International Politics BSc (Hons) at City University London

The International Politics BSc (Hons) degree is for students who want to explore contemporary global issues and deepen their understanding of the rapid social and political changes affecting the world. This up-to-date, thought-provoking curriculum, will enable you to learn how governments, intergovernmental organisations, transnational movements, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and multinationals influence global politics. You will also study international organisations as policy-making structures and will examine what kind of ideas, ethical concerns, and regional considerations  shape global governance and key decisions around, for instance, conflict, peace, or economic gains. Crucially, you will develop your analytical skills to examine and critically assess complex issues, contested concepts, and debates.

As a result, this degree will prepare you for a diverse range of postgraduate study options and career possibilities – from the Civil Service, NGOs, diplomacy, journalism and teaching, to international law and the private and corporate sector.

Objectives

What roles do governments, transnational actors, intergovernmental organisations, international NGOs and multinationals play in global politics? How do they complete for power and respond to emerging challenges affecting societies, nations and institutions around the world, from security, to migration, to social justice?  How do they mobilise support for their positions on global issues? How do global, social and political relationships, as well as ideas, affect local, regional, economic, cultural, religious, historical and political differences and vice versa?

The BSc (Hons) in International Politics enables you to obtain the skills and knowledge to answer the many questions about our fast-changing world, and will help you to:

• Understand the important theoretical debates in the study of international politics.
• Explore global political systems and how they are engaged in policy-making on contemporary issues and related to country-level politics.
• Understand the diplomatic relations between governments, as well as the economic, social and political relations between societies that are undertaken by companies and private groups.
• Recognise political globalisation through the development of transnational and transgovernmental relations and how these relations are structured through international organisations.

As well as developing strong research skills, you will have the option to further your data skills through a Quantitative Methods (QM) pathway for your final two years of study.

Plus, to prepare you for a wide range of future career and postgraduate study possibilities, you will benefit from our location at the heart of a vibrant cosmopolitan city and within a department with a strong international focus, enthusiastic approachable staff with close connections with practitioners in the policy world, and exciting opportunities for work placement and studying abroad.

The logic connecting the three years of study is to lay the conceptual and historical foundations for the study of international politics in year one. Then, gradually, you will build up your specialist knowledge, in the following two years, by understanding how specific actors and institutions operate, how ideas shaping global politics emerge and are contested, and exploring the multifaceted political dynamics affecting specific issues and regions of the world.