Politics (PhD / MPhil) - 2013/2014 entry

The PhD/MPhil programme is an opportunity to undertake a major piece of research under the supervision of someone with academic expertise in your field. The department offers supervision for a wide range of research projects, from the study of public policy to social and political theory. Students completing a PhD/MPhil will have developed advanced skills in research and scholarly writing, and will be able to use these to embark on, or further, a career in research. As many of our students study part-time, you have the opportunity to apply your developing research skills in your current career.

Current research spans the broad areas of: social and political theory; modern British politics and society; comparative public policy; civil society and the state; gender; public policy; nationalism and ethnicity; religion and politics; international relations, international security and terrorism; European politics; politics of development; theoretical approaches to armed conflict and international politics; and politics and society in Russia, North America and the Middle East.

Find out more about studying for your PhD/MPhil in the Department of Politics.

Study resources include regular graduate research seminars, courses on research methodology and the opportunity to attend a wide variety of taught MSc classes, both within Department of Politics and in other departments of Birkbeck and the University of London, and to participate in national and international research conferences and seminars. Additionally, we organise regular seminars and conferences and act as a centre for the discussion of public policy and research in this field.

Birkbeck Library has an extensive teaching collection of books and journals in politics and sociology. It also has an impressive range of electronic resources, including bibliographic databases and over 17,000 electronic journals. Most of these resources can be accessed online 24-hours a day. It is worth spending some time on the library website to familiarise yourself with its collections and services.  

Students can also take advantage of the rich research collections nearby, including those of the Senate House Library, the British Library of Political and Economic Science (LSE Library) and the British Library.

From the application form and interview we ascertain the level of training you have already received and indicate if the school requires further training to occur. A range of skills training is provided by the department and the College, and you will be directed to appropriate advanced training outside the College.

The department encourages students to attend lecturer-training courses provided through the College.

We provide a supportive and stimulating environment for full and part-time research students. At any one time, between 25 and 30 research students are registered in the various subfields of politics, political science, political and social theory and international relations.

Studying for a doctorate

A doctorate is more than a document; it is also an indication of mastery of the subject about which it is written. In this sense, study for a research degree is not only about the production of a piece of scholarly research, it is also a form of scholarly training. You will be expected to read widely in your subject area or areas, to be proficient in its methods and approaches, to be aware of developments in your discipline(s) and to be able to engage in argument and debate about your subject.

Please ensure that you follow the Department of Politics informal pre-application process before you submit an online application.

• Samantha Ashenden, BA, MPhil, PhD: Contemporary social and political theory; feminist theory; governance and theories of the state; legal theory and the sociology of law.
• Edwin Bacon, BA, MSocSc, PhD: Russian politics and the politics of a number of other post-Communist states. His own work has focused on issues including democratisation, party-building and domestic security; he has also written widely on the relationship between religion and politics.
• Antoine Bousquet, BSc, MSc, PhD: War and society; political violence; international political and social theory; history and philosophy of science and technology, with a particular interest in complexity science.
• Rosie Campbell, BA, MSc, PhD: Able to supervise research students who are undertaking quantitative or qualitative research projects concerned with either gender difference or equality, voting behaviour or political participation.
• Alejandro Colás, BSc, MSc, PhD: International relations theory; the international politics of the Maghreb; the historical sociology of the international system, with special attention to the history of empires.
• Professor Diana Coole, BA, MSc, PhD: Contemporary political/social theory; critical application of theory to current political or policy issues; critical theory; existentialism and phenomenology; Foucault; theories of agency and embodiment; new social movements; green politics and political demography; theories of democracy and democratisation.
• Dionyssis G Dimitrakopoulos, Ptychio, LicSpec, PhD: Politics of European integration (especially, theories of integration; the EU policy process; executive politics in the EU; the state and the EU); social democracy; the role of ideas in the policy process; policy change; institutional change.
• Jason Edwards, BA, MSc, PhD: Contemporary social and political theory; the history of political thought from the sixteenth century onwards; Marxism; the philosophy of the social sciences.
• Dermot Hodson, BA, MA, PhD: The political economy of European integration; Economic and Monetary Union; the Stability and Growth Pact; the Lisbon Strategy; new modes of EU governance; the interaction between certain EU and national public policies.
• Eric Kaufmann, BA, MSc, PhD: National identity and ethnic/religious conflict; secularisation and religion; political demography; cosmopolitanism; politics and society in Northern Ireland; North American politics.
• Professor Joni Lovenduski, BSc, MA, PhD: Gender and politics in Britain and Europe; British politics; sex equality politics in Britain, Europe and the EU.
• Deborah Mabbett, BCA, DPhil: The politics of reforming public and social policy; the effect on national welfare states of EU and WTO policies; and other aspects of the governance of public policy, including the role of the courts, central–local relationships and transnational policy-making.
• Professor Robert Singh, BA, DPhil: The politics of US foreign policy
• David Styan, BA, DEA, PhD: International political economy; foreign policy analysis and development issues; French and British foreign policy, particularly towards Africa, the Middle East and development policy.
• Matthijs van den Bos, MA, MA, PhD: Post-migrancy and transnational networks; political anthropology/sociology of Iran and its diasporas; Tajikistan; (Twelver) Shiism and its global renaissance; modern Sufism, East and West; European Islam; democratisation in the Middle East; classification theory; new media.
• Barbara Zollner, MA, MPhil, PhD: Political Islam; Islamist movements; Muslim Brotherhood; democratisation and conflict in states of the Near and Middle East; legal discourses on Islam and human rights.

• Kurdish politics in Syria
• Westminster guarded: party nomination processes and women candidates in Canada and Britain
• Impact of user involvement on NHS governance
• Evaluating the impact of interorganisational networks in urban regeneration on unemployment policy outcomes
• The relevance of cosmopolitan democracy as a possible framework for understanding political transformations in East Africa
• Discipline and process: new phases in the rational modernisation of political organisation
• Living with ADHD diagnosis: a disordering of family life
• Revolution, myth and the origins of Fascism.

• You can apply at any time, but can start studying in January, April or October.