PhD Politics and International Relations

OVERVIEW

Along with Edinburgh and St. Andrews, we form the Politics and International Relations pathway of the Economic and Social Research Council-funded Scottish Doctoral Training Centre (S-DTC).

We have an active and engaged international community of doctoral students. We work to foster this community through an annual retreat, our research seminars and regular staff-student social events.

TOPICS FOR SUPERVISION

We offer supervision across a wide range of subjects, reflecting our strength in depth in Comparative Politics, International Relations and Political Theory.

Comparative Politics

• political parties, institutions and change
• elections and voting
• comparative constitutionalism; gender
• lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) politics
• human rights
• political communication
• political economy
• political psychology
• politics and popular culture
• environmental policy
• welfare policy
• expertise in the politics of China; Europe, including Scotland, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Greece, the European Union; Russia
• Latin America.

International Relations

• international cooperation and international organisations
• international political economy
• international development
• international security
• human rights
• gender and development
• foreign aid
• foreign policy analysis (particularly of the European Union, Russia and China)
• humanitarianism
• just war tradition
• war: causes and origins
• war: strategic studies
• post-war conflict and violence
• legitimacy and communicative ethics
• English School
• transnational politics (non-state actors).

Political Theory

• contemporary Anglo-American political philosophy
• contemporary social theory
• German political thought
• the history of political thought
• human nature and politics; jurisprudence
• liberalism and philosophical anthropology
• freedom of speech/expression
• ethics and international law
• cosmopolitanism
• moral epistemology
• distributive justice
• feminist theory.