Introduction to Politics

Overview

This module provides a comprehensive introduction to the empirical study of politics. Politics is an essential and pervasive feature of social life, deeply affecting how our lives are structured, whether or not we are involved directly in political decision-making. Politics is a complex phenomenon, with many different aspects and is found in a range of different contexts, from formal electoral politics, to relations in families and workplaces, exchanges on social media, and in the construction of social values and attitudes. The empirical study of politics, accordingly, has a number of distinct sub-fields focused on particular aspects of political life. This module will introduce you to research on political attitudes and behaviour, electoral politics, political institutions, and public policy. Focusing on these substantive areas, this module will equip you with an understanding of how politics is studied, and the different types of analyses that are conducted to reach conclusions about these important aspects of the political world.

Learning Objectives

Students will:
- Appreciate the ways in which the academic study of politics differs from political commentary.

- acquire an appreciation of the different ways that empirical researchers study political behaviour, institutions and policies

- understand the complexity of politics

- become familiar with the variety of approaches adopted in the empirical study of politics

Skills

Intellectual skills
• Managing & Prioritizing Knowledge: identify relevant and subject-specific knowledge, sources and data; manage such information in an independent manner.
• Analytical Thinking: identify, understand, interpret and evaluate relevant subject-specific arguments made by others; construct independent arguments.
• Critical & Independent Thinking: ability to think critically and construct one’s own position in relation to existing and ongoing debates in the field.

Professional and career development skills
• Communication Skills: ability to communicate clearly with others, both orally and in writing.
• Teamwork: ability to work with others in a team, negotiate conflicts and recognize different ways of learning.
• Diversity: ability to acknowledge and be sensitive to the range of cultural differences present in the learning environment.
• Self-Reflexivity: ability to reflect on one’s own progress and identify and act upon one’s own development needs with respect to life-long learning and career development.
• Time Management: ability to negotiate diverse and competing pressures; cope with stress; and achieve a work / life balance.

Organizational skills
• Efficient and effective work practice: demonstrate ability to work efficiently to deadlines.
• Clear organisation of information: show efficiency in the organisation of large amounts of complex information and the ability to identify, describe and analyse the key features of the information.
• Organisation and communication: demonstrate ability to use evidence to develop logical and clear arguments; show aptitude for the effective use of information in a direct and appropriate way.
• Enterprising thinking: Demonstrate ability to think and argue in novel and enterprising ways, to display originality of thought and argument and the ability to clearly support arguments in innovative ways.

Assessment

None.