king's college london phd politics

The Faculty

The Centre for the Study of Governance and Society brings together faculty from within the Department of Political Economy at King’s College London and leading universities around the world to advance crucial debates on governance.

Mark Pennington

Mark Pennington is Professor of Political Economy and Public Policy in the Department of Political Economy, Head of the Department …

Mark Pennington is Professor of Political Economy and Public Policy in the Department of Political Economy, Head of the Department and Director of the Centre for the Study of Governance and Society.

Mark works at the intersection of philosophy, politics and economics and is particularly interested in the application of non-ideal theorising in both political and economic theory, as exemplified in his development of the ‘robust political economy’ paradigm.

Mark is currently working on major research project ‘The Ideal of Self Governance’, funded by the John Templeton Foundation. Inspired by the research agenda of Vincent and Elinor Ostrom, this project applies the robust political economy perspective to examine both the positive and normative case for governance arrangements that lie ‘beyond markets and states’.

Samuel DeCanio

Dr. Samuel DeCanio FRGS is a senior lecturer in the Department of Political Economy. His research examines general theoretical questions …

Dr. Samuel DeCanio FRGS is a senior lecturer in the Department of Political Economy. His research examines general theoretical questions about how knowledge interacts with social, economic, and political institutions, and specific historical questions about the creation of modern bureaucratic states.  He has published articles in the  American Journal of Political Science ,  Critical Review, Journal of Politics ,  Party Politics, Social Philosophy and Policy,  and  Studies in American Political Development .  His first book,  Democracy and the Origins of the American Regulatory State  (Yale University Press, 2015), examines democratic control over the creation of the American regulatory state in the late 19 th  century.  His current book manuscript,  Politics, Markets, and War: How Conflict and Ignorance Shape the Modern World  (advanced contract with Yale University Press), examines how knowledge and ignorance influence economic markets, democratic politics, and the causes of war among states.

He has received grants from the British Academy, the Hill Foundation, the John Templeton Foundation, the Raheem Sterling Foundation, the Royal Geographical Society, and the Oxford Russia Fund.  In 2023 Dr. DeCanio was awarded the Thesiger-Oman International Fellowship from the Royal Geographical Society for his research into British travel writers and the Bedouin of the Middle East.  Dr. DeCanio is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, he co-directs (with Dr. Michael Bankole) the Raheem Sterling Scholarship Program at King’s College London, and is the Associate Director of the Centre for the Study of Governance and Society.  Prior to arriving at King’s he was an Assistant Professor in the Political Science Department at Yale University where he was also a resident fellow of the Institution for Social and Policy Studies.

Bryan Cheang

Bryan Cheang is the Assistant Director of the Centre for the Study of Governance & Society. He received his PhD …

Bryan Cheang is the Assistant Director of the Centre for the Study of Governance & Society. He received his PhD and MA in Political Economy from King’s College London and is a graduate of the National University of Singapore. His research interests are in the political economy of development and applied economic policy, and his dissertation re-evaluated the nature and merits of the East Asian developmental state tradition.

He is broadly interested in questions surrounding state-market relations, comparative political economy and particularly, the challenges of successful industrial policy interventions. Bryan also brings with him his policy experience from the Singapore civil service.

Research Fellows

Kaveh pourvand.

Kaveh is a political theorist. His research covers contemporary liberal thought, collective political agency, the ideal/non-ideal theory distinction within political philosophy, …

Kaveh is a political theorist. His research covers contemporary liberal thought, collective political agency, the ideal/non-ideal theory distinction within political philosophy, and distributive justice. He is also a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Center for the Philosophy of Freedom, University of Arizona. He has previously taught at King’s College London and gained his PhD from the London School of Economics. His work is forthcoming or has been published in the Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy , The Journal of Social Philosophy , and Social Philosophy and Policy .

Pablo Paniagua

Dr. Pablo Paniagua is an economist and a Research Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Governance and Society. …

Dr. Pablo Paniagua is an economist and a Research Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Governance and Society. He is also a Senior Researcher at Fundación Para el Progreso and an Affiliated Scholar at the Ostrom Workshop at Indiana University Bloomington. He received his M.Sc. in Economics and Finance from Milan Polytechnic and his Ph.D. in Political Economy from the University of London.

His research focuses on governance and institutional analysis. He has authored over 20 articles, essays, and books dealing with various aspects of the political economy of money and banking and the governance of social dilemmas. His work has appeared in peer-reviewed journals including Journal of Institutional Economics , Journal of Evolutionary Economics , and Economy and Society , among several others.

Shelby Grossman

Shelby Grossman is a research scholar at the Stanford Internet Observatory. She was previously an Assistant Professor of Political Science …

Shelby Grossman is a research scholar at the Stanford Internet Observatory. She was previously an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Memphis. Her primary research interests are in online disinformation, political economy of development, and sub-Saharan Africa.

Her research has been published or is forthcoming in Comparative Political Studies, PS: Political Science and Politics, Studies in Comparative and International Development, World Development, and World Politics. Her book, “The Politics of Order in Informal Markets: How the State Shapes Private Governance” was published by the Economics, Choice, and Society Series with Cambridge University Press. Shelby earned her PhD in Government from Harvard University in 2016.

Kaetana Numa

Kaetana Numa completed her PhD in Political Economy at King’s College London in spring 2021. Her PhD research focused on …

Kaetana Numa completed her PhD in Political Economy at King’s College London in spring 2021. Her PhD research focused on the theory of fiscal illusion, as she undertook a large-scale randomised survey experiment to investigate how the provision of personalised fiscal information affects fiscal preferences in the UK.

She is currently working on publishing her findings regarding the extent of fiscal illusion, as well as the wider implications of fiscal misperception on the democratic development and fiscal governance. She is also interested in the economic and political development of communist and transition countries.

Prior to her PhD research, Kaetana worked at a Lithuanian think tank for almost a decade where she headed a fiscal policy unit and maintained an active presence both in the political arena and the media.

Kaetana graduated with a BA in Economics and International Relations (Cum Laude) from Tufts University, and also holds an MA in Religious Studies from Vilnius University.

Mark Bevir is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for British Studies at UC Berkeley. He is …

Mark Bevir is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for British Studies at UC Berkeley. He is also a Professor in Political Economy at King’s College, London, and Professor of Governance at United Nations University (MERIT).

Mark is a theorist in the social and policy sciences and generally works in the area of the philosophy of social science and intellectual history to develop and critique theories and policies.

He also collaborates with empirical researchers, using interpretive and critical theories to study Britain in a global context. He has also recently focused on governance and governmentality after neoliberalism and is currently exploring democratic innovation, social inclusion, and multiculturalism.

Vera Kichanova

Vera Kichanova is an urban economist exploring the future of market-based urban development. She completed her PhD dissertation in Political …

Vera Kichanova is an urban economist exploring the future of market-based urban development. She completed her PhD dissertation in Political Economy at King’s College London in 2022. Titled Cities as Firms: The Coasian Case for Private Urban Development , her thesis analyses real-life examples of private cities from Honduras to India, looking for economic and legal conditions that make them possible, desirable, and profitable.

In parallel to her academic research, Vera works at Zaha Hadid Architects and at the Free Cities Foundation. Previously, she worked with Atlas Network (US), the London School of Economics (UK), and a number of Eastern European free-market think tanks. At the age of 20, Vera was elected to the Municipal Council in Moscow as an independent non-partisan candidate. After the Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine, she moved to Kyiv to run an educational media portal covering post-Soviet countries.

Vera’s articles — focused on bridging the gap between urban planning theory and classical liberal thought — were published by The Telegraph , Forbes , The Wall Street Journal , Spiegel , CapX and FEE.org , among others. She is a commentator on land-use policies for the Adam Smith Institute, the 2013 Democracy Award winner , and a Mont Pèlerin Society member. Vera holds a Master of Public Policy degree from the University of Oxford and a BA in Journalism from Moscow State University.

Featured Faculty

Robert reamer.

Robert Reamer is a Lecturer in the Department of Political Economy. He received his PhD from the Department of Political …

Robert Reamer is a Lecturer in the Department of Political Economy. He received his PhD from the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago in 2018.  Before coming to King’s College London, he spent two years as a Social Sciences Teaching Fellow at the University of Chicago and two years as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Politics at Oberlin College.

Poornima Paidipaty

Poornima Paidipaty is a Lecturer in Comparative Political Economy at King’s College London.  Her work explores the changing history of …

Poornima Paidipaty is a Lecturer in Comparative Political Economy at King’s College London.  Her work explores the changing history of social and economic inequality, with a particular focus on South Asia. She is currently undertaking a major new research project examining the role of data in economic governance in postcolonial India.  She was previously an LSE Fellow in Inequalities.

Pavel Kuchar

Pavel Kuchar is a Lecturer at the Department of Political Economy, King’s College London. Prior to joining King’s, he worked …

Pavel Kuchar is a Lecturer at the Department of Political Economy, King’s College London. Prior to joining King’s, he worked at the University of Bristol, the National Autonomous University of Mexico, or the Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (China).

Looking into the role of institutional infrastructures in facilitating the functioning of markets, Pavel’s research has been focused on the political economy of entrepreneurship, economics of institutions, and the history of economics. In 2019, Pavel’s co-authored paper “ Lachmann and Shackle: On the Joint Production of Interpretation Instruments ” won the Warren Samuels Prize for Interdisciplinary Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology. He also co-edited of a volume on  Governing Markets as Knowledge Commons  published by Cambridge University Press (2021).

Pavel is a member of the World Interdisciplinary Network for Institutional Research ( WINIR ), and the History of Economic Thought Society ( THETS ). His writings can be accessed through his  website .

Robin Douglass

Robin Douglass joined the Department of Political Economy in 2012 and he is now Senior Lecturer in Political Theory. He …

Robin Douglass joined the Department of Political Economy in 2012 and he is now Senior Lecturer in Political Theory. He previously studied at the Universities of York and Exeter. His expertise is in the history of modern political thought and he is especially interested in assessing how interpretations of historical thinkers continue to influence and structure debates in contemporary political philosophy. He is the author of Rousseau and Hobbes: Nature, Free Will, and the Passions (Oxford University Press, 2015) and has published widely on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century political thought, as well as co-editing a forthcoming volume on Hobbes on Politics and Religion (Oxford University Press, 2018).

Robin’s most recent work examines Bernard Mandeville’s impact on eighteenth-century debates about sociability and commercial society, while future plans include a monograph on Mandeville’s political philosophy. Robin is a co-founder and current President of the European Hobbes Society , serves on the board of the Rousseau Association , and is co-editor of the European Journal of Political Theory .

Peter John is Professor of Public Policy in the Department of Political Economy at King’s College London. He is known …

Peter John is Professor of Public Policy in the Department of Political Economy at King’s College London. He is known for his work on agenda-setting, local politics, behavioral interventions, and randomized controlled trials.

He is author of Analyzing Public Policy (2012), which reviews the main theories of public policy and the policy process. He is interested in how best to involve citizens in public policy and management, often deploying behavioural interventions. He tests many of these interventions with randomized controlled trials. Some of these trials appeared in Nudge, Nudge, Think, Think: Experimenting with Ways to Change Civic Behaviour (Bloomsbury, 2011). Practical issues with the design of experiments are covered in Field Experiments in Political Science and Public Policy (Routledge, 2017). Experiments are also used to examine the impact of social media and politics in Political Turbulence: How Social Media Shape Collective Action (Princeton University Press, 2015), with Helen Margetts, Scott Hale and Taha Yasseri.

A more general approach to the use of the tools of government to achieve policy change is contained in his Making Policy Work (Routledge, 2011). His most recent book is How Far to Nudge: Assessing Behavioural Public Policy (Edward Elgar).

Paul Lewis is Reader in Economics and Public Policy. He was educated at Peterhouse, Cambridge, and Christ Church, Oxford. Prior …

Paul Lewis is Reader in Economics and Public Policy. He was educated at Peterhouse, Cambridge, and Christ Church, Oxford. Prior to moving to King’s, he was a Newton Trust Lecturer in the Faculty of Economics and Politics, and the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Cambridge University, and a Fellow of Emmanuel and Selwyn Colleges. He is a retained supervisor in economics at Peterhouse, Cambridge, and a member of the Cambridge Social Ontology Group. He was a Visiting Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge, and the Shackle Scholar at St Edmund’s College, Cambridge, in the Easter Term 2013. He won the 2016 Society for the Development of Austrian Economics for the Best Essay in Austrian Economics, for his paper on “The Emergence of ‘Emergence’ in the Work of F.A. Hayek: An Historical Analysis”.

Christel Koop

Dr Christel Koop is Senior Lecturer in Political Economy. Her research interests include delegation theory, arm’s length governance, regulation and …

Dr Christel Koop is Senior Lecturer in Political Economy. Her research interests include delegation theory, arm’s length governance, regulation and regulatory agencies, democratic accountability and legitimacy, and institutional theory.

Christel holds a BA and MPhil degree in political science from Leiden University, the Netherlands, and obtained her PhD degree in political and social sciences from the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. Before joining the department, she was Fellow in Public Policy and Administration at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is also co-organiser of the inter-university London Public Policy Seminars.

Christel’s research addresses questions related to the insulation of policy-making from politics and the electoral process, both at the national and the European level. Her work has focused on the determinants of arm’s length governance as well as on its implications for politics, policy outcomes, and democratic accountability and legitimacy.

Gabriel Leon

Dr Gabriel Leon is a senior lecturer in the Department of Political Economy at King’s College London. His research focuses …

Dr Gabriel Leon is a senior lecturer in the Department of Political Economy at King’s College London. His research focuses on conflict, civil-military relations, institutional development and economic history. Gabriel’s current work examines the causes of riots, how riots spread, and the social and political consequences they have. He also works on gentrification (with a focus on London), the political development of England in the medieval period, and on how the military and popular protest can drive political change.

Before joining King’s, Gabriel was the Bevil Mabey Fellow in Economics at St Catharine’s College, University of Cambridge. He studied applied mathematics at Harvard (BA) and economics at Oxford (DPhil/PhD). Between his degrees, he worked as an associate consultant in the NYC offices of Bain & Company.

Personal website: https://gabrieljleon.wordpress.com/

Anja Shortland

Anja Shortland is a Reader in Political Economy and has worked at the King’s Department of Political Economy since 2013. …

Anja Shortland is a Reader in Political Economy and has worked at the King’s Department of Political Economy since 2013. She studied Engineering at Oxford and has a PhD in International Relations from LSE. Anja works on the economics of crime and violence, usually with an interdisciplinary approach. Anja’s current research examines the governance of criminal markets. She is particularly interested in the governance of tricky and opaque transactions between legal entities and extra-legal groups such as protection contracts, the trade in hostages, maritime piracy, and stolen art. Her work contrasts the highly effective, polycentric governance architecture created by insurers to stabilize and order these markets with problematic government participation in the economic underworld- e.g. the ransoming of hostages from terrorist groups . Anja has consulted widely on Somali piracy , including for the World Bank. She is currently writing a book on Kidnap for Ransom for Oxford University Press (forthcoming 2018).

John Meadowcroft

John Meadowcroft is Senior Lecturer in Public Policy in the Department of Political Economy at King’s College London. His research …

John Meadowcroft is Senior Lecturer in Public Policy in the Department of Political Economy at King’s College London. His research focuses on the threats to free societies – societies in which individual liberty is protected and valued – in the light of the historical evidence that free societies are far less stable than is often assumed. He is presently pursuing this research via ethnographic research into UK far right organisations with his research collaborator Elizabeth Morrow. This involves attending demonstrations held by far right groups around the UK and interviewing participants.

In the past John’s research has focused more on theories of liberty and power, on the ethics and limits of markets, on the generation and destruction of social capital, and on evaluation of economic and political solutions to social problems, notably in healthcare. He is the author of The Ethics of the Market (Palgrave, 2005), co-author with Mark Pennington of Rescuing Social Capital from Social Democracy (Institute of Economic Affairs, 2007), and author of an intellectual biography of the founder of public choice theory, James M. Buchanan (Continuum, 2011/Bloomsbury, 2013).

Personal website: https://johnmeadowcroft.net

Paul Sagar read PPE at Balliol College, Oxford before taking an MA in Intellectual History and the History of Political …

Paul Sagar read PPE at Balliol College, Oxford before taking an MA in Intellectual History and the History of Political Thought from the University of London. He completed his doctorate at the University of Cambridge, where from 2014-2018 he was Junior Research Fellow in Politics at King’s College.

Paul Sagar works in the history of political thought and contemporary political theory. His recent monograph,  The Opinion of Mankind: Sociability and the State from Hobbes to Smith , explores Enlightenment accounts of the foundations of modern politics, whilst also addressing contemporary issues regarding how to conceive of the state, and what that means for normative political theory today. He has also published a number of studies on topics such as: the political writings of Bernard Williams, so-called ‘realist’ approaches to political philosophy, the nature of liberty under conditions of modernity, and the idea of immortality. Paul is currently in the early stages of two major new projects. The first is a monograph study of Adam Smith’s political philosophy as rooted in his conceptions of history and commercial society. The second is an exploration of the idea of the enemy in the history of political thought.

As well as his academic writings, Paul also writes for more popular audiences. His work has appeared in  The Guardian ,  The Times Literary Supplement ,  Aeon.co , and  The Political Quarterly.  See his  personal website  for details.

• Privacy Overview
• Strictly Necessary Cookies

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.

Our cookies

We use cookies for three reasons: to give you the best experience on PGS, to make sure the PGS ads you see on other sites are relevant , and to measure website usage. Some of these cookies are necessary to help the site work properly and can’t be switched off. Cookies also support us to provide our services for free, and by click on “Accept” below, you are agreeing to our use of cookies .You can manage your preferences now or at any time.

Privacy overview

We use cookies, which are small text files placed on your computer, to allow the site to work for you, improve your user experience, to provide us with information about how our site is used, and to deliver personalised ads which help fund our work and deliver our service to you for free.

The information does not usually directly identify you, but it can give you a more personalised web experience.

You can accept all, or else manage cookies individually. However, blocking some types of cookies may affect your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer.

You can change your cookies preference at any time by visiting our Cookies Notice page. Please remember to clear your browsing data and cookies when you change your cookies preferences. This will remove all cookies previously placed on your browser.

For more detailed information about the cookies we use, or how to clear your browser cookies data see our Cookies Notice

Manage consent preferences

Strictly necessary cookies

These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems.

They are essential for you to browse the website and use its features.

You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work. We can’t identify you from these cookies.

Functional cookies

These help us personalise our sites for you by remembering your preferences and settings. They may be set by us or by third party providers, whose services we have added to our pages. If you do not allow these cookies, then these services may not function properly.

Performance cookies

These cookies allow us to count visits and see where our traffic comes from, so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are popular and see how visitors move around the site. The cookies cannot directly identify any individual users.

If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site and will not be able to improve its performance for you.

Marketing cookies

These cookies may be set through our site by social media services or our advertising partners. Social media cookies enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They can track your browser across other sites and build up a profile of your interests. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to see or use the content sharing tools.

Advertising cookies may be used to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but work by uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will still see ads, but they won’t be tailored to your interests.

Politics Research MPhil / PhD

King's college london, university of london, different course options.

• Key information

Course Summary

Tuition fees, entry requirements, similar courses at different universities, key information data source : idp connect, qualification type.

PhD/DPhil - Doctor of Philosophy

Subject areas

Course type.

Here at the Department of Political Economy we foster an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the interaction of people, ideas and institutions and how they shape the outcomes of political processes and government decision-making at global, national, regional and local levels. Undertaking a PhD in Politics with us places you within a unique institution in which you will be part of a vibrant and growing set of world-leading scholars, who are committed to understanding the intertwining of politics and economics and applying those insights to solving problems at all levels of governance.

We have an open an inclusive research culture that encourages debate between the contesting theories, approaches and ideologies. Our vision of what political economy is lends itself to an interdisciplinary approach, and there is a wide range of methodological and theoretical approaches used across the department. This provides a stimulating environment for PhD research that fosters open-minded and critical scholarship.

Description

Each student has two supervisors and meets regularly with the first supervisor. The department provides office space and computer equipment on the Strand campus. PhD students are encouraged to attend research seminars in DPE and related departments, and are expected to present at one such seminar in their time at King’s. Our large undergraduate programme offers opportunities for PhD students to earn money and valuable teaching experience. PhD students have the opportunity to spend part of their PhD working at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and at the National University of Singapore.

UK fees Course fees for UK students

For this course (per year)

International fees Course fees for EU and international students

Masters degree with at least a Merit including a dissertation mark of no less than 65% (UK marking scheme).

Global Governance and Sustainable Development MA

Middlesex university, phd politics, university of hull, history, religion, philosophy and politics ma by research, university of gloucestershire, history, religion, philosophy and politics phd, diplomacy and global politics ma, university of westminster, london.

School of Politics & Economics

• King's College London
• Social Science & Public Policy

Fingerprint

• State Social Sciences 100%
• Economics Economics, Econometrics and Finance 86%
• Policy Social Sciences 85%
• Politics Social Sciences 84%
• Analysis Social Sciences 76%
• Economic Systems Social Sciences 53%
• Organizations Social Sciences 46%
• Government Social Sciences 44%

Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years

Dive into details.

Select a country/territory to view shared publications and projects

Gabriela Aguirre Fernandez

• Political Economy

Person: Doctor of Philosophy

Asyraf Afnan Ahmad Murtadza

• European & International Studies

Person: Master of Philosophy

Fredrick Ajwang

• Political Economy - Lecturer in Political Science

Person: Academic

Research output

• 72797 Citations
• 2147 Article
• 533 Chapter
• 118 Book/Film/Article review
• 74 Other contribution
• 65 Working paper
• 47 Review article
• 37 Editorial
• 30 Commissioned report
• 30 Comment/debate
• 24 Conference paper
• 22 Meeting abstract
• 8 Literature review
• 6 Other chapter contribution
• 6 Discussion paper
• 5 Anthology
• 5 Entry in encyclopedia/dictionary
• 3 Digital or Visual Products
• 2 Foreword/postscript
• 1 Special issue
• 1 Data set/Database

Research output per year

(Successful) Democracies Breed Their Own Support

Research output : Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

• Institution 100%
• Public Goods 50%
• Economics 50%
• Estimation Theory 50%
• Corruption 50%

Activism in the era of democratic backsliding: Explaining the efficacy of the clean-air campaigns in Poland

A pandemic of metrics.

• COVID 19 Epidemic 100%
• Ability 50%
• Health Policy 50%
• Way of Life 50%
• COVID-19 50%
• 2 Not started
• 287 Finished

Projects per year

INSPIRE: Innovating Spaces of Participation: Inclusive, Resilient, Embedded (INSPIRE)

Wojciechowska, M.

TSB Technology Strategy Board

1/04/2024 → 31/03/2027

Project : Research

PLEDGE: Politics of Grievance and Democratic Governance

Sharafutdinova, G.

1/02/2024 → 31/01/2027

Opening the black box of the EU’s most powerful institution: the European Council

Vannoni, M.

Leverhulme Trust

1/01/2024 → 31/12/2026

• 174 Participation in conference
• 68 Publication peer-review
• 55 Types of External academic engagement - Contribution to the work of national or international committees and working groups
• 36 Editorial activity
• 27 Types of External academic engagement - Invited talk
• 24 Types of External academic engagement - Membership of external research organisation
• 21 Participation in workshop, seminar, course
• 21 Types of Public engagement and outreach - Media article or participation
• 14 Types of Business and Community - Work on advisory panel to industry or government or non-government organisation
• 12 Types of Award - Fellowship awarded competitively
• 8 Types of External academic engagement - Research and Teaching at External Organisation
• 4 Types of Award - Appointment
• 4 Invited talk
• 3 Types of External academic engagement - Membership of peer review panel or committee
• 2 Types of Award - Prize (including medals and awards)
• 2 Types of Business and Community - Membership of public/government advisory/policy group or panel
• 2 Types of Public engagement and outreach - Public lecture/debate/seminar
• 1 Consultancy
• 1 Membership of committee
• 1 Membership of council
• 1 Types of Award - Election to learned society
• 1 Types of Public engagement and outreach - Festival/Exhibition
• 1 Types of Public engagement and outreach - Work on advisory panels for social community and cultural engagement

Activities per year

Asia Policy (Journal)

Ramon Pacheco Pardo (Editorial board member)

Activity : Publication peer-review and editorial work › Editorial activity

King's College London School of Global Affairs - University of North Carolina Curriculum in Global Studies Workshop

Clare Herrick (Organiser), Zara Shabrina (Organiser), Johnson Erica (Organiser), Gokariksel Banu (Organiser), Eunice Sahle (Organiser), Meenu Tewari (Organiser), Rowan Gard (Speaker), Daanish Mustafa (Speaker), Katherine Brickell (Speaker), Barney Walsh (Speaker), Anastasia Piliavsky (Speaker), Carlo Caduff (Speaker), Maísa Edwards (Invited speaker), Ingrid Nascimento Aguiar Schlindwein (Invited speaker), Merrill Hopper (Invited speaker), Miaofang Guan (Invited speaker), Kamall Ramsahoye (Invited speaker), Natasha Lock (Invited speaker), Eleni Econopouly (Invited speaker), Scarlett Hawkins (Invited speaker), Sophia Brown (Invited speaker), Haley Morris (Invited speaker), Katheryn Goodpaster (Invited speaker) & Danielle Dalton (Invited speaker)

Activity : Participating in or organising an event › Participation in workshop, seminar, course

Raheem Sterling Scholarships

Sam De Canio (Reviewer) & Michael Bankole (Contributor)

Activity : Other › Types of Public engagement and outreach - Media article or participation

Student theses

A comparative study of marxism and critical realism.

Supervisor: Callinicos, A. T. (Supervisor) & Tepe, D. (Supervisor)

Student thesis : Doctoral Thesis › Doctor of Philosophy

Advising the citizen: Citizens Advice Bureaux, voluntarism and the welfare state in England, 1938-1964

Supervisor: Thane, P. M. (Supervisor) & Kandiah, M. D. (Supervisor)

A History of the Syrian Air Force 1947-1967

Supervisor: Janz, P. D. (Supervisor) & Karsh, E. (Supervisor)

2021 Best Book Award by the International Studies Association

Meyer, Christoph (Recipient), 6 Apr 2021

Prize : Prize (including medals and awards)

• Investigation 100%
• Warning 100%

ASEN 2015 PhD Scholarship

Sen, Elsa Tulin (Recipient), 2015

Prize : Other distinction

Best Article published in 2009 in JCMS

Kardasheva, Raya (Recipient), 2010

Partisanship in Worldwide Presidential Elections Dataset

Girardi, D. , Harvard Dataverse, 18 Oct 2019

DOI : 10.7910/DVN/FHCCWY

Report a problem

Thank you, your report has been submitted. We will deal with the issue as soon as possible. If you have any other questions, please send an email to [email protected] .

Your Programmes

Ba(hons) mphil/phd politics.

The offer rate cannot be determined as there are more offers made than there are applications received. This may be a result of some applicants being offered places in this programme who originally applied for other programmes.

Data shown above is for entry in academic year 2021/22 (sources) .

The number of offers may include offers made to applicants who did not apply for the programme King's College offers some unsuccessful applicants a place in another programme. For some programmes, this causes the number of offers to be higher than the number of applications.

Previous Years

Data sources.

• FOI Request by Albert Warren.
• Admissions Statistics . King's College London. October 2022.

The acceptance rate , or offer rate, represents the fraction of applicants who received an offer. Note that this will be generally lower the acceptances rates (acceptances divided by applicants) published by many other sources. This article explains it in more detail. The acceptances generally indicate the number of offer holders who accepted the offer and fulfilled its conditions. For some universities, however, it denotes the number of applicants who accepted the offer, regardless of whether they subsequently met its conditions.

Data Reliability

Unless otherwise noted, the data presented comes from the universities and is generally reliable. However, some of the differences between years and/or courses may be due to different counting methodologies or data gathering errors. This may especially be the case if there is a sharp difference from year to year. If the data does not look right, click the "Report" button located near the top of the page.

Follow Us On Twitter/X

Political Science

Program Overview

Political Science seeks to explain the world of politics and government. As the world becomes more complex, the importance of the discipline of political science grows. Politics is at the heart of social decision making; and the need for thoughtful, human interactions in the modern era is clear. Solutions to today’s problems revolve around individuals, institutions, and their respective activities. Political science is the discipline that brings together traditional and modern inquiries concerning the place of humans and their decisions in the world.

• Visit Campus

Options include: employment in a diverse array of administrative agencies at the federal, state and local levels of government; completion of law school followed by admission to the bar and law practice; teaching at both the college and high school level; research in the public sector, for private firms and not-for-profit organizations; employment in governmental liaison work for private sector firms and organizations (This type of opportunity continues to grow as more private organizations have more frequent, even regular contacts with the government.); employment as journalists doing political reporting in the mass media where knowledge and understanding of the political process have become at least as important as the technical skills of modern communications. Among the positions held by graduates of King’s College political science program are: foreign service officer in the State Department, intelligence officer in the Department of Defense, the CIA and the NSA; budget analyst in OMB; judge, magistrate, mayor, city councilperson, city manager, city planner, election campaign manager, administrative assistant to the governor, legislative assistant, lobbyist, state party chairperson, congressional aide, assistant township manager, policy analyst in the Department of Public Welfare; and campaign consultant. Employment outlook for the political science field is excellent as government expands into new areas and private sector organizations seek employees with knowledge of public affairs.

• Law School (J.D.)
• M.P.A., with various specializations
• M.A. and Ph.D. in political science
• American University
• George Washington University School of Political Management
• Maxwell School-Syracuse University
• Pennsylvania State University
• State University of New York
• Lehigh University

Program Details

Each semester many political science majors pursue internships with one of the numerous municipal, county, state, and federal offices located in the area; additionally, some elect to pursue one of the state or national intern programs that take them for a semester to government offices in Washington, DC. or Harrisburg, PA. These programs have proven to be among the most popular and rewarding of all the opportunities the College offers. The young men and women who have participated in these internship programs return enriched in knowledge and with valuable job experience.

The Department of Political Science offers a pre-law program, with an enviable record of placing its students in top law schools. For students preparing for legal careers, the Department offers a multi-course sequence in Law and the Courts, and a senior year legal internship. Every fall the Department holds a Legal Career Day, bringing successful alumni and friends in the field of law to the college to talk to students about their experiences. Our students have been accepted to some of the finest law schools in the country, including Villanova, Boston University, Dickinson, Catholic, Case Western, and Syracuse. In addition to the legal profession, there are other career opportunities being pursued by recent King’s political science graduates. In the public sector our graduates have been successful in obtaining employment at the local, state, and federal levels in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. A number of our graduates have also been successful in gaining elected positions. Other recent graduates have entered careers in the private sector in education and business. The major in political science provides a student with a foundation in the American political system and along with an introduction to traditional and contemporary methods of social research. An integrated survey of various fields within the discipline is included in the major. Students are also required to take at least three elective courses (9 credits) within the major. The Department of Political Science has created four tracks of required and elective courses along with certain non-department courses. These tracks are intended to assist the student in planning his or her course of study and to give the student an opportunity to undertake a more intensive study of certain areas within political science. The tracks also provide the student an opportunity to develop a more individualized course of study that best fits his or her specific interests.

Additional Info

Compatible minors.

• Business Administration
• Communications
• Computers and Information Systems
• Criminal Justice
• Foreign Languages
• Human Resources Management
• International Business
• Environmental and Sustainability Studies

Special Features

• Internships in municipal, county, state, and federal government offices and in law offices in the local area.
• Full semester and summer-long internships outside the local area (e.g., Harrisburg, Washington, D.C., and home district offices of members of Congress).
• A pre-legal program with a strong record of placing its students in some of the finest law schools in the country, including Columbia, Penn, Dickinson, Temple, Georgetown, Villanova, Fordham, and Notre Dame. King’s pre-law advisor counsels prelaw students about entrance requirements for law school and the law school admissions process in general. The program also offers a comprehensive preparation for the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT).
• Academic Planners
• Course Descriptions
• Degree Requirements

We welcome all potential students and their families to visit our beautiful campus and get a taste of the King’s College experience. Feel free to schedule a personal visit or register for one of our upcoming admission events.

• Personal Visit
• Admission Events

Request Information

Related majors.

Still looking for the perfect fit to your interests and goals? Here are some similar programs to explore:

King's College London

Politics ba/bsc, ucas code: l240, key information.

Our Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Politics offers a demanding and stimulating course of study covering international politics, comparative politics, and political theory, with an emphasis on developing your analytical and research skills.

Key benefits

• You will learn to think critically and independently about key issues in politics and develop a range of skills to support your intellectual, vocational, and personal development.
• Given the interdisciplinary nature of the department, you will also have many opportunities to explore the interplay between politics and economics.
• In your first year, you will learn about core concepts and issues in global and national politics and about statistical techniques that political scientists employ. Your second and third years will feature a wide range of options including further methodological training, plus some required modules, depending on whether you choose the Politics BA or BSc degree.
• In the third year, you can choose to develop a dissertation project by identifying a key political problem and producing a research proposal under the guidance of your supervisor. Building on the skills learnt in the programme, you can conduct and write up a piece of original research on a subject of your choice for your third-year dissertation.
• We rank 4th in the UK for Politics (QS World University Rankings by Subject 2023).
• Course essentials
• Entry requirements
• Teaching & structure

Employability

Your BA/BSc in Politics will equip you for a wide range of career options in business, government and policy, the public sector, the charity sector, and social enterprise. Through your course, you will acquire skills and knowledge that are recognised and valued by employers in policy development, governmental roles, and communications, amongst many others. Recent graduates from the Department of Political Economy have found employment as: 

• Public affairs executive, London Chamber of Commerce & Industry
• Junior political consultant, Ketchum Pleon
• Production management assistant, BBC
• Press and communications officer, European Parliament
• Communications officer, Drugscope
• Finance analyst, BNP Paribas
• Analyst, Bank of England

Curious to find out more? Access on-demand content including taster lectures and talks, and meet our current staff and students on our subject hub page .

• Fees & Funding
• How to apply
• Register your interest
• Chat to a student
• Order a prospectus

Related departments

• Department of Political Economy
• Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy

Open days and events

Chat with current students and King's staff to find out about the courses we offer, life at King's and ask any questions you may have.

Researchers feature work at virtual conference

A pair of PhD candidates from the Department of Political Economy were among a group of top early career researchers invited to...

Explore more

Accommodation

Take a look at our comfortable, safe residences to suit your budget, located close to King's teaching campuses.

Campus life

Art, food, music, shopping – you'll never find yourself with nothing to do in the world's most vibrant city.

Life in London

Information about living in London, including events, budgeting and expenses, travel and safety.

Student support

During your time at King's College London, a range of academic and personal support and guidance is available to you.