Politics and American Studies BA

This module seeks to compare and contrast the decision-making structures of modern democratic states. Topics to be covered will include: 

• politics
• government and the state
• the comparative approach
• constitutions and the legal framework
• democratic and authoritarian rule
• political culture
• the political executive
• legislatures
• political parties and party systems
• electoral systems and voting behaviour
• the crisis of democracy

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This module introduces you to the ideas of some of the canonical thinkers in the history of political thought, such as Burke, Rousseau, Kant, Mill, and Marx. The module considers the impact of these thinkers on modern political thought and practice, with reference to key political ideas and historical developments (such as liberty and equality, and the Enlightenment). The module will be text based.  

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This module provides an introduction to the study of international relations.

It focuses on some of the main theoretical approaches in the discipline: ways of explaining and understanding global politics, each of which has developed over time rival accounts both of the features of world politics on which we ought to concentrate and of the concepts that we ought to bring to bear in our analyses. It illustrates each of these broad theoretical approaches - and some of their pitfalls - by introducing the study of some 'structural' aspect of global politics, such as conflict, peace, institutions and globalisation.

The module therefore supplies the introduction to international relations that will be necessary for those who go on to study contemporary global affairs and more advanced modules such as those on international political economy, global security, or foreign policy analysis.

This module explores some of the major problems that exist in contemporary global politics. It introduces you to a wide range of challenges faced by states and non-state actors in the international system and engages with topics ranging from security concerns to economic issues. 

The module draws on a wide range of ideas and examples from around the world to help you to better understand global politics.

This module will introduce and interrogate British political history since 1945. The module will take students through key issues and controversies in post-war British politics and as they relate to leaders and governments and key debates over controversies. 

The module will explore a range of issues relating to:

• economic policy
• social policy and the welfare state
• industrial relations
• foreign and defence policy
• Europe
• local government
• nuclear deterrence

Seminars will employ a range of activity-based scenarios to develop student understanding of key crises experienced by leaders and governments since 1945.  

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Discover the history of North America, from European contact through to the start of the 20th century.

You will explore how the interactions of European colonizers with Native Americans shaped the future of the region, as well as the rise of Atlantic slavery, its development over time and the eventual emergence of distinctive African-American cultures.

We cover a broad chronological period, which includes European colonization, independence and Civil War. You will also examine the influence and development of attitudes towards race, class, gender, democracy and capitalism.

This module is worth 20 credits.

Discover the history of the United States in the 20th century.

You will explore the changes in the lives of American people, focussing on:

• Prosperity
• Depression
• War
• Liberal reform
• Political conservatism
• Minority protests
• Multicultural awareness
• International power

This module is worth 20 credits.

Challenge your assumptions through exploring key aspects of American culture, across a broad historical range.

We introduce a variety of cultural issues and controversies within contemporary US society. You will explore how contemporary cultural forms and phenomena can deepen our understanding of American history and national identity.

Topics include:

• The Business of College sports
• Controversies connected with the confederate flag and civil war statues
• Digital America and the power of ‘Big Tech’
• Policing Contemporary America
• Django Unchained: 21st Century US Cinema and historical representation

You will also consider a variety of forms, which might include:

• Music
• Painting
• Cinema
• Television
• Various genres of writing

This module is worth 10 credits.

The module introduces you to alternative theoretical approaches to the study of political phenomena. We consider the different forms of analysing, explaining, and understanding politics associated with approaches such as behaviouralism, rational choice theory, institutionalism, Marxism, feminism, interpretive theory and post-modernism.

The module shows that the different approaches are based upon contrasting ontological suppositions about the nature of politics, and they invoke alternative epistemological assumptions about how we acquire valid knowledge of politics and international relations.

We examine questions such as: what constitutes valid knowledge in political science and international relations? Should political science methodology be the same as the methods employed in the natural sciences? Can we give causal explanations of social and political phenomena? Can we ever be objective in our analysis? What is the relationship between knowledge and power?

Elections are the foundation of representative democracy. The act of voting creates a link between citizens' preferences and government policy. This means that the choices voters make have important consequences.

But, how do voters make these choices? Are they based on the policies that parties promise to enact in the future, or is it more about the policy successes (or failures) that parties have experienced in the past? Does the party's leader make a difference? Can campaigns or the media's coverage change how voters see their electoral choices? Finally, given the importance of elections, why do many citizens choose to abstain from the process altogether?

How Voters Decide will explore the choices that citizens make when they participate in elections and it will provide students with the skills necessary to evaluate arguments about electoral behaviour in Britain and beyond.

American history, from the period of colonisation to the nation's emergence as a global superpower, has always involved intense social and political debate.

This module analyses key texts in the history of American political and social thought, from the settlement period to the present day.

You will be introduced to debates over issues such as:

• religion
• race
• class
• capitalism
• gender
• sexuality
• war

We analyse primary sources by a diverse range of thinkers and writers to interpret these debates, showing how they continue to shape American society and politics in the present.

This module is worth 20 credits.

This module explores issues in global security since the end of the Cold War. It focuses on security in a broad sense, from issues relating to the use of force by states, through to violence by non-state actors, such as terrorist groups, and on to the concept of human security. 

The module builds on the first year modules, Understanding Global Politics and Problems in Global Politics, challenging you to deepen your theoretical as well as empirical knowledge in international security. It is also a preparation for the research-led third year modules that require a much more developed capacity of analysing empirical developments from a range of different theoretical perspectives.  

American radicals have been dismissed as impractical, wild-eyed, and subversive - even "un-American"- although many of their most visionary aims have been realized. This module will consider these paradoxes, beginning with the American Revolution in the late 18th century. 19th century subjects will include the abolitionists, early feminism, utopian socialism, anarchism, and farmer populism. 20thcentury subjects will include the Socialist Party in the 1910s, the Communist Party and the anti-Stalinist left in the 1930s, opponents of the Cold War, the 1960s New Left, Black Power militancy, and more recent radicalisms, including the gay liberation movement, women's liberation, and resistance to corporate globalisation.

This module seeks to analyse the patterns and prevalence of violence in the USA. You will consider theories such as its origins in frontier settler societies and this may allow comparative study of Canada. You will understand the relationship between violence and the gun control debate and the related issue of American ideological antipathy to state power. You will also look at the celebration of violence as a source of conflict resolution and examine the US government’s use of violence as an instrument of foreign policy. Possible topics include violence incidental to settler-native people contact or plantation slavery, the right to bear arms in the Constitution, the resort to force within US foreign policy including atomic weaponry, ‘state terrorism’, and the military-industrial complex.

This module examines the history of immigration to the United States from Europe, Asia, and Latin America. We trace the making and remaking of immigrant communities, cultures, and identities from the nineteenth century to the present day. You will analyse models of race, ethnicity, culture, and nation by focusing on the perception and reception of immigrant groups and their adjustment to US society. We will ask questions such as: How have institutions and ideologies shaped the changing place of immigrants within the United States over time? How have immigrants forged new identities within and beyond the framework of the nation state? And how has immigration transformed US society?

How can we understand the evolution of America's relationship with the wider world? What interests have been behind the execution of American power?

This module offers a critical introduction to understanding America's place in the world. From the war of 1898, to the conflicts of the early 21st century, we examine how America's involvement abroad has changed over time.

Through historical and political analyses of US foreign relations, we will look at the themes that have shaped America's increasing influence in global affairs.

We consider:

• traditional political and diplomatic issues
• the link between foreign and domestic policies
• the role of foreign actors and private organisations, from religious groups, to citizen organisations, to NGOs that have served to shape America's actions abroad

We will also explore contemporary trends in the history of US foreign policy, including race, gender, emotions, and religion.

This module is worth 20 credits.

This module involves in-depth independent study of a subject in American and Canadian Studies. It encourages both student-centred and student-initiated learning. The topic you choose must be appropriate for your course and must be approved by the module convenor. You are assigned a supervisor with expertise in your chosen area of study.

The completed dissertation should be 5,000-7,000 words in length for the 20 credit module and 10,000-12,000 words in length for the 40 credit module. The 20 credit dissertation is for one semester only and the 40 credit version is year-long.

Recent dissertation titles include:

• To Ban or Not to Ban: Changing Motivations Behind Efforts to Censor African American Literature in America’s Public Schools, 1976-2018
• The Development of Television in the Canadian North and its Role in the Preservation of Inuit Culture
• The Feminist Justification for the Afghanistan War: The Cooperation Between the Bush Administration and the Feminist Majority Foundation
• "The Teeth of the World are Sharp”: James Baldwin’s Protest Novels
• Towards Humane Borders: Activist and NGO Responses to the Militarisation of the US-Mexico Boundary
• “A Blended World … A Safe Space for Everybody”: A Case Study of Underground Ballroom Culture
• “Wild Women Don’t Have the Blues”: The Empowerment of Black Female Blues Singers - Romance or Reality?
• “Older Arts and Newer Technology”: Cultural Recoding in Bharati Mukherjee’s Desirable Daughters

The invention of the aircraft fundamentally changed the ways in which wars are fought and won. Over the course of only a century airpower developed into an indispensable instrument of warfare. Today, war without airpower is an unlikely prospect and major military operations, as a rule, are launched with overwhelming air attacks.

In recent years, however, the utility of 'strategic' airpower has increasingly come under question. Whilst technological innovation continues to strengthen airpower's capabilities, the relevance of these capabilities in contemporary conflicts cannot be taken for granted.

This module critically assesses the role of air power in modern conflict within the broader framework of strategic and security studies. It will assess the evolution of air power theory since the First World War and examine the limits of its practical application with reference to specific air campaigns.

This module interprets Brexit as the latest manifestation of a prolonged, vexed national debate about Britain's role in the world. It will build on and develop your understanding of material taught at year one and year two.

You will cover a wide variety of topics, all unified by analysis of the question that motivated policy-makers facing these dilemmas at the time: 'in or out of Europe?'

The module content unfolds around the debates that surrounded major foreign policy-related events such as the Cold War, Suez, the end of Empire and decolonisation, the turn to Europe in the 1960s and 1970s, the 1975 EEC membership referendum, the Single European Act and the Maastricht Treaty, EU enlargement and the Eurozone crisis.

This module examines major themes, debates and issues in the field of Gender and Development. We will focus on the relationship between ideas and concerns of gender (in)equality and processes, policies, and practices of economic, social and political development.

We will explore the key literature and major debates in the field of feminist political economy, linking academic, policy-related and practitioner/activist debates. We will cover theoretical and conceptual frameworks as well as key contemporary issues explored through thematic and sector/policy case studies. We will explore how political, economic and social processes of globalisation and development intersect, impact, and are in turn influenced by gender relations in the South.

This module will offer an overview of the main political institutions and the behaviour of political actors in the United States, applying a variety of analytic concepts and empirical tools to the study of American politics.

It will in particular focus on rational choice theories of voters and politicians' behaviours addressing the incentives and constraints faced by politicians when choosing public policies. By employing theoretical and empirical tools to study public decision making at the federal and state level, the module will highlight the impact of different institutional arrangements on electoral accountability and policies in the United States.

This module analyses political, economic, cultural and especially military intervention in Africa. It focuses on the role of external actors such as international organisations, regional organisations, and NGOs, with a special emphasis on the role of France, the UK and the European Union. We will examine theories, concepts and case studies to explain the nature of contemporary intervention.

Themes include:

• the types and evolution of intervention
• the growing connection betweensecurity and development
• ethics of intervention
• the new landscape of internal conflicts and insecurity
• the role of the International Criminal Court
• EU policies towards Africa
• the difficult relationship between European actors on African issues

Case studies include Rwanda, DRC, Somalia, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Libya.

This module considers the development of environmental and ecological political thought and how these relate to different forms of politics. It explores the relationship between deep ecology, environmental politics and different forms of anarchism, such as anarcho-primitivism and social ecology.

In addition it examines the 'ecological turn' as it has impacted upon feminism, Marxism, and right-wing thought. It also looks at the tensions between ecological politics and democracy, and at justifications for forms of environmental direct action. These strands of thought will be illustrated through application to specific policy areas such as climate change and species loss.

This module studies the implications of the growing abuse of narcotics for the political system from both a national and international perspective. It will examine the production, consumption and trade in drugs as an international problem. 

The development of and issues associated with contemporary British drug policy will be explored and the theoretical questions raised by drug control policy will be examined.  

Questions relating to nationalism and ethnic conflict have become more prominent in political debate since the end of the Cold War, and the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrated the continuing importance of constitutional crafting as a means to manage ethnic diversity within states. 

This module evaluates differing definitions of the 'nation' and 'ethnic group', examines different state strategies to manage diversity such as multiculturalism, assimilation and integration, and considers different explanations of conflict between different ethnic groups. 

It then examines in more detail strategies adopted by particular states to manage their diversity. The countries of India, America, France, Afghanistan, the UK, and Germany are focused upon, but students are encouraged to use material relating to other countries if they have particular knowledge of these cases.

This module involves a part-time placement (one day a week) in an external organisation, and is aimed at developing hands-on work experience and employability skills in a workplace relevant to students of politics. Pre-placement training will be provided via three half-day workshops at the beginning of the module.

Each placement will be arranged by the work placement officer. Placements will be provided by organisations involved in private, public and third sector organisations, such as the civil service, charities and political parties.

Departmental mentoring will take the form of a weekly drop-in tutorial with the module convenor, in which experiences are shared and work is undertaken on the assessment tasks. Group presentations will occur during the final four hour workshop, at which time each group will critically reflect on their experiences of the ethos and goals of their host organisation.

This module will comprehensively deconstruct the causes, conduct and consequences of one of the most controversial wars of the modern era: the invasion and occupation of Iraq. It will assess how the road to war was paved at the United Nations and through the formulation of a 'coalition of the willing'. It will then critically evaluate how the swiftly concluded invasion of Iraq and toppling of Saddam Hussein gave way to a vicious insurgency.

The adaptation of the US military to the demands of counter-insurgency warfare will be analysed, as will British military performance in southern Iraq. The module will end by critically assessing the effectiveness of the 'surge' strategy under the implementation of Gen. David Petraeus, and evaluating the utility of 'analogical reasoning' through comparisons with the Vietnam War.  

This module examines American relations with India and Pakistan between the Second World War and the onset of market-based economic reforms in the early 1990s that transformed the socio-economic landscape of the Indian subcontinent.

Much of the focus will be on:

• American involvement in conflicts that shaped modern South Asia (Indo-Pakistani hostilities in 1947, 1965 and 1971
• 1962 Sino-Indian War; 1979 Soviet intervention in Afghanistan)
• the influence exercised by external actors on American regional policy (principally Britain, the Soviet Union and Communist China)
• the impact of international trends on America’s relations with India and Pakistan, such as decolonisation, globalisation and nuclear proliferation

In addition, consideration will be given to the cultural dimension of America’s relationship with India and Pakistan. Cinematic and literary depictions of US-South Asian relations, encompassing issues of race, religion, gender and neo-colonialism, will be critically examined.

This module looks at American attitudes, perceptions and policies toward Vietnam from the Second World War until the collapse of the South Vietnamese government in 1975. Much of the focus will be on the course of the Vietnam Wars, the role that different players (beyond the US) played in the course of the conflict, the reasons that the US became involved in such a destructive and tragic war and why, ultimately, the world’s greatest power was unable to win against what appeared to be a far weaker opponent.

Although we will necessarily spend a considerable amount of time examining the course of events in Vietnam, we will also analyse other developments in South and East Asia more broadly in order to put the conflicts there into their wider conflict. Hence, you must develop a contextual awareness of the overall course of US policy in Asia during the period and the outlines of the wider Cold War, and also be able to demonstrate the way that these wider trends intersected with events in Indochina. 

This module examines the role played by American popular music in countercultural movements. We focus on the ways in which marginalised, subordinate or dissenting social groups have used popular music as a vehicle for self-definition and for re-negotiating their relationship to the social, economic and cultural mainstream. We explore how the mainstream has responded to music countercultures in ways that range from repression to co-optation and analyse how the music and the movements have been represented and reflected on in fiction, film, poetry, journalism and theory.  Among the key moments examined are the folk revival and the 1930s Popular Front, rock 'n' roll and desegregation in the 1950s, rock music and the 1960s counterculture, and postmodernism and identity politics in the music of the MTV age.

Why did National Prohibition officially begin in the United States in 1920?

What were the goals and intentions of the powerful women's reform movements and religious pressure groups calling for dramatic restrictions on alcohol?

Why was there so much political support for state and national restrictions, particularly during the First World War? Why was prohibition so hard to police during the 1920s?

The restrictions on what and how you could drink reshaped American society, politics, and culture during the 1920s and 1930s. Prohibition transformed alcohol consumption, opened up new leisure activities, and increased bootlegging, smuggling, and other criminal activities. However, popular histories and media representations of the prohibition years are full of myths and stereotypes. On this module, you will challenge these to build a better understanding of an important period in the 20th century United States.

This module is worth 20 credits.