We have been thrilled by the number of requests from our applicants asking for texts and resources to get a jump start on their studies in September.
In response we asked a number of our colleagues within the school to provide some interesting resources for you to engage with over the summer.
Please note that we don’t expect you to purchase any of the texts below! You will be given a list of recommended textbooks when you begin your studies and you will be given access to a wide range of academic journals and texts when you enrol!
You can also hear more from our colleagues and their research interests via our ‘Political Bites’ podcast.
Dr Gareth Mott: module convener for PO334 ‘Global Politics in Question’
Web resources:
- Freedom House: https://freedomhouse.org/,annual reports produced on the state of freedom internationally.
- Reports from UN bodies and specialised agencies: https://research.un.org/en/docs/reports excellent information on historical and contemporary international trends including diplomacy, development, security, crime and the environment.
- Foreign Policy Magazine: https://foreignpolicy.com/ – USA-based publication focusing on diplomacy and international affairs. Worth subscribing to its newsletter.
- Chatham House: https://www.chathamhouse.org/– UK-based think tank focusing on diplomacy and international affairs.
- CIA World Factbook: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/ – ‘world atlas’, detailing key information about the nation-states of the world.
Textbooks: Textbooks: Baylis et al (eds).) (2019) The Globalization of World Politics: An Introduction to International Relations (8th edition) (OUP, Oxford) Heywood, A. (2014) Global Politics (2nd edition) (Macmillan International Higher Education / Red Globe Press, London) Frieden, Lake, Schutz (2018) World Politics (4th edition) (W.W.Norton & Co, New York City) Edkins
Dr Raluca Popp: module convenor for PO335 ‘Making Sense of Politics’
- Washington Post’s “The Monkey Cage”: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/ this is a column which aims to further political conversation, it has political scientists draw on their expertise and research to provide in-depth analysis of current events.
- Pew Research Center: https://www.pewresearch.org it’s a non-partisan fact tank that conducts a wide range of data-driven social science research, from opinion polling to content analysis to inform the public about trends shaping the world today.
- The LSE blog https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/ is a platform for academics, students, researchers that promotes knowledge exchange. It has contributions from politicians, think tank researchers and third-sector experts from across the world.
- The Tiger That Isn’t, Seeing Through a World of Numbers by Andrew Dilnot, Michael Blastland https://profilebooks.com/the-tiger-that-isn-039-t.html. This book shows how we need numbers to navigate politics. It presents a few really simple principles that politicians, journalists and everyone in power use when trying to deceive the public with numbers. The math in it is really, really simple.
Dr Ben Turner: Module convener for PO314 ‘Introduction to Political Thought’…
- Miller, David. Political Theory: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: OUP, 2003).
- Talking Politics Intellectual History Podcast: https://www.talkingpoliticspodcast.com/history-of-ideas
- Ryan, Alan. On Politics (London: Penguin, 2013) – this one is quite a chunky tome, but presents a range of chapters on thinkers that students could dip into on the basis of the first two suggestions, rather than reading the whole thing.
…and PO331 ‘Modes of Reasoning’(Liberal Arts)
A range of materials that represent themes in the module:
- Epistemology: Analyzing Knowledge #1 (The Gettier Problem) (youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lB-XJjmvoE)
- In Our Time Podcast, Episode on Karl Popper https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00773y4
- Bruno Latour, the Post-Truth Philosopher, Mounts a Defense of Science, The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/magazine/bruno-latour-post-truth-philosopher-science.html