Early clearing information

This course is available through clearing for home and international applicants

If you already have your exam results, meet the entry requirements, and are not holding an offer from a university or college, then you may be able to apply to this course.

Contact the admissions team

Bachelor of Science (BSc)

BSc International Business, Finance and Economics

  • Duration: 3 years full-time
  • Year of entry: 2025
  • UCAS course code: N1N3 / Institution code: M20
  • Key features:
  • Study with a language
  • Scholarships available

Full entry requirementsHow to apply

Meet us

Discover if Manchester is right for you with an online or in-person meeting.

Learn more

Discover more about Alliance MBS

Discover

Download our course brochure

Download

Fees and funding

Fees

Tuition fees for home students commencing their studies in September 2025 will be £9,535 per annum (subject to Parliamentary approval). Tuition fees for international students will be £31,500 per annum. For general information please see the undergraduate finance pages.

Policy on additional costs

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).

Scholarships/sponsorships

The Manchester Bursary is available to UK students registered on an undergraduate degree course at Alliance MBS who have had a full financial assessment carried out by Student Finance England. 

In addition, Alliance MBS will award a range of Social Responsibility Scholarships to UK and international/EU students. These awards are worth £2,000 per year across three years of study. You must achieve AAA at A-level (or equivalent qualification) and be able to demonstrate a significant contribution and commitment to social responsibility.

 The School will also award a number of International Stellar Scholarships to international students achieving AAA at A-level (or equivalent qualification). Applicants who exceed AAA and/or have supplementary qualifications (such as EPQ) will receive additional consideration.

Additional eligibility criteria apply - please see our scholarship pages for full details.

Course unit details:
Political and Economic Anthropology

Course unit fact file
Unit code SOAN20821
Credit rating 20
Unit level Level 2
Teaching period(s) Semester 1
Available as a free choice unit? Yes

Overview

This course examines how social anthropology critically approaches the entanglements of politics and economics in diverse locations around the globe and how these entanglements are inflected in everyday life. The course explores how anthropologists continue to develop new directions in anthropology that provide us with analytical tools to explain and understand current events affecting people's lives around the world. 
The lecture course will cover the following themes:

• Week 1: Locating 'the Political' and Power: Introduction to Political Anthropology;
• Week 2: European Expansion and the Modern World System;
• Week 3: The Modern State; 
• Week 4: Militarism and War;
• Week 5: Cynicism, Irony and Politics; 
• Reading Week; 
• Week 6: Capitalism, Money and the Market;
• Week 7: The Financial Crisis;
• Week 8: The Politics of Labour in Post-Industrial Economies;
• Week 9: 'Precarity' and the Changing World of work;
• Week 10: Course revision and final essay preparation; 
 

Aims

  • Identify different anthropological approaches to the study of political processes and power in the everyday;
  • To identify how anthropological analysis embedded in history can explain political and economic phenomena today;

Learning outcomes

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

  • Identify a range of anthropological approaches to the study of political economy; 
  • Distinguish anthropological approaches to the crises of industrial and financial capitalism and the key social science concepts that these engender;
  • Recognise the diverse set of historical conditions around the world that render making a living in late capitalism a contested domain of human interaction;
  • Critically mobilise different theoretical approaches to analyse the workings of power in their everyday forms; 
     

 

Teaching and learning methods

Lectures and tutorials

Assessment methods

  • Book club (worth 30%);
  • 3000 word final essay (worth 70%)
     

 

 

Feedback methods

Students will receive feedback via:

  • Discussions in lectures and seminars, and during presentations;
  • Mid-semester essay;
  • Final essay;

 

Recommended reading

  • Carrier James. 2012. A Handbook of Economic Anthropology. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd;
  • Hann Chris. & Keith Hart. 2011. Economic Anthropology. Cambridge: Polity Press;
  • Llewellyn Ted. 2003. An Introduction to Political Anthropology. USA: Praeger Publishers; 
  • Narotzky, Susana. 1997. New Directions in Economic Anthropology London. Pluto 
    Press;
  • Vincent, Joan (ed.). 2002: The Anthropology of Politics: A Reader in Ethnography, Theory and Critique. Oxford: Blackwell;

 

 

Study hours

Scheduled activity hours
Lectures 20
Tutorials 10
Independent study hours
Independent study 170

Teaching staff

Staff member Role
Valentina Zagaria Unit coordinator

Additional notes

Length of course: 10 weeks

Return to course details