LPINT5240 Political Ideologies Course Descriptor

Course Overview

This course is a rich and diverse study of the key ideologies that exist in contemporary politics and society. The course invites students to explore scholarly debates in the field of ideology studies through an active understanding of the arguments that shape historical development and contemporary manifestations of political ideologies. Students on the course will learn to familiarise themselves with key texts in the historical emergence of different ideological traditions and the methodologies used to analyse them, along with other relevant primary sources, and to evaluate them in their social context. The course covers a wide range of theories of the concept and study of ideology and of the main ideological families, including both traditional and older perspectives and more recent formations that pluralise and challenge the linearity of the political spectrum, such as ideologies of identity and green ideologies. The course will invite students to appreciate the historical and contemporary richness of discourses in ideology with a particular view for their relevance for other programme courses. Students will also be required to show awareness of how ideologies have affected societies in practice, including how they have shaped historical and contemporary political institutions and public policies in relation to topical political and social problems, locally and globally.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

Knowledge and Understanding

Subject Specific Skills

Transferable and Employability Skills

Teaching and Learning

This course has a dedicated Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) page with a syllabus and range of additional resources (e.g. readings, question prompts, tasks, assignment briefs, discussion boards) to orientate and engage students in their studies.

The scheduled teaching and learning activities for this course are:

Lectures and seminars

40 scheduled hours – typically including induction, consolidation or revision, and assessment activity hours.

• Version 1:all sessions in the same sized group

OR

• Version 2: most of the sessions in larger groups; some of the sessions in smaller groups

Faculty hold regular ‘office hours’, which are opportunities for students to drop in or sign up to explore ideas, raise questions, or seek targeted guidance or feedback, individually or in small groups. 

Students are to attend and participate in all the scheduled teaching and learning activities for this course and to manage their directed learning and independent study. Indicative total learning hours for this course: 150 hours

Assessment

Both formative and summative assessments  are used as part of this course, with purely formative opportunities typically embedded within interactive teaching sessions, office hours, and/or the VLE.

Summative Assessments

The assessment will require students to critically contrast the historical development of different ideological traditions, the relation and influences among them, and their application in understanding key contemporary policy and societal debates and institutional arrangements:

Further information about the assessments can be found in the Course Syllabus.

Feedback

Students will receive formative and summative feedback in a variety of ways, written (e.g. marked up on assignments, through email or the VLE) or oral (e.g. as part of interactive teaching sessions or in office hours).

Indicative Reading

Note: Comprehensive and current reading lists are produced annually in the Course Syllabus or other documentation provided to students; the indicative reading list provided below is for a general guide and part of the approval/modification process only.

• Barrett, M. (1992), The Politics of Truth: From Marx to Foucault, Cambridge: Polity Press.
• Bellamy, R. (1992), Liberalism and Modern Society, Pennsylvania: Penn State University Press.
• Berman, S. (2006), The Primacy of Politics: Social Democracy and the Making of Europe’s Twentieth Century, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Indicative Topics

Note: Comprehensive and current topics for courses are produced annually in the Course Syllabus or other documentation provided to students; the indicative topics provided below are used as a general guide and part of the approval/modification process only.

• The concept and study of ideology
• Methods of ideology studies
• Liberalism, conservatism, socialism
• Ideologies of identity