Political Theory and its Relevance Today

Where do our ideas about politics come from? Can thinkers from the past illuminate our present political problems? What tools do we have for theorising about democracy, capitalism, feminism and ecology? This research area encourages students to study history’s great political theorists, to understand their writings within their own historical context and to apply their insights to our toughest global challenges today.

Intended audience

The research projects are aimed at students with no prior knowledge of political theory, but with an interest in politics, current affairs or history. It will suit students of the Social Sciences looking to deepen their qualitative and theoretical skills, as well as students of the Humanities with an interest in political theory.

Previous knowledge

No specific knowledge of political theory is required. However, students will benefit from a familiarity with writing essays, analysing texts and thinking critically about politics.

Assessment

Dissertation (no more than 6,000 words): 100% of the total.

Research Topics

The potential research proposals you could pursue on the programme are listed below. The specific research focus of your project will be determined and confirmed with guidance from your supervisor.

1. Democracy and its Critics

• Why was ‘democracy’ a bad word for so many political theorists until so recently?
• What were the arguments which justified the collapse of parliamentary democracy in Weimar Germany?
• What is the relationship between democracy and totalitarianism according to theorists including Hannah Arendt and Isaiah Berlin?

2. The Modern State

• How is the state founded on a ‘social contract’ according to Thomas Hobbes, John Locke or Jean-Jacques Rousseau?
• Is there anything of value in the anarchism of Mikhail Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin?
• How did thinkers like Mohandas Gandhi, Frantz Fanon and Aimé Césaire look beyond the state in their arguments for decolonisation?

3. The Economic Limits to Modern Politics

• Why were Adam Smith and his contemporaries in the Scottish Enlightenment so preoccupied by the impact of economics on politics and society?
• Can Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels tell us anything about politics today?
• How can we justify the welfare state, and what are its limits, according to John Rawls, Robert Nozick or Michel Foucault?

4. Politics and Psychology

• How did Enlightenment thinkers legitimate the pursuit of self-interest?
• How does human cruelty affect what we can do politically, according to Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud or Jacques Derrida?
• Can we understand social media virality with the crowd theories of Gustave Le Bon or José Ortega y Gasset?

5. The Politics of Nature

• Why have feminists like Judith Butler, Carolyn Merchant or Val Plumwood challenged and rethought the concept of ‘nature’?
• Are Bruno Latour and Michel Serres right that we must treat animals and plants as political actors to overcome ecological crisis?
• Are market relations natural and spontaneous, as Friedrich Hayek suggested?

Have a research idea of your own you would like to pursue on the programme?

Please apply via the Open Stream.