Our MA Governance, Politics and Policy course explores the fundamental political, governance, and policy-related issues shaping societies in the 21st century.
On this course, you will investigate how policies are both made and supplemented drawing from a range of conceptual approaches and underpinned by empirically informed examples. Such approaches seek to uncover the competing interests, power dynamics, institutional constraints, and real-world pressures that shape decisions at every level of government. You’ll examine how governing systems influence policymaking, how political authority operates from to global to the local level, and how ideas, evidence, and public debate feed into policy outcomes. Alongside this, you will develop the analytical and research skills needed to navigate and make sense of today’s most pressing political challenges.
If you’re aiming for a research-intensive career, our Research Route gives you deeper training in qualitative and quantitative methods, and more hands-on experience designing your own research projects.
There are two Streams on the course, including a Policy Stream and an Elections Stream, allowing you to tailor your course to fit your interests. You’ll explore topics such as:
Our streams have been designed to especially enhance your learning experience. They offer a highly specialised set of course units which aim to develop your skills in public policy and decision-making.
Our Policy Stream equips you to understand how ideas become action, and why some never do. Through a set of innovative, analytically rich course units, you’ll explore the full journey of policymaking: from the emergence of an issue, to agenda setting, decision making, implementation, and impact. Along the way, you’ll learn how governments, organisations, activists and citizens compete to shape the world around us. By interrogating how and why these actors behave as they do, you’ll gain powerful insight into the political, economic and social forces driving many of the defining challenges of the 21st century. It’s a course designed not just to study policy, but to understand and question the power behind it.
In a world of surprising electoral outcomes, our Elections Stream puts evidence and theory at the centre of political analysis. You will learn by doing, developing practical skills to study democracy, political parties, elections, and voting behaviour. Our course units are taught by world leading experts on elections in the UK, Europe, and beyond.
See a full list of mandatory and optional course units below.
You will benefit from studying at an internationally renowned centre for policy research. In addition, our Policy@Manchester institute , will give you the opportunity to engage with public policy and governance in deeper, hands-on ways by attending regular talks and seminars, meeting with politicians and policy makers, or finding a professional experience placement in the field.
Throughout your studies, you will develop subject area expertise as well as highly transferrable skills such as research design, critical inquiry, and writing and communication skills, setting you up for multiple career paths in the public, private, or third sectors. You will also be well-placed to continue developing and using your research expertise, either professionally or in further PhD study in Politics.
You will also be well-placed to continue developing and using your research expertise, either professionally or in PhD study as this course is eligible for the 1+3 studentship offered by the Economic and Social Sciences Research Council (ESRC) North West Social Sciences Doctoral Training Partnership (NWSSDTP), offering a unique, fully-funded route into postgraduate research. If your application is successful, you’ll be able to seamlessly transit
Prestigious department
The University of Manchester boasts one of the largest and best-known politics departments in the UK. We are home to some of the world’s leading experts and academics in the subject, and co-hosts (with Oxford) of the British Election Study, one of the longest-running election studies in the world and the longest-running social science survey in the UK.
The University is home to Policy@Manchester , connecting the implications of academic research to real world policy insights.
Unique city
In our biased opinion, there’s no better place to study politics than Manchester. Politics and history, revolutionary ideas and radical reform, are etched into the city’s streets and character, from workers' rights to feminism, Marxism to devolution.
We require a UK bachelor's degree with a First or Upper Second classification or the overseas equivalent, in any discipline.
When assessing your academic record we consider your degree subject, grades you have achieved and the standing of the institution where you studied your qualification.