Program Overview

The rise of China as a superpower, the storming of the US Capitol, the international responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, COP26 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. What ties all these events together? Our BA Global Politics and International Relations provides you with the knowledge and skills you need to give an answer to this and many more questions that are at the heart of concerns about international politics today.

The course focuses on political changes that are sweeping the globe, transforming politics across countries and regions, as well as relations between states in the international system. Yet today is not the first time in human history that global political relations have undergone such extensive change, and an important aspect of the degree is the goal of understanding this history, and particularly the history of the modern world. Without this political-historical understanding, we cannot make sense of the momentous developments we see around us.

On this course you will receive a grounding in the key concepts and theories that inform the study of global politics and international relations. You will study the core institutions and process of the international political and economic system, as well as the challenges that are posed by the central political problems of the present, including climate change, transformations in the nature of warfare, as well as social conflicts and exclusions centred around class, gender and race.  

Our academics are outstanding researchers in the fields of international relations, international political economy, political and historical sociology, political theory, public policy, and the study of countries and regions such as Britain, China, the USA, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and East Asia. They publish their research in major academic journals and widely read books. In other words, in Birkbeck’s Department of Politics you are taught on the basis of new knowledge generated by those who teach you. These academics engage not only with the wider public by publishing articles in newspapers, contributing to TV and radio programmes, and writing blogs on political analysis websites, but also engage with politicians and others who play a key role in today’s political landscape.