This course asks students a basic question: how do you know what you know?  Contemporary Political Analysis is a third-year course that is the final course of the Politics major.  It will draw together all the knowledge of politcs and political analysis gained thus far in the major and propel students beyond what they know to an understanding of how they know it.  To do this it is divided into two sections: Theory and Methods.  The Theory section will pull together conceptual tools that students may have already encountered in the Politics major, but analyse and critique them as means of understanding the political world.  The Methods section will make explicit the methodologies underpinning the political analyses presented to students in earlier courses.  With these conceptual and methodological tools at their disposal, students will design their own research project will will test and analyse issues in contemporary politics.

On completeing this course students will be able to:

1. Explain the complexity in issues of contemporary politics;
2. Apply a range of methodological approaches by which to analyse such issues;
3. Design a research project based on one particular methodological approach and apply this to a specific issue in contemporary politics;
4. Apply the conceptual and analytical tools with which to approach political issues at higer levels of study or in the work place.

Research Essay of 2500 words allowing for an in-depth knowledge of one particular methodological approach applied to a specific issue in contemporary politics (60%); (LO 3 and 4)

Summative assessment in the form of an essay or an exam of 2000 words applied to a wider range of methodological approaches than in the Research Essay by which students can analyse and critique complex issues in contemporary politics and produce potential solutions(40%). (LO 1,2,3 and 4)

The course will run over 13 weeks.

Each week will consist of approximately nine hours per week consisting of:

2 hours of lectures;

1 hour of tutorials;

6 hours of independent tutorial preparation, research and writing.

POLS1002.

A broad understanding of contemporary politics is required for this course.

Marsh, David and Stoker, Gerry. 2010. Theory and Methods in Political Science. Basingstoke: Palgrave.