Overview
3rd in London, 11th in UK for Politics - National Student Survey 2024
Politics and Sociology at Brunel is a dynamic combination of high level study in both subjects. Your politics studies will help you address critical questions like: Who has political power? Why do they have it? And in whose interest do they exercise it?
Meanwhile, your studies in sociology will look at subjects like sociological theory, social identities, the sociology of everyday life and the changing nature of modern societies. You’ll be studying people, societies and how people live, and on the other how they are governed or want to be governed.
Both subjects will help to demonstrate your intellectual acumen and understanding of world affairs and real life issues, which will be an asset in so many fields of work.
Whether you’re studying modern world politics or the development of social change and transformations, you’ll not just learn about them, you’ll be analysing them using the tools of political science and social science to help deepen your understanding and critical thinking.
Opt for a placement year and you'll gain valuable experience to help give you the edge in the job market when you come to graduate. Past students have secured placements in the Home Office, HM Treasury, the House of Commons, and the Competition Commission, but the list of possibilities is endless.
It’s a competitive world out there, so you’ll get plenty of support from your lecturers and the University’s Professional Development Centre to help prepare you for your placement year and the world of work.
But why not increase your career options with an accredited journalism course, a free modern language course, or a social media internship? You can even opt to study part of your degree abroad in one of our partner universities in Europe, or participate in an exchange programme to China or the USA.
It’s all available at Brunel to help you make a difference in the world – now and in the future.
Brunel graduates of this subject enter diverse careers. Some go into politics and the civil service, some are at GCHQ and military intelligence, and some go on to further study or into research.
Others go into the public sector – the NHS, social or care work, education or in local authorities, while others go into the private sector working for international banks, business consultancy, law, NGOs, the media and marketing. The opportunities are endless.
Course content
The course content is made up of a variety of subject area strands that can be studied across all three years of the programme. At every level, there are modules relating to each strand. After taking the compulsory modules in the first year, you can choose to study across a range of strands, or specialise in particular strands. Below is a list of the strands:
Politics (compulsory elements): This strand equips you with tools to understand contemporary politics at every level. It will focus on political thought as well the differences between diverse political systems (including Britain). You will also you develop the tools for sustained research in political science. This will include research design, qualitative methods, such as interview techniques, as well as quantitative analysis of, for example, polling data.
Politics (elective elements): This strand builds on the strand above. You will be able to study the policies and political systems of other countries, political behaviour and elections and issues of race, culture, identity and public policy.
Sociology: This strand focuses on our understanding of human behaviour. It places a special emphasis on culture, society and media as well as the social, economic and political forces that drive human interaction at all levels.
Compulsory
- Delivering Public Policy
In this module you will acquire a broad knowledge of the policy instruments available to government in the forming of policies, using case studies to examine how policy tools work in the real world. Along the way you will develop the ability to critically appraise, orally and in written arguments, the strengths and weaknesses of policy instruments and the optimal choice and combination required to achieve a policy goal.
- Key Ideas in Sociology
Key themes in sociology are explored through theoretical and empirical analysis. You will do this by examining some of the most important ideas of leading sociologists and critically engage with their theories through empirical illustrations.
- Race, Multiculturalism and British Politics: Concepts and Debates
This module delves into the politics of race and multiculturalism in contemporary Britain by focusing on a number of concepts such as racism, islamophobia, integration, and national identity. Through examining key scholarly texts and debates, students will develop essential skills in critical reading and analysis.
- Global London
Through focusing on the concept of ‘Global London’, this module shows you how the social sciences can enable you to better understand their lived social environment. It introduces you to the techniques used by a range of disciplines within social science for gaining and validating knowledge of the social world and equips you with an academic skill base appropriate for university study.
- Global Sociology
This module will survey current debates around the idea of global sociology. It will address contrasting theories of global sociology as well as specific issues raised by the subject including the debates around the idea of sociology as a global discipline as opposed to one that takes nation-states as its starting point of analysis.
Optional
- Body, Media and Society
In this module we will examine many different aspects of embodiment and bodies in society, with a focus on the role of media in representing, stereotyping, and medicalising different kinds of bodies.
- Climate Politics
This module aims to enable students to attain a comprehensive understanding of key concepts and theories in the politics and political economy of climate change. It will provide students with resources to assist them in making informed judgments on a range of questions and debates.
- Colonialism, Migration and Global Racism
This module explores the concept, meaning and practices of ‘race’, ethnicity, racialization, and global racisms. It identifies how ‘race’ and racism have evolved over time, and in different contexts - both nationally in the contemporary UK as well as in other parts of the world.
- Comparative Electoral Systems
This module aims to provide students with an understanding of political institutions and their impact through institutional analysis and modern institutional theory and explores single case studies, cross-case and cross-temporal comparisons. The module is divided in three parts; part one covers the theoretical approaches in new institutionalism, part two covers specific institutions and part three covers the influence of institutions on policy.
- Digital Culture
This module considers the shape of new media technologies such as iPhones – it explores how new developments in media technology have changed the basis of contemporary social life and culture. This module will examine some of the key transformations that are taking place through digital culture.
- Elections, Parties & Voters in the UK
The aim of this module is to examine and evaluate the major issues and controversies in the study of elections, voting behaviour and political parties in Britain, and to provide a basis for comparative analysis. It seeks to provide a sophisticated examination of changing election outcomes, changing electoral behaviour, party ideology, party organisation and party systems.
- Explaining Politics: Quantitative Political Science in Practice
This modules aims to provide students with the skills to analyse political data and introduce methods for gathering and understanding data. Students will be encouraged to critically engage with the use of existing statistical data in political discourse and demonstrate the importance of quantitative analysis in domestic and international politics.
- Global Communication
Examine the ways in which the globalisation of communication has transformed social, political, and economic relations. The following themes will be addressed in this module: the state, economy, power, globalisation, nationalism, identity, digitisation, culture and consumerism, media markets, public relations and politics, and political economy of communication.
- Issues in American Politics
This module familiarises students with contemporary issues on the American political agenda and demonstrates how politicians adapt policy stances and organisational and electoral strategies to accommodate change in political debate. Students are encouraged to adopt a more interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approach to learning about American politics by examining social, moral, cultural and economic issues through a partisan political perspective.
- Making the Social
An introduction to core concepts in social theory. The emphasis is on concepts through which students can relate to the worlds they inhabit and the lives they live, connecting these to a broad canvas: the diversity of social existence and the sweep of human history. The focus is on basic building blocks of social existence.
- National Security Intelligence
This module furnishes students with an overview to the field of national security intelligence. It also examines in greater detail intelligence collection, analysis, counterintelligence, covert action, and other selected topics.
- Plato’s Republic
This module involves a close reading of the foundatonal text in political thought: Plato's Republic.
- Popular Culture and Creative Industries
This module explores how meanings are developed through contemporary cultural representations, practices and processes, with a focus on creativity and the creative industries sector. It examines popular culture and the rise of the creative and cultural sector in late modernity drawing on relevant sociological, media and cultural studies debates and theories.
- Researching Your World
This module provides an advanced understanding of research methodologies, with a particular focus on data analysis. Equipping students with an understanding and appreciation of the important theoretical paradigms that underpin qualitative and quantitative social and communications research traditions. Furnishing students with the tools and skills required to conduct and evaluate their own empirical social and communications research.
- Social Welfare: Politics and Policy
This module examines the way our society provides safety nets for people in poverty, how these policies are changing, and how well they work. Using policy case studies from the UK, US and Europe, we look at a range of evidence to understand how well modern welfare states work, attitudes towards welfare programmes and recipients, and future policy challenges.
- Sociology of Everyday Life: Issues in Contemporary Culture
In this module you will consider the meanings of ordinary, ‘everyday’ processes and actions in society, by examining what everyday life consists of and the relevant academic debates and theories around it. The module will encourage you to reflect on your own everyday life through the lense of power, identity and gender in wider socio-cultural contexts.
- The State and Revolution
This module provides students with an understanding of the historical emergence of two of the central concepts of modern political thought: the state and revolution, or the constitution of political order and the process of fundamental political transformation. We study the development of these concepts in some of the major events of political modernity, from the 16th to the 19th centuries.
- Unity and Cultural Diversity
In this module students will gain an understanding of the texts of political theorists who focus on the issue of fostering unity among the culturally diverse citizens of a modern polity. Students will also gain an understanding of case studies that help to illuminate the difficulties of fostering unity among the culturally diverse citizens of a modern polity.
- From Student to Scholar: Successful Research in the Modern World
Preparing students for their final year dissertation begins in the second year in From Student to Scholar: Successful Research in the Modern World. This module introduces students to a variety of analytical perspectives, research methods and techniques used in designing a research project in politics, international relations and international politics.
- Gender, Sexuality and Feminism
This module will introduce students to core ideas in feminism via the key concepts of gender and sexuality. It will develop students’ understandings of social structures, human cultures, and economic inequalities and political relationships. The course will offer theoretical tools and historical insights into gendered, feminised, and sexualised socio-cultural worlds.
Compulsory
- Advanced Research Skills for Politics and International Politics
- Dissertation in Politics and Sociology
The final year dissertation provides undergraduates with the opportunity to provide evidence of abilities not usually measured by the written papers and assessments through their degree - notably the ability to work independently in a subject area of the student’s choice.
Optional
- Advanced Applied Quantitative Methods
This module will introduce methods suited to analysing complex political data as well as encouraging students to engage with and communicate the use of existing statistical data in the study of political science and in practical application in the political world.
- Apocalypse! Crisis and Society
Explore the social & political significance of representations of national and global crises, and public perceptions of controversies. Students analyse dystopian popular and scientific discourses that dwell on disorder and catastrophe. Indicative content includes risk, uncertainty, globalisation, the environment, disease, capitalism. Public understanding, perception and engagement with popular and scientific controversies and notions of crisis.
- Cities, Power and Social Change
An introduction to urban sociology and will develop the students understanding of urban development, cultures, and representation. The course will offer theoretical tools and provide practical applications for the relationship between space, culture, and social life in contemporary cities.
- Comedy, the Media & Society
This module provides a serious critical consideration of the role of comedy in contemporary media and society. This role is explored in relation to comedy’s institutional, historical, social and textual conventions. The module also explores comedy as it exists in a broad range of texts and examines the role of comedy in the construction and transmission of social difference and issues of identity.
- Crisis and Critique
The main aim of the module is to provide students with an understanding of some of the major socio-political crises in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and the ways in which they have been understood by political theorists.
- European Union Politics: Problems and Prospects
In this module students will discuss the development and functioning of the EU from its inception to the present day and be introduced to and learn to evaluate a range of theoretical perspectives on the EU’s creation, development and functioning. Students will examine a range of political problems in the European integration process, such as legitimacy, domestic and social impact, institutional and policy reform, enlargement, and future directions.
- Global Migration
Equips students with an understanding of the key concepts in global migration including the causes and consequences of migration, national and international responses to migration and the diversity of migrant flows within a global context, using cases from both Global North and Global South contexts.
- Marx and the Critique of Political Economy
This module involves reading several key works by Marx, culminating in several weeks on Das Kapital
- Lawyers, Guns and Money: Making the Modern World-System
This module will explore issues raised by historical and political sociology regarding the development of the modern world-system. In particular the course will focus upon the rise to dominance of Europe in the building of the modern world-system and the explanations offered for this.
- Making the Social
An introduction to core concepts in social theory. The emphasis is on concepts through which students can relate to the worlds they inhabit and the lives they live, connecting these to a broad canvas: the diversity of social existence and the sweep of human history. The focus is on basic building blocks of social existence.
- Media, Politics & Power in America
This module seeks to familiarise students with the contemporary issues agenda in American politics. It seeks to demonstrate the ways in which politicians and institutions adapt policy stances and organisational strategies to accommodate changes in the nature, content and direction of political debate.
- Parliamentary Studies
This module aims to provide students with a detailed understanding of the UK Parliament by examining its structure, internal processes, and different committees, and to give students an understanding how to transfer the skills they have acquired when thinking about social, historical and political issues to practical ongoing issues that parliament is encountering in its committees or in legislation it is devising.
- Psychogeography
In this module you will study the relationship between the individual and their environment, both in situ and in movement, to reconsider habitual understandings of how we live in and move through our environment.
- Public Policy Analysis
How do governments make public policy? Why do public policies vary across countries? How can public policy be analysed? These are the questions that will be explored in this module. The module will provide the participants with a strong theoretical foundation for analysing public policy and skills to communicate the analyses to non-academic stakeholders in public policy.
- Social Media and Society
This module will enable students to critically engage and analyse the historical and current impact of social media on social relations and contemporary culture. It will allow students to develop a critical understanding of social media in the context of broader changes in the media landscape, and how it impacts identity, power and everyday life.
- Social Reproduction and Care
This module aims to introduce students to theoretical debates in feminism about social reproduction and care. It will offer a broad history of such debates and update these with new theoretical interventions in this field that have arisen in recent times, particularly in the context of the pandemic.
- Sociological Career Development
This module will provide students with a critical overview of working in industries that draw on or are connected with sociological knowledge from direct encounters with industry professionals, companies or institutions. Drawing on a variety of formats, the module will support students’ understanding of, competence and confidence in working independently in a professional manner appropriate to ‘sociological’ industries.
- Terrorism and Counterterrorism
This module aims to address a series of empirical questions regarding the causes, conduct, and consequences of campaigns of terrorism in the modern world. It provides students with an understanding of a series of key debates in the social science literature.
- The Arab-Israeli Conflict
We survey the Arab-Israeli conflict, covering three overarching themes: 1) Origins of the Conflict; 2) Evolution of the Conflict; and 3) Peace and its Limits. The module covers the origins of both national movements, the development of the conflict under British rule, the major Arab-Israeli wars, peace agreements, and it ends with recent events.
- Media, Politics & Power in America
This module seeks to familiarise students with the contemporary issues agenda in American politics. It seeks to demonstrate the ways in which politicians and institutions adapt policy stances and organisational strategies to accommodate changes in the nature, content and direction of political debate.
This course can be studied undefined undefined, starting in undefined.
This course has a placement option. Find out more about work placements available.
Please note that all modules are subject to change.
Read more about the structure of undergraduate degrees at Brunel.
Careers and your future
Past students have gone on to further training in law, accountancy, personnel management and other graduate degrees. They have joined the Civil Service (fast stream), have gone into publishing, journalism and the media including BBC Radio and Granada Television, have entered major financial and accountancy firms such as PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Lloyds Bowmaker Finance Group, and have entered the fields of management and marketing with firms such as Ford, Metal Box and Rank Xerox.
Politics students benefit from excellent career prospects – graduates have gone on to become politicians, have joined local and national government organisations, or work in the private sector.
Sociologists are in increasing demand in many sectors in social welfare and policy, in local government and administration (including lobbying, campaigning and fundraising), in medicine, in education and research, and in industry. If you are thinking of a career in any of these fields, it may also be possible to select work experience in these areas. There are also openings available in business, particularly marketing and advertising, management, media, and recruitment, as well as computing, consultancy and teaching.
UK entry requirements
2024/25 entry
- GCE A-level ABB-BBC.
- BTEC Level 3 Extended Diploma DMM.
- BTEC Level 3 Diploma DM with an A-level at grade C.
- BTEC Level 3 Subsidiary Diploma D in any subject with A-levels grade BB.
- International Baccalaureate Diploma 29 points. GCSE English equivalent Standard Level 5 or Higher Level 4 and Mathematics Standard Level 4 or Higher Level 4
- Obtain a minimum of 112 UCAS tariff points in the Access to HE Diploma with 45 credits at Level 3.
- T levels : Merit overall
A minimum of five GCSEs are required, including GCSE Mathematics grade C or grade 4 and GCSE English Language grade C or grade 4 or GCSE English Literature grade B or grade 5.
Brunel University London is committed to raising the aspirations of our applicants and students. We will fully review your UCAS application and, where we’re able to offer a place, this will be personalised to you based on your application and education journey.
Please check our Admissions pages for more information on other factors we use to assess applicants as well as our full GCSE requirements and accepted equivalencies in place of GCSEs.
EU and International entry requirements
English language requirements
- IELTS: 6.5 (min 5.5 in all areas)
- Pearson: 59 (59 in all subscores)
- BrunELT: 63% (min 55% in all areas)
- TOEFL: 90 (min R18, L17, S20, W17)
You can find out more about the qualifications we accept on our English Language Requirements page.
Should you wish to take a pre-sessional English course to improve your English prior to starting your degree course, you must sit the test at an approved SELT provider for the same reason. We offer our own BrunELT English test and have pre-sessional English language courses for students who do not meet requirements or who wish to improve their English. You can find out more information on English courses and test options through our Brunel Language Centre.
Please check our Admissions pages for more information on other factors we use to assess applicants. This information is for guidance only and each application is assessed on a case-by-case basis. Entry requirements are subject to review, and may change.
Fees and funding
2024/25 entry
UK
£9,250 full-time
£1,385 placement year
International
£19,430 full-time
£1,385 placement year
Fees quoted are per year and may be subject to an annual increase. Home undergraduate student fees are regulated and are currently capped at £9,250 per year; any changes will be subject to changes in government policy. International fees will increase annually, by no more than 5% or RPI (Retail Price Index), whichever is the greater.
More information on any additional course-related costs.
See our fees and funding page for full details of undergraduate scholarships available to Brunel applicants.
Please refer to the scholarships pages to view discounts available to eligible EU undergraduate applicants.
Teaching and learning
You'll be taught by world leading experts in your field of study, and have the opportunity to interact with fellow students on London’s leading campus University.
Your programme will consist of various learning and studying activities, including lectures, seminars and discussions. Students will study six modules during two terms across the academic year (4 modules and a dissertation in the third year). Each module will have on average two-to-three hours in person contact time per week in lectures, seminars and workshops in the teaching terms. There will also be the opportunity for a further six hours per week to seek guidance during module lecturers’ feedback and consultation hours. Additionally, students can seek support in individual meetings with their personal tutors, both on campus and online. There will also be regular cohort meetings and student society events, at both programme and departmental levels. Field trips and excursions to support students’ learning will be organised throughout the year.
All lectures, seminars, cohort meetings and other social activities will occur in person on the Brunel campus. It is expected that students will regularly attend these events, as sustained engagement with a learning community is a central dimension of the Brunel experience. Online provision of some activities will be made available when it is appropriate to the learning outcomes of your programme.
Students are strongly advised to purchase core texts from module reading lists, although copies are also available via Brunel Library.
Access to a laptop or desktop PC is required for joining online activities, completing coursework and digital exams, and a minimum specification can be found here.
We have computers available across campus for your use and laptop loan schemes to support you through your studies. You can find out more here.
The majority of your learning will be in your own private study, so during your first term, you'll be encouraged to become an independent learner - capable of managing your work and organising your studies. The Brunel library also hosts a number of academic skills courses to help you.
You’ll be taught in lectures (main classes) and seminars (smaller classes focused on exchanging ideas) by staff who are internationally known for publishing and presenting papers worldwide which will help to keep degree content cutting edge and relevant.
Several politics lecturers are paid consultants to government departments including the Cabinet Office and the Home Office in the UK, the Council of Europe and the Georgian Ministry of Defence. Others like sociology lecturer, Dr Sharon Lockyer, specialise in humour and comedy, and you can even take a module on that as part of your course.
Also, the closeness of the Brunel campus to central London’s world-class research facilities like the British Library, Westminster, Whitehall and Chatham House means you’re never too far from a great learning day out or rare archive material for your dissertation.
Should you need any non-academic support during your time at Brunel, the Student Support and Welfare Team are here to help.
Assessment and feedback
You’ll be assessed by a combination of coursework and exams, but most of your time will be spent in private study and reading. In your final year you will produce a final dissertation on a politics or history subject of your choice under the guidance of a dissertation supervisor.