Politics – (M.Phil.)

Doing an MPhil or a PhD is an excellent way of developing your research interests, skills and knowledge and, in the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, you'll have some great opportunities to work closely with your chosen supervisory team and to participate in a range of other research training opportunities.

In both the MPhil and PhD degrees there is an extensive research training programme at both the subject-specific (political science) level and generic (social science) level.

Politics at Newcastle has a strong research culture. All academic staff are research active and involved in organizing conferences, research seminars and reading groups, and promoting collaborative research both internally and with external partners. Research activity is encouraged and the dissemination of research is assisted. Politics at Newcastle was awarded a grade 5 in the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise. The School has a research seminar series in Politics and also holds special research colloquia in politics. Politics also runs a seminar programme for research postgraduates in politics.

Research in politics at Newcastle falls mainly within the three broad areas of comparative politics and public policy, international politics, and political thought and political philosophy. Many research programmes cross those three broad subject areas and involve links with other disciplines at Newcastle and with researchers at other UK and non-UK universities.

We have a large number of staff working in the field of comparative politics, broadly defined. Research is subsumed under four main headings: British State and Society; Multi-level Governance and Democracy; National and Supra-Nation Systems; and Political Organizations and Democracy (Parties, Social Movements, NGOs and Interest Groups). We have experts on the European Union, running an MA in European Union Studies, and hosting the prestigious Jean Monet Centre of Excellence, as well as scholars with specialisms in British Politics, African Politics (editing African Affairs, the Journal of the Royal African Society), French Politics, Italian Politics and Japanese Politics. The Comparative Politics research group integrates staff and research students and meets regularly to hear papers and discuss developments in the discipline.

Newcastle is one of the leading centres in the UK for the study of Political Theory and Philosophy . The expertise of our staff covers virtually all areas of contemporary political philosophy and modern political theory, including global as well as domestic issues. Several of our students have won national prizes for their PhD theses. Postgraduates participate in the Political Philosophy Group's research seminar which is addressed by both internal and internationally distinguished external speakers. Newcastle is the home of the Journal of Moral Philosophy, which is devoted to political and legal, as well as moral, philosophy.