MA International Political Economy (Research) / Course details

Year of entry: 2024

Course description

International Political Economy or, Global Political Economy, is a vibrant and rapidly growing field of study. It has always been concerned with the connections between politics and economics, the national and the global, under conditions of globalisation.

More recently, International Political Economy has become an especially productive field for critical social science research into pressing global issues, such as: world poverty, inequality, gender relations, economic crises, and the environment.

The MA in International Political Economy at Manchester reflects the research interests and strengths of our specialists in the Politics discipline area, and focuses on introducing you to a broad range of orthodox and critical theories, and to the politics of globalisation today, through two compulsory units.

You can also take a range of optional course units that examine specific issues relating to:

  • global governance;
  • development and inequality;
  • environmental politics;
  • global production and work;
  • finance (or financialisation);
  • capitalist diversity;
  • ideology (including neoliberalism);
  • economic crisis;
  • the politics of resistance and revolt.

Teaching and learning

Part-time students complete the full-time course over two years. There are no evening or weekend course units available on the part-time route.  

You must first check the schedule of the compulsory course units and then select your optional units to suit your requirements.  

Updated timetable information will be available from mid-August and you will have the opportunity to discuss your unit choices during induction week with your course director.

Course unit details

Semester 1:

POLI60301 Comparative Political Analysis

POLI70311 Critical Approaches to IPE

POLI70851 EU as an International Actor

Semester 2:

POLI60312 Dissertation Research Design

POLI60292 European Political Economy

POLI60032 Comparing Capitalisms in the GPE

POLI70282 Critical Globalization Studies

POLI70922 Critical Environmental Politics

POLI70422 Global Governance

Course unit list

The course unit details given below are subject to change, and are the latest example of the curriculum available on this course of study.

TitleCodeCredit ratingMandatory/optional
Research Design and Skills POLI60312 15 Mandatory
Critical Globalisation Studies POLI70282 15 Mandatory
Critical Approaches to International Political Economy POLI70311 15 Mandatory
Philosophy of Politics Research POLI70771 15 Mandatory
Dissertation POLI72000 60 Mandatory
Qualitative Research Methods SOCS60230 15 Mandatory
Introduction to Quantitative Methods SOST70511 15 Mandatory
Migration, Mobility and Displacement in the Contemporary World MGDI60731 15 Optional
Comparing Capitalisms in the Global Political Economy POLI60031 15 Optional
The Politics of Money & Finance POLI60081 15 Optional
The European Union: Politics and Policy Making POLI70381 15 Optional
Global Governance POLI70422 15 Optional
European Union Foreign Policy POLI70851 15 Optional
Critical Environmental Politics POLI70921 15 Optional
Comparative Democratisation in Eastern Europe and Latin America POLI70952 15 Optional
The Politics of Global Climate Change POLI71141 15 Optional
Gender in Comparative Politics POLI71151 15 Optional
Capitalism and Development in the Middle East POLI71312 15 Optional
Creating a Sustainable World: Interdisciplinary Applications of the Sustainable Development Goals UCIL60312 15 Optional
Displaying 10 of 19 course units

Facilities

As a School of Social Sciences student, you will be supported by first-class resources.   

As well as access to networked study areas and one of the best-resourced academic libraries in the country, The University of Manchester Library .

Disability support

Practical support and advice for current students and applicants is available from the Disability Advisory and Support Service. Email: dass@manchester.ac.uk