MA Governance, Politics and Policy (Research)

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

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 is a course in contemporary normative political theory. It aims to introduce postgraduate students to normative analysis and philosophical reasoning through the critical study of contemporary political theory over the past forty years.

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

• Employ a rigorous analytical approach in critically evaluating the key theories of justice in contemporary Anglophone political theory.

• Examine and critique the central claims of liberal egalitarianism, libertarianism, feminism, Marxism, and republicanism.
• Develop their own responses to urgent and theoretically complex problems of justice.

Teaching will take place in weekly two-hour seminars. Students will be assigned reading and preparatory questions for each week, and will take turns presenting the readings.

Presentation - 25%

2000 word essay - 75%

The following are useful introductory works.

• Kymlicka, Will. Contemporary Political Philosophy: 2nd Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
• Goodin & Pettit (eds.) Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Anthology Oxford: Wiley Blackwell 2019
• Olsaretti, Serena (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Distributive Justice Oxford: Oxford University Press 2018.