and social surveys, this will lead to a broader examination of working-class life in interwar Britain, dealing with themes such as:

• Working life (industry and labour, industrial relations, unemployment and poverty)
• Family life (neighbourhood and community, gender roles, children's experiences)
• The State (welfare, housing, policing)
• Working-class identities (culture, leisure and collective mythologies)
• Political struggle (trade unions, the rise of the Labour Party and its opponents, Conservative hegemony, political extremism).

Time and Place: 1688: The Glorious Revolution

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

In November 1688 the Dutch prince William III of Orange invaded England, and James II, King of England, Ireland, and Scotland, fled London. By February 1689, William and his wife Mary were offered the English crown.

The constitutional settlement following the Glorious Revolution shaped the formation of the British state for centuries to come, and the ensuing military strife contributed to Britain’s rise as an international power. At the same time, the revolution created conditions for the development for a thriving commercial society and a vibrant civil society.

This module will examine the political and religious strains that gave rise to these momentous events. You will see how they were perceived at the time, and how they are interpreted by present-day historians. You will also examine the revolution’s consequences.

Time and Place: 1838: The Coronation of Queen Victoria

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

The coronation of Queen Victoria in 1838 brought to the throne the first woman in over one hundred years. Almost at once the initial popular interest in her desirable qualities - her youth, her femininity, her purity - began to sour as she was revealed to be a staunch partizan of the unpopular Whig government, and then chose for her Consort a German, the soon-­to­-be Prince Albert.

This module will examine two major themes. Firstly, it will use the early years of Victoria's reign to explore the painful birth of 'Victorian' England, ­ caught between the aristocratic assumptions of the eighteenth-century and the more middle-class principles of the nineteenth. Secondly, it will tie together these threads by returning to the Coronation of 1838 and examining its place in the long development of royal ritual, in order to assess how far the 'invented traditions' of British monarchy have contributed to the stability of the nation.

Among topics to be considered will be the rise of the middle class, the role of women in early Victorian England, the conflicts of religion, the politics of reform and the struggle for the constitution, the rise of respectable society, the impact of technology, and the rise of the popular press.

Time and Place: 1861: The Coming of the American Civil War

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

Time and Place: 1916: The Somme

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

There were nearly 60,000 British casualties on the first day of the Somme. The final tally was nearly 420,000 British casualties. This represents a significant proportion of total British war casualties. Nearly all of those that fought are now dead and the war is rapidly passing from living memory.

This course will ask: what were the experiences of those who fought? how did experience and expectation vary by class and age? is it true that the ‘flower of British youth’ perished in Flanders fields? what long term impact did the carnage have on the attitudes of the British people? how is the war represented in art and literature and in what ways have these representations been used to portray particular views of war?

The war is often seen as a great watershed - between the Victorian nineteenth century and the modern twentieth century - but historians increasingly question the extent to which changes brought about by the war were anything more than transitory. Nevertheless, the lives of many who were non-combatants did change profoundly. About 800,000 women entered the workplace to replace men who were called up.

This course asks: how did war work affect women’s lives and expectations? in a wider context, did the needs of ‘total war’ and desire to secure victory at all costs transform the political aspirations of working people?

Time and Place: 1929: The Weimar Republic

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

In 1929 the stock market crashed and further de-stabilised the already fragile Weimar Republic.  This year also marks the publication of Alfred Döblin's Berlin Alexanderplatz, one of the great works of modernist literature. 

This module looks at the history, politics, art and philosophy of the Weimar Republic (1918-1933).  In addition to reading excerpts from Berlin Alexanderplatz and Christopher Isherwood's Goodbye to Berlin, you will also study the innovative cinema of Fritz Lang, F.W. Murnau, Bertolt Brecht and Leni Riefenstahl, developments in German Expressionist painting during this period, and Bauhaus architecture.  You will read some seminal political and philosophical works of the period in the writings of Carl Schmitt, Walter Benjamin and Martin Heidegger.  You will take a multi-disciplinary approach to some of the most important political and artistic experiments in the twentieth century, and will acquire invaluable background knowledge about the collapse of Weimar and the rise of National Socialism. 

Time and Place: 1938: Kristallnacht

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

During the night of the 9th of November 1938, SS and SA forces launched an assault on German Jews; on their property, their synagogues, and their businesses. This so-called ‘Kristallnacht’ can be understood as a violent rehearsal for the Holocaust which Nazi Germany implemented three years later. It also marks the end of over a century of a prolific and (mostly) peaceful co-existence between Jews and Christian non-Jews.

This module concerns the relationship between Jews and Christian no-Jews since the early 19th century. It focuses on the complex processes of political emancipation, of social integration, and of cultural adaptation through which Jews became an integral part of the German political, social and cultural life. At the same time, these processes changed Jewish religious, economic, social and cultural life.

This module will concentrate on the period from the mid-19th century to the beginning of the Holocaust, emphasizing Jewish life in imperial and Weimar Germany as well as under Nazism. Issues of Jewish identity will be discussed along with aspects of modern anti-Semitism. You will gain an understanding of this history of Jewish/non-Jewish relations in all its richness, alongside its problematic aspects leading up to 1938 and the Holocaust.

Time and Place: 1942: Holocaust

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

This module looks at the attempt by the Nazis to create a ‘Master Race’ by exterminating the Jews of Europe and by targeting other groups including gay people, Gypsies and people with disabilities. You will study the legacy of anti-Semitism and racism towards Gypsies, along with other forms of discrimination inherited by the Nazis and used by them to create their own racist policies.
You will consider issues such as: how was the so-called ‘Final Solution to the Jewish problem’ put into effect? why is 1942 a key year in the development of the Final Solution? what part was played by the perpetrators across occupied Europe? is it accurate to characterise most people as bystanders? what sort of people were rescuers? what were the experiences of the victims and what were the possibilities of resistance?
The issues will give rise to many questions about why the Holocaust happened. The module will examine how it was possible to  carry out this plan of mass murder so effectively, and to do so in such a short time, when the plan relied on the active involvement of many people, and the passive acceptance of even more.

Time and Place: 1956: The Battle of Algiers

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

The starting point will be 30 September 1956 when four Algerian women placed bombs in the European quarter of Algiers - a key moment in the Battle of Algiers. The module will commence with the precise context for this action, namely the unfolding war in Algeria between the National Liberation Front (FLN) and the left-wing Republican Front government. It will examine the motivations for this violence and the particular involvement of the Algerian women in the anti-colonial struggle.

The course will then move on to consider the wider international context for the Algerian crisis. In this way 30 September 1956 will be related to:

• the rise of pan-Arab nationalism encapsulated within Nasser's Egypt
• British and French imperialisms expressed through the Suez Crisis
• the Cold War confrontation in the Middle East and North Africa
• the role of Israel in the Middle East
• US foreign policy in the Middle East and North Africa and the tensions this produced between the old colonial powers and the USA
• the foundation of the EEC
• splits within the left and the rise of the new left that criticised the USSR
• the rise of the non-aligned movement
• Americanisation and the Western European 'economic miracle'. 

Time and Place: 1963: Sexual Revolution in Britain

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

According to the poet Philip Larkin, sexual intermodule began in 1963, and the ‘swinging sixties’ have been characterised as a decade when sexual relationships were subject to fundamental change.

Taking 1963 as a starting point, this module will examine the shifting nature of sexual and emotional intimacy across 20th century Britain. You will examine how appropriate it is to characterise certain decades as periods of sexual revolution and others as periods of sexual conservatism, and how to account for such a historical change.

You will pay close attention to long-term demographic shifts and attempt to account for the rising popularity of marriage until the late 1960s, and its declining popularity during the 1970s. You will examine the social implications of birth control availability, the significance of historically-specific shifts in the age of first marriage, courtship etiquette, changing sexual practices and cultural constructions of ‘love’.

Time and Place: 1968: Rivers of Blood

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

Time and Place: 1984: Thatcher's Britain (Observing the 1980s)

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

George Orwell's 1949 novel 1984 describes a totalitarian government bent on total manipulation. For many on the left, Margaret Thatcher's government represented elements of an 'Orwellian state', in which the social democratic consensus established after the end of World War Two was replaced by a free enterprise economy and a centralised state. For those on the political right, the 1980s Thatcher governments championed the re-assertion of individualism, British nationalism and a retreat from the so-called 'nanny state' in which the fight against the 'enemy within' was as important as the fight against the enemy without. In cultural terms, most writers point to the 1980s as being marked by creative pessimism, with 'anti-Thatcherism' the dominant cultural theme.

This module will examine key events of the 1980s and reflect upon whether Margaret Thatcher's most famous quote, 'There is no such thing as society', is a suitable epitaph for the 1980s. Topic studied include: 1982 Falklands War; the 1984 miners' strike; the re-emergence of mass unemployment, peaking in 1986 at over 3.5 million; privatisation of industry and challenge to trade union power and the violent mass protest against the Community Charge (1990). Rather than producing a top down political history of the period, this module is interested in exploring the wide variety of evidence available to the contemporary historian. It is built around the Observing the Eighties project which includes oral histories from the British Library and holdings of the Mass Observation Project and ephemera from the University of Sussex.

History Special Dissertation

30 credits
Autumn & spring teaching, Year 3

Death of Socialism

30 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 3

This module looks at the contemporary condition of socialism following the collapse of state socialism in Central and Eastern Europe and elsewhere, the erosion of the central principles of Western social democracy and the prevalence of free market and capitalist ideas at the start of the century. Is socialism a relevant, feasible or desirable idea in contemporary society? Or is it dead, merely a historical relic of the 20th century?

We will start by looking at the two predominant conceptions and experiences of socialism of the twentieth century - ­ Marxist and social democratic socialism. What are the main features of these models of socialism? You will then examine criticisms of socialism from liberals and libertarians ­ such as Hayek and Nozick ­ and from new social movements ­ such as the women's movement and the green movement. What critical points are raised by these perspectives and how telling are they? We will look at reasons for the collapse of state socialism in the late 1980s and at attempts in the West to rethink socialism during an era in which neo­liberalism was a predominant force. Do liberal and new social movements' criticisms and the collapse of state socialism suggest that socialism is dead? Do attempts to redefine socialism (as market socialism or radical democratic socialism) escape the criticisms of liberals and the new social movements and the problems experienced under old social democracy and state socialism? Or do they indicate that the era of socialism has well and truly passed?

In the final two topics we shall address this question a little more. We will examine the attempt of New Labour and current European social democrats to respond to the crisis of social democracy and will ask whether there is anything remaining of socialism in such attempts. And we shall examine theses such as that of Fukuyama: that the day of socialism has passed and that capitalism has won the battle.

EU Politics and Policy

30 credits
Spring teaching, Year 3

This module provides an opportunity to study the substance of the policies which the EU has developed and the process by which those policies are agreed. You draw upon the techniques and approaches which have been developed in the specialised discipline of policy analysis, allowing for an understanding of the way in which specific policy areas have emerged.

As well as using academic texts and analysis to inform your understanding of the EU policy process, the module will also familiarise you with a range of primary and other research resources. In particular you will learn about a variety of hard copy and on line materials produced by the European Institutions and bodies seeking to influence or understand the EU. You will also learn about data and media sources which will enable you to draw upon a wider range of material in studying, researching and discussing the issues covered by the module.

France: The Mitterrand Years

30 credits
Spring teaching, Year 3

The module aims to engage you with politics and policies in France during the period of the double presidency of François Mitterrand, 1981-1995. It will begin by setting this period in its historical perspective, in order to highlight the significance of the victory of the first socialist president. We will then look at the early years of 'the socialist experiment', 1981-1984, and evaluate its achievements and failures, before moving on to look at the gradual 'Europeanisation' of the policy-making processes after 1984, when the discourse of socialism gives way to that of modernisation and the signing of the Single European Act, a watershed for France and for the Left in particular. We will then examine the first period of 'cohabitation' from 1986-1988, examining its political and institutional implications as well as its consequences, one of which was the re-election of Mitterrand in 1988. In the second presidency we will consider the impact of the collapse of communism on France and on Franco-German relations in particular, and the gradual realisation of 'the end of the French exception' culminating in the referendum debate on the Maastricht Treaty, which brought about certain realignmnents in the party system. Finally, we will consider the ways in which affairs of corruption and the politics of memory (Vichy France and the Algerian War) came to dominate the final years of the Mitterrand presidency, with repercussions for his legacy and the post-Mitterrandian era of French politics.

Ideas of Progress and Decline in Modern British Politics

30 credits
Spring teaching, Year 3

Immigration and the Liberal State

30 credits
Spring teaching, Year 3

Independent Study/Internship Option

30 credits
Spring teaching, Year 3

This option provides an opportunity for you to carry out your own research project - working independently but with the help of a project tutor. In order to be accepted onto this option you produce a project outline by the end of you second year which needs to be approved by the module convenor. This many be linked to a period as an intern in the place of work (eg, in a local authority or at Westminster).

Parties and Voters in the UK

30 credits
Spring teaching, Year 3

This module focuses on the study of parties and voters in the UK, one of the core topics in British political science. Emphasis is given primarily to contemporary change rather than historical background. Topics and themes covered include: party system change in the UK; historical origins of the party system; electoral behaviour and party competition; party ideologies and programmatic development; intra-party conflict and cohesion; party organisational change; the party system and the political system.

Political Change: Eastern Europe in Transition

30 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 3

The module aims to provide an analysis of the process of political transition and change in contemporary Eastern Europe. It aims to identify and examine the specific characteristics of the transition to democracy by studying the East European states in a comparative context and using analytical frameworks normally employed for the study of established Western democracies and other countries that have undergone recent democratisation. You examine the main political features of the transition by looking comparatively at all the states of the former communist bloc except for those that were formerly in the Soviet Union.

Political Change: India

30 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 3

Political Change: Latin America

30 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 3

The purpose of the module is to engage you with Latin American politics through the analysis of its processes, institutions and major actors. We will assess the most important challenges for these young democracies: the role of the military, the reform of political institutions, threats from guerrillas and other organised armed groups, and the problem of debt and economic restructuring. The module will enable you to evaluate the impact of political culture, economic development, and the legacy of authoritarian regimes for the democratisation process of the region.The module starts by examining the legacy of colonialism, before moving on to look at (neo-)populism in Brazil, Argentina, Peru and Venezuela; it considers the impact of US foreign policy in the region, economic debt and restructuring, and the push for regional economic integration; it examines the experience of the military's role in politics, guerilla and civil war; it also looks at dictatorship, one-party dominance and transition to democracy; finally, it examines the mobilisation of indigenous populations and the recent 'turn to the left' in party politics.

Political Change: Political Parties and Party Systems

30 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 3

Political Change: The European Union as a Global Actor

30 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 3

The emergence, over the last five and a half decades, of the European Union as a global actor of real relevance forms the basis for this module. It will chart and critically analyse this process of change from a community of six member states consumed with internal economic priorities to a union of 27 member states (and growing) whose decisions frequently have a global reach and whose troops  have undertaken missions in south-east Europe, Central Africa and the Far East. What have been the key actors and factors behind this transformation? And where is this process of political change headed? The tutor will encourage and assist you in tackling these and other related questions in a critical manner. The module will cover the following distinct but related topics: foreign policy integration at EU level and its limits; the impact of new member states; the militarization of the Union; the EU and crisis management; the EU and conflict prevention; the impact of the USA and Russia on this process of change; and the soft power/hard power debate.

Political Corruption

30 credits
Spring teaching, Year 3

The objective of this module is to shed some light on the dark side of politics by developing analytical and theoretical tools that will allow us to analyse corruption across both time and space. We begin by analysing exactly what we understand by ‘corrupt’ behaviour and how this appears to differ (often quite starkly) across national boundaries. Are humans naturally corrupt? If so, does this matter? Is corrupt behaviour absolute and universal or does it depend on location and context? Indeed, can corruption sometimes even be a good thing?

Armed with the analytical tools aimed at unpacking the complex phenomenon of political corruption, we examine specific examples of corruption across the developed world, ranging from systematic abuses of power by parties and politicians to small-scale, almost trivial, petty misdemeanours. This analysis then provides a foundation for examining what reforms might contribute to lessening instances of political corruption in the western world.

Populism and Politics

30 credits
Spring teaching, Year 3

Populism is a widely used term in politics but rarely conceptualised in political science. This module explores the phenomenon of populism and its relationship to politics and particularly to representative politics and considers populism, its meaning, its causes and effects in a systematic and comparative way. Populism is understood in its widest possible sense in this module so that we explore populism of the right and of the left and we examine a wider range of disparate cases of populism from different parts of the world. The module has essentially two elements: the first is the examination of a range of different examples of populist movements, moments, personalities and parties (eg from Russia, North America, Latin America and Europe). The second element is to examine the conceptualisation of populism and to engage with the debates about whether to and how to define populism. The module will be empirically oriented allowing you to develop interests in a small number of cases with an eye to clarifying your positions on the wider conceptual debates regarding populism.

Regulatory Politics

30 credits
Spring teaching, Year 3

The role and influence of regulation is a major aspect of modern government and public policy. This can be seen in the regulation of public services (typically quality and effectiveness), the regulation of markets (typically questions of price, competition and consumer friendliness), the regulation of the constitution (ranging from public appointments to standards in public life), the regulation of professional services (standards and conduct among doctors, lawyers, etc), and the regulation of personal and ethical matters (such as fertility, genetics and medical research).

The module looks at regulatory politics in a critical, dynamic sense. Regulation is a fast changing field, with many new ideas and developments coming from disciplines such as management, business and psychology. It is also heavily affected by policy failures and disappointments faced by governments. And regulation is shaped by the practices, results and learning of front-line regulators themselves. You are encouraged to draw on all of these influences to develop a rounded understanding of the politics of regulation and regulatory reform.

Special Subject Capitalism and Ethnicity

30 credits
Autumn & spring teaching, Year 3

Special Subject: Britain and the Second World War

30 credits
Autumn & spring teaching, Year 3

This module concentrates on the impact of the Second World War on social, cultural, economic and political relations in Britain 1938-45. The extent to which the war had a profound impact on British society is the subject of vigorous debate among historians in secondary literature. A complicated historiography exists for many of the topics included in this module, and the reasons for this changing interpretation of the past will be explored. The topics covered by this module include: 1930s appeasement, civil defence and preparation for war, civilian evacuation, the blitz, the fall of Chamberlain and the Churchill coalition government, Dunkirk evacuation, war economy, rationing, agriculture, women in factories and auxiliary services, combatants' experience, D-Day landings, American service personnel in Britain, Beveridge report and the post-war welfare state, the General Election of 1945. The emphasis of History Special Subjects is to examine a particular period in detail using primary sources and subsequent monographs and articles. Primary sources include: Parliamentary Papers; government publications, contemporary social investigation and comment; contemporaneous essays and monographs; oral historical accounts; memoirs and diaries, films, paintings, poems, photographs etc. Subsequent analysis, in the form of books and articles are secondary sources.

Special Subject: Democracy and War

30 credits
Autumn & spring teaching, Year 3

Special Subject: Domesticity and its Discontents: Women in Post-War Britain

30 credits
Autumn & spring teaching, Year 3

Special Subject: Modernism

30 credits
Autumn & spring teaching, Year 3

Special Subject: Palestine in Transition: World War 1 and Beyond

30 credits
Autumn & spring teaching, Year 3

Special Subject: Reforming Islam in the 20th Century: Modernism, Revivalism, Extremism, Terrorism

30 credits
Autumn & spring teaching, Year 3

Special Subject: The American Civil War in Historical Memory

30 credits
Autumn & spring teaching, Year 3

The ongoing Sesquicentennial commemoration of the Civil War in the United States highlights the continuing capacity of that sanguinary conflict to generate controversy in the present. This module provides you with a detailed examination of the war's impact on generations of Americans since 1865. It focuses specifically on the construction of southern white, African American and official unionist memories of the Civil War. These three key strains of historical memory evolved in the late nineteenth century under the press of postbellum reconciliation between North and South and the concomitant growth of a segregated society. They took a variety forms, notably the potent and profoundly racist 'Lost Cause' memory of the Confederate cause which underpinned the Jim Crow South for more than half a century, a marginalised African-American 'counter-memory' which sought to keep alive remembrance of emancipation and black military service in the armed forces of the United States, and an official national memory which depicted the Civil War as a tragic brothers' war which nevertheless had the effect of unifying and strengthening the United States in preparation for its emergence on the world stage as a Great Power.

The module will focus on the impersonal social and economic forces at work in the construction of these distinctive and frequently intertwined memories as well as the inherently political activities of different groups involved in the memory-making process. These groups include southern white women who founded the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the veterans themselves who contributed significantly to sectional reconciliation, novelists, poets and historians of all kinds, filmmakers and dramatists, and politicians with a wide range of vested interests. The module will introduce you to a broad range of illustrative 'texts' in order to familiarise you with the diverse manifestations of Civil War memory -- not only writings by Ulysses S. Grant, Carl Sandburg, and Douglas Southall Freeman but also monuments such as the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, movies like Gone With the Wind and Glory, and commemorative events including the ill-fated centennial of the 1960s which was moulded by both the Cold War and the modern civil rights movement.

In many respects the module functions as a detailed case study in historical memory, a concept of growing interest to historians and one that has already generated a rich secondary literature. You will be encouraged to engage closely with this broader literature in order to make cross-national comparisons and to apply at least a modicum of theory to the primary and secondary texts at their disposal.

Special Subject: The Century of the Gene

30 credits
Autumn & spring teaching, Year 3

At the beginning of the 20th century no-one knew anything about genetics (the word itself had yet to be coined), yet by the century's end, you could buy cheap, do-it-yourself genetic tests on the internet. You will investigate the ways in which advances in scientific knowledge have affected our sense of ourselves, so that the very phrase 'human nature' has increasingly come to mean something fixed by our genes. The language of genetics has had a powerful effect on political dismodule; the eugenic ideal of creating a superior type of human was supposed to have died with Hitler, yet seems to live on in routine genetic testing and screening, and in the fantasy of 'designer babies'. The idea of a genetic blueprint, and of being able to read, and perhaps to edit and re-write, the DNA 'code', has shaped popular culture, from television and cinema to novels and computer games.

You will examine a broad and diverse range of primary sources, from accessible scientific texts to science fiction (novels, TV and movies) to examples of how the mass media report science, in order to track the often imaginative uses of ideas like cloning, mutation and genetic engineering. No knowledge of biology is needed for this module. The goal is for you to understand the ways in which non-expert publics have understood genetics. Biology's grip on the public imagination helped it become the defining science of the 20th century. Genetics redefined the public sphere in 20th century because of the promise, or threat, that it would reshape humans and the world we live in.

Special Subject: The Civil Rights Movement

30 credits
Autumn & spring teaching, Year 3

You will assess the triumphs and tragedies of the movement for racial equality in the United States during the decades that followed the Second World War. You will begin by looking at the broader societal forces that created the context for the movement, including the decline of the agricultural economy of the American South, the migration of millions of African Americans from rural to urban communities, and the impact of the Second World War. You will analyse the movement from the perspective not only of its leaders but also grassroots activists and evaluate the intellectual and institutional forces that shaped movement activism, especially the role of Christianity. In assessing the civil rights conflicts of the post-war decades, you will also study the ideology and tactics of white racists who opposed reform.

You will learn how the domestic struggle for civil rights was based in a broader global framework and assess how international events impacted on American race relations. One of the narrative threads woven throughout the module is the influence, both positive and negative, of the Cold War on the black freedom struggle. In the short term, the rise of domestic anti-communism had an adverse effect on civil rights protest since white supremacists used popular fears of political subversion to accuse movement activists of being 'un-American'. Nonetheless, in the longer term Cold War politics impelled positive change. You will also study the influence of other international forces such as the decolonisation of African and Asian nations and the emergence of the United Nations.

Through your study of the civil rights movement, you will address a number of issues that relate to your broader critical understanding of history. In addition to sharpening your ability to engage with historiographical debate, you will tackle such issues as political agency, the strengths and limitations of state power, and the commemoration of controversial events in collective historical memory. You will also be encouraged to hone your skills in the interpretation of a wide range of primary sources, including speeches, publicity material and newsreel footage. You will have access to the extensive electronic primary sources available through the university library, including the Chicago Defender and African American Newspapers Collection.

Special Subject: The European Experience of the First World War

30 credits
Autumn & spring teaching, Year 3