Course summary

The personal is political: explore the links between politics and the social structures of the modern world. This exciting degree examines the relationship between the social and economic structures of societies and political change. Drawing on a range of political and social theories, we examine why in an age of increasingly high living standards, many people feel disenchanted and alienated.

• Learn about how our individual lives are connected to global developments such as climate change, migration, and the advancement of digital technology but also colonialism, industrialisation, and religion

• Discuss how race, sexuality, gender, class, and religion shape social dynamics and how these differences relate to inequalities, globally as well as locally

• Understand how people create social change in their everyday lives rather than just through political mobilisation and institutions

• Reflect on what might hold a society together despite all our differences and how it changes over time

• Understand why political institutions and politicians find it so difficult to change the economy, culture, and environmental habits

• Rethink the role of nonhuman beings – such as animals and plants - in world politics