Program Overview

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BASS Philosophy and Politics

A flexible degree which examines the relationship between ethics and politics.

Overview

Course overview

• Research answers to the fundamental questions in life, developing strong independent thinking and analysis skills.
• Debate difficult and delicate issues, ethics and morals, and discuss engaging, real-world research.
• Study at a UK Top 10 university for Politics and International Studies (including Development Studies), and History, Philosophy and Theology (Times Higher Education World University Rankings by Subject 2025).
• Enjoy studying abroad or a professional placement on a four-year optional course.

A study experience that makes a difference

We place social responsibility at the heart of your learning which means you can take advantage of unique ways to make a difference while studying with us, through your course or through extra-curricular activities.

• Complete our Ethical Grand Challenges to learn how you can create a better world and become more socially responsible.
• Work with an external organisation to tackle real-world sustainability problems through our University Living Lab.
• Discover subjects that broaden your horizon with our interdisciplinary learning opportunities.

Entry requirements

A-level

• ABB, including at least one of the following A-Level subjects (preference will be given to applicants studying two of these subjects):
  • Accounting; Economics; Finance; Business Studies; Development Studies; Government and Politics; Economic and Social History; Mathematics; Anthropology; Sociology; Philosophy; Religious Studies; English Language; English Literature; Geography; Psychology; Classical Civilisation; History; Archaeology; Communication Studies; Environmental Studies; World Development; Biology; Chemistry; Physics; Modern Languages.
• We accept native language A Levels providing they are taken in the same sitting as your other subjects. We will not accept the combination of Mathematics, Further Mathematics and a native language.
• Practical skills are a crucial part of science education and therefore will be a requirement to pass the practical element of any science A Level taken.

A-level contextual offer

• BBC, including at least one of the following A-Level subjects (preference will be given to applicants studying two of these subjects):
  • Accounting; Economics; Finance; Business Studies; Development Studies; Government and Politics; Economic and Social History; Mathematics; Anthropology; Sociology; Philosophy; Religious Studies; English Language; English Literature; Geography; Psychology; Classical Civilisation; History; Archaeology; Communication Studies; Environmental Studies; World Development; Biology; Chemistry; Physics; Modern Languages.
• We accept native language A Levels providing they are taken in the same sitting as your other subjects. We will not accept the combination of Mathematics, Further Mathematics and a native language.
• Practical skills are a crucial part of science education and therefore will be a requirement to pass the practical element of any science A Level taken.

UK refugee/care-experienced offer

• BBC, including at least one of the following A-Level subjects (preference will be given to applicants studying two of these subjects):
  • Accounting; Economics; Finance; Business Studies; Development Studies; Government and Politics; Economic and Social History; Mathematics; Anthropology; Sociology; Philosophy; Religious Studies; English Language; English Literature; Geography; Psychology; Classical Civilisation; History; Archaeology; Communication Studies; Environmental Studies; World Development; Biology; Chemistry; Physics; Modern Languages.
• We accept native language A Levels providing they are taken in the same sitting as your other subjects. We will not accept the combination of Mathematics, Further Mathematics and a native language.
• Practical skills are a crucial part of science education and therefore will be a requirement to pass the practical element of any science A Level taken.

International Baccalaureate

• 34 points overall. 6,5,5 in Higher Level subjects.

GCSE/IGCSE

• Applicants must demonstrate a broad general education including acceptable levels of Literacy and Numeracy, equivalent to at least Grade C or 4 in GCSE/iGCSE English Language and Mathematics. GCSE/iGCSE English Literature will not be accepted in lieu of GCSE/iGCSE English Language.

Other entry requirements

• Other entry requirements exist for this course. You may view these by selecting from the list below.
• Scottish requirements
• Welsh Baccalaureate
• Foundation year
• Pearson BTEC qualifications
• OCR Cambridge Technical qualifications
• Access to HE Diploma
• T Level
• Extended Project Qualification (EPQ)

Fees and funding

Fees

• Fees for entry in 2026 have not yet been set. For entry in 2025 the tuition fees were £9,535 per annum for home students, and are expected to increase slightly for 2026 entry.

Policy on additional costs

• All students should normally be able to complete their programme of study without incurring additional study costs over and above the tuition fee for that programme. Any unavoidable additional compulsory costs totalling more than 1% of the annual home undergraduate fee per annum, regardless of whether the programme in question is undergraduate or postgraduate taught, will be made clear to you at the point of application.

Scholarships/sponsorships

• Scholarships and bursaries, including the Manchester Bursary, are available to eligible home/EU students.

Application and selection

How to apply

• Apply through UCAS.

Advice to applicants

• Applicants submitting mitigating circumstances: If you are submitting information about mitigating circumstances that have affected, or are likely to affect, your academic performance, you should include this in the referee's report.
• Home-schooled applicants: If you are a student who has followed a non-standard educational route, e.g. you have been educated at home; your application will be considered against the standard entry criteria of the course for which you are applying.
• Non-standard educational routes: Mature students are some of our most well-equipped learners, bringing skills and attributes gained from work, family and other life experiences.

Course details

Course description

• Our BA in Philosophy and Politics course is one of the pathways within the BA Social Sciences degree.
• It is ideal if you want to keep your options open or study specific topics, such as race, class, crime or religion, from a variety of different perspectives.
• This flexible degree lets you study at least three subjects in the first year, and in the second and third year deepen your understanding of the subjects you feel passionate about.

Special features

• Professional Experience Year: You apply in Year 1 to boost your employability through a paid Professional Experience Year.
• Paid placement opportunity: You can apply for a paid Q-Step internship between Years 2 and 3.
• Study abroad: If you would like to broaden your horizons and your degree, you can apply to study overseas for a year at one of our partner universities.

Teaching and learning

• Course units feature formal lectures supported by smaller tutorials or seminars, where you explore the contents of lectures and recommended reading in greater depth.
• Tutorials and seminars are key in improving your written and oral communication skills through group discussions, essay-writing, and presentations.

Coursework and assessment

• The way that you study and are assessed will depend on which course units you choose. Our methods are designed to promote in-depth learning and understanding, including:
  • essays, coursework, and other mid-term evaluations;
  • dissertations;
  • presentations;
  • group projects;
  • exams.

Course content for year 1

• Year 1 provides you with a grounding in philosophical traditions, themes and problems.
• Course units for year 1:
  • Critical Thinking
  • Engaging With Social Research
  • Crime and Society
  • Criminological Research Methods
  • Foundations of Criminal Justice
  • Psychology, Crime and Criminal Justice
  • Making Sense of Criminological Data
  • An Introduction to Development Studies
  • Microeconomics 1
  • Macroeconomics 1
  • Criminal Law (Humanities)
  • Introduction to Ethics
  • Studying Philosophy
  • History of Philosophy
  • Introduction to Metaphysics and Epistemology
  • Introduction to Philosophy of Mind
  • Introduction to Comparative Politics
  • Making Sense of Politics
  • British Politics: Power and the State
  • Politics of the Global Economy
  • Introduction to International Politics
  • Introduction to Political Theory
  • Power and Culture: Inequality in Everyday Life
  • Cultural Diversity in Global Perspective
  • Key Ideas in Social Anthropology
  • Intro to Ethnographic Reading
  • Regional Studies of Culture: 1
  • Regional Studies of Culture: 2
  • Introduction to Business Anthropology: Consumers, Companies and Culture
  • Digital Sociology
  • Environment and Society
  • Inequalities in Contemporary British Society
  • Contested Foundations of Social Thought
  • Contemporary Social Thought
  • Global Social Challenges
  • Getting Personal: Intimacy and Connectedness in Everyday Life
  • Work, Organisations and Society
  • Understanding Social Media
  • Measuring Inequalities (Unequal Societies)
  • Applied Statistics for Social Scientists

Course content for year 2

• In Year 2 you begin to specialise.
• If you specialise in one subject, you take 60 to 80 credits in it.
• If you specialise in two subjects you take 40 credits in each.
• Course units for year 2:
  • Policing and the Police
  • Explaining Crime and Deviance
  • Making Sense of Criminological Data
  • Modelling Criminological Data
  • Understanding Punishment
  • Criminology and Criminal Justice in Action
  • Qualitative Approaches to Data Collection and Analysis in Criminology
  • Philosophy of Religion
  • Applied Philosophy
  • Philosophy of Race
  • Formal Logic
  • British Empiricism
  • Ethics
  • 20th Century Analytical Philosophy
  • Philosophy of Science
  • Existentialism
  • Hegel and Marx
  • Politics by Numbers
  • Security Studies
  • Questions About International Politics
  • Politics & Society in Britain Since 1940: From Blitz to Brexit
  • Arguing About Politics: Political Theory in the World
  • The Politics of Globalisation
  • The Politics of Development
  • Gender and Politics in Comparative Perspective
  • The Politics of Policy Making
  • Ideals of Social Justice
  • How to Conduct Politics Research
  • Injustice and Resistance
  • Environmental Politics
  • Comparative West European Politics
  • Asia-Pacific Security
  • Anthropology of Kinship, Gender and Sex
  • Anthropology of Religion
  • Political and Economic Anthropology
  • The Ethnographer's Craft
  • Materiality and Representation
  • The Human and the Digital
  • Understanding Violence and Social Disorder
  • Current Issues of Violence and Social Disorder
  • Capitalism and Work
  • Social Network Analysis
  • Qualitative Research Design & Methods
  • Sustainability, Consumption & Global Responsibilities
  • Global Migration
  • Social Change in China
  • Social Class and Inequality in Britain
  • Families, Relationships and Everyday Life
  • Gender, Sexuality and Culture
  • Racism and Resistance in Education
  • Material Culture: The Social Life of Things
  • A Sense of Inequality
  • Connections matter: Sociological Applications of Social Networks
  • Power and Protest
  • Social Thought from the Global South
  • Art and Society
  • Theory & Method in Demography
  • Network Analysis
  • Answering Social Research Questions with Statistical Models
  • Data Science Modelling
  • Quantitative Text Analysis in the Social Sciences
  • Causal Inference for Policies, Interventions and Experiments

Course content for year 3

• In Year 3 you pick your final areas of specialisation.
• If you specialise in one subject, you take 60 to 80 credits in it.
• If you specialise in two subjects you take 40 credits in each.
• Course units for year 3:
  • Drugs and Society
  • Comparative Criminology
  • Journeys out of Offending
  • Victims, Crime and Justice
  • Understanding and Responding to Organised Crime
  • Criminology and Mass Violence
  • Youth, Crime and Justice
  • White-Collar and Corporate Crime
  • Crime Mapping: an introduction to GIS and spatial analysis
  • The Criminal Psychopath
  • Dissertation Semester 1
  • Dissertation Semester 2
  • Dissertation (40 credit)
  • Philosophy of Language
  • Metaphysics
  • Special Author:Wittgenstein
  • Environmental Philosophy
  • Philosophy of Action
  • Phenomenology
  • Advanced Topics in Aesthetics
  • Language & Oppression
  • The Politics of the European Union
  • The Politics and Philosophy of Nationalism
  • Gender, Sex and Politics
  • Elections and Voters in Britain
  • Dimensions of Peace and Conflict: Disciplinary and Regional Approaches
  • Political Morality and Dirty Hands
  • Chinese Politics
  • Public Policy Problems
  • Dissertation A
  • Dissertation B
  • Revolutions in Global Politics
  • Introduction to International Political Economy
  • Gender, War & Militarism
  • Africa & Global Politics
  • Children, Family and Social Justice
  • American Politics: Why Do They Do That?
  • Global Capitalism, Crisis and Revolt
  • Contemporary Parliamentary Studies and the British Political Tradition
  • Postcolonial Politics
  • Between War and Peace
  • The International Political Economy of Trade
  • United States Foreign Policy: Dominance and Decline in a Complex World
  • Race, Ethnicity, Migration
  • Ukraine Rises: Democracy, Protest, Identity and War in Comparative Perspective
  • Capitalism and Sexuality
  • Indian Politics in Comparative Perspective
  • Decolonising Human Rights
  • Feminist Policymaking in Global Politics
  • Global Politics of LGBTQ+ Rights
  • Development, Conflict, and Democracy in Latin America
  • Anthropology of Development and Humanitarianism
  • The Anthropology of Health and Wellbeing
  • Urban Anthropology in Britain
  • Migrants, Borders and Im/mobilities
  • Screening Culture
  • Anthropology of Vision, Senses and Memory
  • Food and Eating: The Cultural Body
  • Extra-Terrestrial Anthropology
  • Sociology of Life and Death
  • Sociology of Human Animal Relations
  • Forced Migration
  • Racism and Resistance in Education
  • Material Culture: The Social Life of Things
  • A Sense of Inequality
  • Connections matter: Sociological Applications of Social Networks
  • Power and Protest
  • Social Thought from the Global South
  • Art and Society
  • Theory & Method in Demography
  • Network Analysis
  • Answering Social Research Questions with Statistical Models
  • Data Science Modelling
  • Quantitative Text Analysis in the Social Sciences
  • Causal Inference for Policies, Interventions and Experiments

Careers

Career opportunities

• The University of Manchester has an excellent reputation for employability.
• For the past 5 years, we have been in the UK's Top Two most targeted universities by the UK's top 100 employers (High Fliers Graduate Market Report, ).
• Our graduates pursue a variety of careers including journalism and the media, charities, consultancy, civil service, finance, marketing and PR, social work, teaching, the law and postgraduate study.
• Recent graduates have gone on to work at:
  • Foreign and Commonwealth Office;
  • Royal Bank of Scotland;
  • the Houses of Parliament and the Ministry of Justice;
  • Palgrave MacMillan;
  • Google;
  • Lloyds TSB;
  • Siemens;
  • Manchester City Council;
  • the United Nations;
  • TeachFirst.