MA Politics

Fees for entry in 2027 have not yet been set. For reference, the fees for the academic year beginning September 2026 were as follows:

• MA (full-time)
  UK students (per annum): £16,300
  International, including EU, students (per annum): £29,400
• MA (part-time)
  UK students (per annum): £8,150
  International, including EU, students (per annum): £14,700

The fees quoted above are fully inclusive of tuition, administration and computational costs.

Fees for entry are subject to yearly review. The University reserves the right to increase your tuition fee by up to 7% each year for courses lasting more than one year, including to reflect rising costs associated with delivering our educational and wider student experience. Postgraduate fees information .

Always contact the admissions team if you are unsure which fee applies to your qualification award and method of attendance.

International student CAS deposit

Self-funded international applicants are required to pay a deposit of £2500 towards their tuition fees before a confirmation of acceptance for studies (CAS) is issued. Some applicants will be required to pay a higher deposit. More information on tuition fee deposits .

All students should normally be able to complete their programme of study without incurring additional study costs over and above the tuition fee for that programme. Any unavoidable additional compulsory costs totalling more than 1% of the annual home undergraduate fee per annum, regardless of whether the programme in question is undergraduate or postgraduate taught, will be made clear to you at the point of application. Further information can be found in the University's Policy on additional costs incurred by students on undergraduate and postgraduate taught programmes (PDF document, 91KB).

We know that student finance can be complicated. The links below provide further information to help guide you.

• Learn more about - student finance options for UK students .
• Learn more about - fees and finance for international students .
• Graduates of The University of Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan University can receive a 10% discount on their master's degree tuition fees as part of our Manchester Alumni Loyalty Discount scheme.

Questions of global justice, democracy, and legitimacy are at the forefront of both current political affairs and debates in contemporary political theory. In this course we shall become acquainted with these theoretical debates and learn how to use them in order to develop reasoned, informed views on some of the most pressing problems of global politics, such as global labour standards; world trade; migration; tax avoidance; global finance; climate change; and natural resource exploitation, and how state sovereignty should be conceived of in the contemporary global order. In so doing, we shall both assess existing international institutions, and think of new possible institutional solutions to address pressing global problems.  

On completion of this unit successful students will be able to:

• Articulate the contents and underlying assumptions of various approaches to international justice and democracy.
• Employ a rigorous analytical approach in critically evaluating the key theories tackled in the course.
• Draw on normative theories to develop their own informed views on concrete questions that are prominent in current global affair.
• Sketch, on that basis, institutional and policy proposals.

Sessions will be structured as follows. The first 60/75 minutes will consist of a seminar discussion on the topic addressed during the previous week’s lecture. Students will be required to have done all the compulsory reading previous to the seminar, and are encouraged to do some of the recommended and further reading. The seminar will normally start with an ice-breaking activity and be structured around the discussion group question. Some discussion in smaller groups might also take place. The last 45/60 minutes will be taken up by an interactive, introductory lecture on the topic of the following week.

2000 word assessed essay 75%; seminar and Slack participation 25%.

The following texts offer a good place to start

• Caney, Simon, ‘International Distributive Justice’, Political Studies 49 (2001)
• Pogge, Thomas, World Poverty and Human Rights, Polity, 2002
• Iris Marion Young, “Responsibility and Global Labour Justice,” Journal of Political Philosophy (2004);
• P. Dietsch and T. Rixen, “Tax Competition and Global Background Justice,” Journal of Political Philosophy (forthcoming, available at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9760.2012.00419.x/pdf);

Timetable