The Politics of Population Change I: Youth, Ageing and Conflict

This module will develop your understanding of political demography, or the ways in which population change affects politics and how political actors attempt to control populations. You will consider the core aspects of demography - age structure, migration, fertility and mortality - and how they affect identity and politics, and compare demography's first and second-order, direct and interactive, effects on politics. You will become familiar with debates around population ageing, youth bulges, over-population, urbanisation and the population-environment-conflict nexus.

Indicative module syllabus

• Demography, Migration and Power: Concepts and Trends
• Population Pressure, Climate Change and Resource Conflicts in the Developing World
• The 'Youth Bulge', Urbanisation and Violent Conflict in the Developing World
• Population Ageing, World Population Shifts and the Global Balance of Power
• Demographic and Democratic Transitions
• Nationalism and Demographic Engineering
• Ethnic Shifts and Conflict
• The Piketty Thesis: Population
• Stagnation and the Politics of Inequality

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

• understand and critically evaluate the key elements of demography and their interrelationships
• demonstrate detailed substantive knowledge of the different forms of political demography
• critically apply these theories to questions of demographic change, political conflict and international relations
• demonstrate cognitive skills, including critical evaluation and analytical investigation
• demonstrate skills of critical thinking, enquiry, synthesis, analysis and evaluation that can be employed on other modules studied at this level.