Departmental Research Strengths
We welcome research proposals across the broad range of political science and international relations. The Department has considerable strength in the following fields:
- International Political Economy
- Comparative Political Economy
- International Relations
- Political Development and/or Democratisation (including in Latin America, Africa, the Caribbean and South Asia)
- European Politics including the European Union
- British Politics
- Governance and Public Policy
- Political Sociology
- Political Theory
We can offer supervision using a range of approaches: quantitative, qualitative, critical theory and gender.
Who could supervise me?
The list below is designed to give a sense of the existing research interests and expertise within the Department. It is an overview only and is not exhaustive. If you are considering postgraduate research, please contact us to discuss your interests.
Fuller details of staff's research interests can be found by clicking their names, which lead to their individual profiles.
- Well-being/quality of life and related topics (eg health, mental health, social exclusion, social class and inequality)
- Higher education
- Multi-level governance
- Europeanization
- Ethical Theory
- Ethics of Intelligence
- Ethics in War
- Intelligence Studies
- Surveillance
- Kant’s political philosophy
- Cosmopolitanism and cosmopolitan thought
- Deliberative democracy in theory and practice
- Global health governance
- Global ethics
- The governance and public policy of the EU
- EU-member state relations
- EU policy-making in the UK and Germany
- German public policy
- Europeanization
- Transitional justice
- War crimes
- Ethnic conflict
- Post-conflict societies in the former Yugoslavia
- Contemporary political theory
- Human rights
- Nonhuman rights
- Bioethics
- Environmental ethics
- Animal ethics
- Governance and public policy
- Democratic reform and engagement
- The analysis of delegation and autonomy, models and forms of accountability
- Comparative managerial change
- Legislative studies
- Risk and risk regulation regimes
- Depoliticisation
- Politics of public expectations
- Any aspect of international migration
- Immigrant integration and multiculturalism
- European integration
- Comparative European politics
- Radicalism, social movements and protest
- Political participation and disengagement
- Young people's political participation
- Political socialisation and political generations
- Social/political attitudes and value change
- Cross-national research
- Survey research and quantitative methods
- Political sociology of industrial democracies
- International Relations Theory
- Ideology and Power
- Knowledge-Power Nexus
- Continental Political Philosophy/Sociology (especially Bourdieu and Foucault)
- Philosophy of the Social Sciences
- African political economy
- Globalization and development
- The political economy of corruption
- World Bank and governance
- Uganda, Tanzania, Mozambique, Malawi
- Africa and representation
- Development campaigning
- Political disaffection and disengagement
- The political economy of globalization and regionalization (especially in Europe)
- Crises and crisis constructions
- Ideas in political analysis
- The state and the theory of the state (and the welfare state)
- Post-war and contemporary British politics
- Responses to the global financial crisis (in Britain, Europe and beyond)
- The critique of Eurocentrism in IR/IPE/Historical Sociology
- Historical Sociology of IR (1000-2010)
- Historical Sociology of globalization (1500-2000)
- Inter-Civilizational Relations, theory and practice (1000-2000)
- Workers’ rights in revolutionary Cuba
- Reform of the Cuban model in the 21st century
- Socialism in Cuba
- Cuba’s foreign relations
- Centre left politics in 21st century Latin America
- European politics (especially EU)
- International Relations theory (cosmopolitanism, continental thought, Foucault)
- European political economy (economic governance, social Europe)
- Identity and security politics in Europe (migration, enlargement, human rights, minorities etc.)
- Political economy of development
- Internal and international migration
- Labour in the global economy
- Forced/unfree labour
- Human trafficking
- Poverty and inequality
- Power in the global political economy (including the BRICs)
- Elections and electoral systems
- Voters, strategic voting, and voting behaviour
- Parties
- Institutions
- Electoral fraud
- Consolidation of party systems
- Liberal political theory (and its critics)
- Realist political theory
- International political theory
- The history of modern political theory
- Environmental politics
- Global climate change politics
- Global governance
- International negotiations
- Participation and representation in global governance
- Social movements and civil society
- Food security/food sovereignty
- Europeanization and enlargement in South East Europe
- The political reconstruction of post-conflict states
- State failure
- Majority versus minority rights
- Political leadership and hersthetics
- British foreign policy
- Energy security
- Humanitarian intervention
- American foreign policy