Overview
3rd in London, 11th in UK for Politics - National Student Survey 2024
Who has political power? Why do they have it? To whom are they accountable? Is violent protest ever justified? If these questions evoke a response in you and raise more questions in turn, politics is the degree for you.
Politics is an exciting and dynamic subject, simulating debate and offering insight into how the ever-changing world around us works. It’s also a degree that can demonstrate your intellectual acumen and understanding of world affairs, which will be an asset in many fields of work.
The broad-based nature of the course at Brunel means you will be studying a wide breadth of modules from British politics to US foreign policy and political change. But you’ll not only be learning about politics – you’ll be analysing politics using the tools of political science to help deepen your understanding and critical thinking.
Opt for a placement year and you'll gain work experience that is highly valued by employers. Brunel students have secured placements in the Environmental Audit Committee, the House of Commons, Directorate of Gender Affairs, HM Treasury and the Competition Commission, to name only a few.
You can also opt to take part of your degree abroad in one of our partner universities in Europe, or participate in an exchange programme to China or the USA to study politics in a different part of the world whilst experiencing a new culture.
Brunel is a dynamic university choice for your politics course. You’ll be taught by politics experts who are often called on to comment on radio and television. The Brunel campus has hosted the filming of BBC’s Question Time and is a political hub during local and national elections.
Brunel politics graduates enter diverse careers. Many of our former students go into politics and the civil service and some are currently at GCHQ and military intelligence. Others work in the public and private sector like the NHS, international banks, business consultancy, law, NGOs and the media. Whichever route you chose, a politics degree with Brunel will set you up for a successful future.
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:
American Politics: The United States is hugely influential both as a global power and as a political beacon. This strand assesses the nature of the American polity exploring across the three years the role of America’s political institutions, key issues facing the American political system and the role and function of the media in fashioning American government policy.
British Politics: The focus of this strand is the United Kingdom: what it looks like, how it operates and where it is going. Key topics will include the nature and working of the British state, the role and function of Parliament and how parties and voters interact.
Comparative Politics: The relationship between different polities is a key area of modern political science research. This strand engages with this by assessing in a comparative frame: different countries, their political systems and the actors engaging with the political systems. Comparisons across countries and/or across time are used to explore the differences and similarities between the systems to answer questions on who gets what, when and how in terms of allocation of resources within and between polities.
Methodology and Research Skills: This strand will help 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. There will be an opportunity to take this to an advanced level and develop key transferable research skills.
Political Ideology and Theory: This strand explores political thought across the ages from ancient times to the present. You will begin with a broad survey of major ideas in political theory, before being able to look in greater depth at particular ideologies, e.g. liberalism, Marxism, fascism and particular concepts such as multiculturalism and equality.
Public Policy and Public Administration: The focus of this strand is how government decisions, i.e. public policy, is developed, implemented and evaluated and by whom. This will include contentious areas of public policy, for instance welfare policy. It will also look at how public policy is assessed and analysed and the means by which its success (or failure) is judged and what tools can used to increase the success of implementing policy proposals.
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.
- Introduction to American Politics
This module introduces students to the institutions and processes of the modern American political system. It relates these institutions and processes to the diversity and complexity of turn-of-the-century U.S. society. Students learn about a range of methodologies and research skills relevant to the discipline of political science and begin to develop an interdisciplinary approach to understanding American politicians and voters.
- Introduction to Comparative Politics
The module introduces students to the study of comparative politics and examine how the design of political institutions reflects competing visions of democracy and the implications this has for the processes that link citizens and policymakers. Students will focus on various aspects of the political system such as the differences between parliamentary and presidential systems, federal and unitary systems, electoral rules, party systems.
- 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.
- Reason, Unreason, and the People: Political Thought from Hobbes to Freud
This module introduces students to the main thinkers in political thought through the idea of reason and unreason, and asks: who are the people?
- 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.
Compulsory
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
Optional
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
Compulsory
- Advanced Research Skills for Politics and International Politics
- DissertationThe 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.
- 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.
- Marx and the Critique of Political Economy
This module involves reading several key works by Marx, culminating in several weeks on Das Kapital
- 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.
- 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.
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
Our students pursue a wide variety of jobs after graduating. Some go into Politics and the civil service and have worked for Members of the Parliament such as John McDonnell MP, or former Labour party general secretary Baroness McDonagh. Other graduates have joined Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Home Office, GCHQ and military intelligence.
Others work in the public and private sectors, law and NGOs whilst some graduates become researchers, teachers and librarians.
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 Merit 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 course 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.
You’ll be taught in lectures and seminars by academic staff who are internationally known for publishing and presenting papers worldwide. Their research is often reported in the press and media, which will help to keep your learning contemporary and cutting edge.
You’ll also benefit from the expertise of staff who are consultants to government departments including the Cabinet Office, Home Office and Ministry of Defence in the UK; the council of Europe; the Georgian Ministry of Defence and the Canadian Department of Citizenship Abroad.
Also, the proximity of the Brunel campus to central London’s world-class research facilities, the British Library, Westminster and Whitehall, means you'll be best placed to immerse yourself in an established political arena.
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 subject of your choice under the guidance of a dissertation supervisor.