MA Human Rights - Law/Political Science Pathway (Standard Route)

For entry in the academic year beginning September 2027, the tuition fees are as follows:

• MA (full-time)
  UK students (per annum): £16,600
  International, including EU, students (per annum): £29,800
• MA (part-time)
  UK students (per annum): £8,300
  International, including EU, students (per annum): £14,900

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.

This module will introduce and critically reflect on three major concepts that are central to international politics: gender, war, and peace. Students will explore the different – and often challenging – ways in which we understand and interpret “gender” in conflict and post-conflict environments. A number of issues related to gender and conflict-affected contexts will be covered. These issues will be explored through a number of ways in which we come to understand what gender “is” and how it functions: including everyday, experiential, affective, aesthetic and sensory analysis of war and peace. Such analysis stimulates a very different set of questions and perception about international politics and the way in which we should investigate international politics. By the end of this course, students will be able to critically reflect upon why gendered policies, practices and processes occur in certain ways in the conflict and post-conflict context, as well as the limitations and possibilities created by thinking about “gender” in certain ways.   

• Advanced level of understanding and knowledge of the key debates and theoretical positions in relation to gender, war and peace. A knowledge and understanding of the various issues which are confronted in conflict and post-conflict contexts.
• Display an ability to engage in thinking and reasoning; an ability to analyse and critically engage with feminist positions on gender, war, and peace; and to work independently to identify appropriate further reading.
• Advanced cognitive and communicative skills; the ability to present reasoned and effective arguments in written and oral form; the ability to pursue an advanced level of independent learning and to show critical judgement.

Weekly contact hours will consist of a two-hour workshop each week for 10 weeks.

• Ackerly, Brooke A., Maria Stern, and Jacqui True, eds., Feminist Methodologies for International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
• Al-Ali, N. and Pratt, N. 2009. What Kind of Liberation? Women and the Occupation of Iraq. University of California Press.
• Basu, Soumita, Kirby, Paul and Shepherd, Laura (eds.) 2020. New Directions in Women, Peace and Security. Bristol University Press, Bristol.
• Cockburn, C. 2012. Antimilitarism: Political and Gender Dynamics of Peace Movements. Palgrave MacMillian.
• Cockburn, C. and Zarkov, D. 2002. The Postwar Moment: Militaries, Masculinities and International Peacekeeping. Lawrence and Wishart
• Cohn, Carol, ed., Women & Wars (Polity Press, 2013).
• Enloe, C. 2001. Maneuvers: The International Politics of Militarizing Women’s Lives. University of California Press.
• Enloe, C. 2010. Nimo’s War, Emma’s War: Making Feminist Sense of the Iraq War. University of California Press.
• Enloe, Cynthia, Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics (London: University of California Press, 2000). See also the second edition 2014.
• Henry, N. 2011. War and Rape: Law, Memory and Justice. Routledge
• Higate, P & Henry, M. 2009. Insecure Spaces: Peacekeeping, Power and performance in Haiti, Kosovo and Liberia. Zed Books: London
• Kronswell, Annica & Erica Svedberg, eds., Making Gender, Making War: Violence, Military and Peacekeeping Practices (London: Routeldge, 2013).
• McLeod, Laura and O’Reilly, Maria (eds). 2021. Feminist Interventions in Critical Peace and Conflict Studies. Routledge: London.
• McLeod, Laura. 2016. Gender Politics and Security Discourse: Personal-Political Imaginations and Feminism in “Post-Conflict” Serbia. Routledge: London.
• Ni Aolain, F., Haynes, D. F. and Cahn, N. 2011. On the Frontlines: Gender, War and the Post-Conflict Process. Oxford University Press.
• O’Reilly, Maria. 2018. Gendered Agency in War and Peace: Gender Justice and Women’s Activism in Post-Conflict Bosnia-Herzegovina. Palgrave Macmillan: London.
• Parpart, Jane L., and Marysia Zalewski, Rethinking the Man Question: Sex, Gender and Violence in International Relations (London: Zed Books, 2008).
• Sabaratnam, Meera. 2017. Decolonising Intervention: International Statebuilding in Mozambique. Rowman and Littlefield: London.
• Shepherd, Laura 2008 Gender, Violence and Security: Discourse as Practice. Zed Books: London
• Shepherd, Laura. 2017. Gender, UN Peacebuilding, and the Politics of Space: Locating Legitimacy. (OUP, New York).
• Sjoberg, Laura, Gender, War & Conflict (London: Polity Press, 2014).
• Steans, Jill, Gender and International Relations: An Introduction, 3rd Edition (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013).
• Sylvester, C. 2013. War as Experience: Contributions from international Relations and feminist analysis. Routledge
• Whitworth, Sandra. 2004. Men, Militarism and UN Peacekeeping: A Gendered Analysis (London: Lynne Rienner Publishers).
• Wibben, Annick T. R., Researching War: Feminist Methods, Ethics and Politics (London: Routledge, 2016).
• Yardav, Punam. 2017. Social Transformation in Post-conflict Nepal: A Gender Perspective. Routledge: New Delhi.
• Zalewski, Marysia, Feminist International Relations: Exquisite Corpse (London: Routledge, 2013).

Timetable