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

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International student CAS deposit

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• 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.

•To outline the contemporary nature of citizens involvement in politics in advanced 
industrial democracies.
•To identify the key changes in citizens' political orientations, attitudes and activities over time. This will focus particularly on the decline of more conventional modes of engagement and the growth of newer unconventional forms of participation as well as the rise in populist anti-elite political sentiment.
•To review the key theoretical and empirical literature relevant to explaining and interpreting change in citizen politics in the post WWII era.
•To examine role that longer-term socio-economic and cultural forces play in shaping citizen orientations toward political actors, organizations and institutions as well as other short-term factors such as the media and campaign environment.
•To critically review empirical measures and analyses of citizen political behaviour.
•To promote independent analysis by students of citizen politics using major comparative datasets.

On completion of this unit successful students will be able to:
•Identify different forms of political participation and their significance from a comparative perspective.
•Understand and critically assess the main theories explaining the changes that have occurred in citizens' political behaviour and orientations across the post WW II period.
•Understand the rise of populism and related election outcomes, such as the election of Donald Trump and the UK's vote for Brexit"
•Critically assess the role of a range of formal and informal actors, system-level forces and individual characteristics in influencing citizen politics.
•Read, interpret, critically evaluate and conduct empirical studies of citizen political attitudes, 
values and behaviour.

10 - 1 hour lectures
10 - 1 hour seminars (with student led discussion/presentations)
 

2,500-word Essay (70%), 5-minute Critical Debate presentation (30%)

Aldrich, John H. 1993. Rational Choice and Turnout. American Journal of Political Science 37 (1): 246-78.
Arceneaux, K., Johnson, M. and Cryderman, J. 2013. Communication, persuasion, and the conditioning value of selective exposure: Like minds may unite and divide but they mostly tune out. Political Communication, 30(2), pp.213-231.
Armingeon, K., & Guthmann, K. 2014. Democracy in crisis? The declining support for national democracy in European countries, 2007–2011. European Journal of Political Research, 53(3), 423–439.
Berglund, Frode, Sören Holmberg, Hermann Schmitt and Jacques Thomassen (2005). ‘Party Identification and Party Choice’, in Jacques Thomassen (ed.). The European Voter: A Comparative Study of Modern Democracies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 106–124.
Blais, André, and Daniel Rubenson. 2013. “The Source of Turnout Decline: New Values or New Contexts?” Comparative Political Studies 46(1): 95–117. http://cps.sagepub.com/cgi/doi/10.1177/0010414012453032.
Bornschier, S. 2010. The new cultural divide and the two-dimensional political space in Western Europe. West European Politics, 33(3), pp.419-444.
Christensen, H.S. 2011. Political activities on the Internet: Slacktivism or political participation by other means? First Monday, 16(2).
Dahlberg, S., J. Linde and S. Holmberg. (2015). Democratic Discontent. Political Studies, 63: 18-37. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9248.12170
Dalton, R. J., McAllister, I. and M. P. Wattenberg. 2000. ‘The Consequences of Partisan Dealignment.’ In Parties Without Partisans Dalton, R. J. and M. P. Wattenberg (Eds.) Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dassonneville, R. & McAllister, I. 2020. The party choice set and satisfaction with democracy. West European Politics, 43:1, 49-73.
Dassonneville, Ruth. 2022. Voters Under Pressure: Group-Based Cross-Pressure and Electoral Volatility. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.
Deegan-Krause, K. 2007. ‘New Dimensions of Political Cleavage’ in Dalton, R. J. & H-D. Klingemann (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Political Behavior. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Enli, G. 2017. Twitter as an arena for the authentic outsider: exploring the social media campaigns of Trump and Clinton in the 2016 US presidential election. European Journal of Communication, 32(1), 50–61.
Evans, G. & Tilley, J. 2017. ‘Class Politics is Dead.’ The New Politics of Class: The Political Exclusion of the British Working Class. Oxford University Press, 145-169.
Fieldhouse, Edward., J. Green, G. Evans, J. Mellon, C. Prosser, H. Schmitt and C. van der Eijk. (2020). ‘Electoral shocks: The volatile voter in a turbulent world.’ Oxford University Press (chapters 2-3, 9). https://oxford-universitypressscholarship-com.manchester.idm.oclc.org/view/10.1093/oso/9780198800583.001.0001/oso-9780198800583
Foa, R.S. and Mounk, Y. 2016. The democratic disconnect. Journal of Democracy, 27(3), pp.5-17.
Ford, Robert, and Will Jennings. 2020. ‘The Changing Cleavage Politics of Western Europe.’ Annual Review of Political Science 23 (May): 295–314. https://doi.org/10.1146/ANNUREV-POLISCI-052217-104957.
Green, D.P., Palmquist, B., Schickler, E. 2002. Partisan Hearts and Minds. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.
Hobolt, S.B. & Hoerner, J.M. 2020. The Mobilising Effect of Political Choice. European Journal of Political Research, 59: 229-247.
Howe, P. 2017. Eroding norms and democratic deconsolidation. Journal of Democracy, 28(4), pp.15-29.
Inglehart, R.F. 2008. Changing values among western publics from 1970 to 2006. West European Politics, 31(1-2), pp.130-146.
Mudde, C. and C. Rovira Kaltwasser. (2017). Populism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. Particularly Chapters 1 and 6.
Norris, P. 2011. ‘Introduction’, in Democratic Deficit: Critical Citizens Revisited. pp. 3-54.
Rooduijn, Matthijs. (2017). What unites the voter bases of populist parties? Comparing the electora