Political Science

This course introduces how creative ideas can drive meaningful change in communities, organizations, and urban environments. With London as a living laboratory, the class uses neighborhoods, green spaces, cultural institutions, and social enterprises as places to observe, analyze, and experiment with new ways of thinking. It engages interactive workshops with practical methods such as design thinking, systems mapping, and co-design. The course teaches how creative and collaborative approaches can reveal insights, spark new perspectives, and support better decision-making. Course work includes collaboration in a small team on a real challenge set by an external partner from the voluntary sector, local government, or a socially-minded business. 

The program offers a historical overview of the various stages the political system has undergone. The purpose of this overview is to identify the main points of continuity and rupture that have shaped national political life around its institutions, while simultaneously establishing comparative empirical and conceptual links that place this system within common regional trends, as well as highlighting its contrasts. The program will examine the main institutions, actors, and political processes that characterize the system, employing both a comparative perspective to better appreciate its distinctive features and a historical perspective to facilitate understanding of long-term trends.

This course examines the interplay between criminology and public policy. As well as providing an overview of factors shaping policy in Australia and other countries, it reviews challenges associated with making criminological, sociological, and philosophical theory relevant in practical contexts. It explores the implications, challenges and opportunities for policy change and considers the systems and processes that determine what is considered deserving of state intervention as either public policy or criminalization. Emphasis is placed on critically exploring contemporary public policy concerns such as those related to climate change, abolition, immigration, social security and policing.

This course explores the mutually interacting dynamics between the technical and political dimensions of nuclear technology — particularly nuclear weapons, nuclear power, and the nuclear fuel cycle — and how they have evolved within various national and international historical frameworks. Of particular interest is the question of how much the technical possibilities constrain political choices, and how political choices enable or disable various technical possibilities, and the degree to which the technical and political worlds are “co-produced” simultaneously. This course draws upon and features perspectives from the history of nuclear weapons, international relations, and science and technology studies. Each session features a mixture of discussion and lecture.

This course offers a comprehensive introduction to the politics, strategy, and international security implications of nuclear weapons. Beginning with the science and history behind the bomb's invention, the course explores how nuclear weapons have shaped global politics from Hiroshima to the contemporary era of multipolar nuclear rivalry. Through close engagement with foundational texts and contemporary policy debates, it examines the logic of deterrence, the strategic dilemmas of extended deterrence, and the evolving architecture of non-proliferation and arms control. The course applies these frameworks to key cases—such as NATO, Iran, Russia, China, and France—to assess the challenges of escalation, proliferation, and technological change in the emerging nuclear age. Emphasis is placed on bridging theory and practice, enabling students to critically assess how nuclear weapons continue to structure conflict, diplomacy, and international order in the 21st century.

Global interaction and exchange have increased on a dramatic level since the 1970s. This course offers the opportunity to examine the real life of globalization by treating it as a historical phenomena, helping us to think precisely about what was globalized when, and how understandings of it have changed through time. Students trace the emergence of technologies and practices which facilitate global interaction, from the container ship to the internet. Students examine the emergence of the idea of globalization, and trace the history of arguments about what it is and whether it is a good thing or not. Finally, students study its political consequences, charting debates about the effects of global interaction on the choices available to publics and their leaders, and how far institutions and individuals are able to shape phenomena which occurs on such a large scale. In taking course, students develop a crucial set of tools for understanding one of the major issues of our age.

This course examines contemporary trends in socio-economic inequalities across Western countries and explores their political implications. It analyzes inequalities in social mobility, income, and wealth; poverty and labor market integration, urban segregation, as well as health inequalities. Particular attention is given to the mediating role of educational systems, labor market institutions, and welfare states. The course contrasts institutionalist approaches to inequality with structural explanations that emphasize the impact of globalization and technological change. Finally, it discusses how these empirical patterns relate to evolving political attitudes and preferences, including the decline of traditional class voting and the rise of populist parties.

This course is designed to help students get to know and better understand the capital of Paris. Much has been said, written, and heard about Paris, yet the capital remains a place of mystery. In fact, Paris is three cities in one: an international city, a national city, and the city where Parisians live their daily lives. We know what happens there, but do we know what is at stake behind the cultural representations of Paris, its social change, the public action that takes place there, and its electoral geography? Who are the Parisians during the 2026 municipal elections? These questions are all mysteries to be solved. This course draws on a variety of approaches (culture, cinema, history, geography, sociology) and relies on the curiosity and sagacity of students to solve these puzzles, as they write and present their electoral program as candidates in the 2026 Paris municipal elections.

This course is designed to introduce and discuss some of the key debates and on-going processes at the interface of politics, economy and security across the globe. In the light of international corruption and financial scandals, as well as the prevalence of terrorism, its financing, and the laundering of "dirty money" in relation to criminal networks, there is a specific focus on the making of global policies against economic, financial and white collar crimes, from tax evasion to proliferation financing of weapons of mass destruction.

This course introduces the emerging landscape of "green industrial policy.” Focus is first be placed on defining such policy, broadly construed as public interventions targeting rapid industrial change in pursuit of national decarbonization. The course then foregrounds historical precedents of rapid industrial change, especially in the Global South. From here, it surveys ongoing policy experiments in different regional contexts, and concludes with case studies of China, Mexico, and France. Throughout the course, attention is placed on distinct theoretical and methodological approaches to studying green industrial policy, with students completing original research proposals.