Politics (Including Placement Year)

Why should we obey the law? Why don’t democratic countries go to war with each other? Why don’t young people vote? Why do oil-rich countries have worse human rights records? These are the kinds of questions addressed in our BA Politics course, which provides a thorough training in all major areas of political science, and is based in the top politics department in the country.

Always seeking political cause and effect, our course casts light on aspects of life you might never ordinarily connect to politics and government. You investigate the scope of political science as a field of inquiry, and the methods used by political scientists, in order to explore questions concerning both what does occur in politics, and what should occur in politics.

You study topics including:

- Concepts in political science: state, laws, wars and political parties

- International relations

- Democratic systems

- Political power

- Obligations, freedom, rights and equality

Politics at Essex is all about moving from opinions to evidence. You will quickly learn to ask – and how to answer – the “how do you know?” question. We train our students to be fearless and independent, to question everything and to draw on the broadest possible range of facts and ideas.