MSc Environment, Politics and Development

The dissertation module, which is taken by all Master’s students, provides them with the opportunity to identify, develop and produce a research based dissertation related to the thematic area of their programme of study. As well as receiving guidance from an academic supervisor, students will also benefit from regular dissertation meetings across the year in which they will receive teaching in the theory and practise of dissertation preparation.

This module familiarises students with the key theories, categories, and analytics of Political Ecology. Political Ecology as a scholarly field is broadly concerned with socioecological dynamics, the politics of the distribution of resources, environmental harm, and injustices faced by the communities (of all species) at the sharp end of capitalism and colonialism. The module therefore covers the complex dimensions of interconnected climate, social, and ecological crises and keeps students up to date with the rapidly changing scientific and political landscape in relation to environmental harm. The module also has a particular focus on contemporary climate solutions, so students explore green new deals, degrowth, reparations, energy transitions and other major proposed remedies for contemporary crises.

Analytics in Political Ecology is the first core module for the MSc in Environment, Politics and Development. This module familiarises students with the key theories, categories, topics, and analytics in the study of Political Ecology. The module covers the complex dimensions of interconnected climate, social, and ecological crises and keeps students up to date with the rapidly changing scientific and political landscape in relation to environmental crisis. The module equips students with the conceptual and analytical tools which will then be applied to studying climate and ecological solutions in the module Projects and Solutions in Political Ecology in Semester 2.

Projects and Solutions in Political Ecology is the second core module for the MSc in Environment, Politics and Development. The module builds on, and applies, the key theoretical and analytical skills developed in the module Analytics in Political Ecology. The teaching weeks have a particular focus on contemporary climate and ecological solutions, allowing students to explore green new deals, degrowth, climate reparations, energy transitions and other major proposed remedies for contemporary crises. At the end of the module students will have developed expertise in both proposed and enacted solutions to ecological crises, as well as their main critiques and shortcomings. 

This course is intended for students interested in analysing how climate change, especially the discourse and policies around it, might be leading to a new global configuration of social forces around extractivism and energy transitions. Adopting a multi-disciplinary approach, this course will focus on how different actors, notably from the fossil fuel sector (oil, gas, and coal), agribusiness, nation-states from the South and the North, as well as civil society organisations and social movements, are trying to influence and navigate the changing global discourse on climate change and energy transition in order to push their agendas and understandings of sustainable development.

The aim of this module is to introduce varieties of thought and practice in governing the environmental consequences of global development. The starting point in this endeavour is to present predominant understandings of environmental governance as portrayed in the predominant literature. We then turn to look at critical understandings of governance, leading to the central question of the module: do we govern environment-development relations, or do they govern us? The module will draw on a range of case studies, from the international climate negotiations, to the governance of common and forests.

This course examines the political economy of development processes and the specific development policies and strategies undertaken in different regions and countries of the world. The syllabus is designed to provide insights on the historical evolution of development debates, and an overview of the elements of theory and policy that are especially relevant to the study and practice of development. The lectures cover some key foundational theoretical and analytical content of the political economy of development. They illustrate and explain different interpretations/schools of thought of political economy and development economics and they critically examine the basis of paradigm shifts in development policy making.

This course examines the political economy of development processes and the specific development policies and strategies undertaken in different regions and countries of the world. The syllabus is designed to provide insights on the historical evolution of development debates, and an overview of the elements of theory and policy that are especially relevant to the study and practice of development.

The lectures focus upon a range of specific topics fiercely debated in development policy circles. The topics covered include resource mobilisation (finance, taxation, aid); climate change and the environment, education and health, poverty, and labour markets. Throughout the course, basic theory is combined with applications to developing countries, using examples from Africa, Asia, Middle East, and Latin America. Special emphasis is given to changes occurring over the last 4 decades, often described as the period of ‘structural adjustment’, ‘neoliberalism’, ‘financialization’, and their effects on the policies and prospects of developing countries. 

This module provides a grounding in theories of development broadly through the disciplines of sociology and politics and is a prerequisite to the module Policies and Practices of Development in the second semester.

In this module we explore theoretical ideas and debates on development through an historical perspective. These ideas and debates are better understood when located in the historical contexts and conditions that generate them. This shapes which issues and problems are identified, how they are identified, how solutions to them are sought and by whom.  This approach puts questions of agency at the centre of understanding development ideas and policies.

Building on the theoretical insights of the sister module Theories of Development, this module engages with the multifaceted nature of development and the diverse agencies involved in shaping it. A critical perspective, grounded in insights from both cutting edge and established research, encourages students to challenge established norms and think critically about the impact of development interventions. Overall, this module provides students with a comprehensive view of development policies and practices and to consider alternatives.

Students will engage with the central theoretical and ethical debates relating to anthropologies of climate change, and consider how these have developed in relation to key social movements and moments from the 1960s onwards. Questions of temporality, political economy, development, justice, the concept of harm, emotion, activism and feminist ecologies of care are explored in the context of the anthropocene, with students encouraged to consider how they might approach crafting their own anthropologies of climate change. Whilst attention is given to historical antecedents and the development of climate as an object of concern, both within and outside the academy, the course looks at contemporary developments and encourages students to think about how they might engage with and shape emergent anthropologies of the anthropocene. In this, the intersection between anthropology and activism is explored, as we ask not only how we can write anthropologies of a warming planet, but also how anthropologies of the anthropocene can help us collectively navigate uncertain planetary futures.

Food and eating are fundamental to human life and health and play profound roles in the construction of social bodies, from families and kinship groups to religious groups and states. Further, food mediates our relationships with non-human beings and surroundings. In this module, we emphasise that our reliance on food for nutritional sustenance is inseperable from food's social, cultural and ecological dimensions. As such, the transformation of food habits and food systems are a central part of human experiences and world histories. We explore cultural diversities and historical change in food production and distribution, eating, cooking and sharing, recycling and wasting, and the classifying, celebrating and prohibiting of food and drink.

This course explores feminist and gendered approaches to the study of global political economy. First, the course explores feminist contributions to the study of the world economy and its intersecting inequalities, including during COVID-19 times, and illustrates feminist analyses of the global assembly line. Second, it introduces social reproduction theorizations and illustrates processes of commodification of social reproduction under neoliberalism, by examining the rise and features of global care and reproductive chains. Third, the course explores links between accumulation, gender, and race, by introducing gendered approaches to racial capitalism, coloniality, and indigeneity. It analyses feminist intersectional, anti-racist and decolonial political movements including BLM; and introduces debates on abolition feminism and reproductive justice. Finally, the course illustrates gendered approaches to agrarian change, food, and the ecology. 

This course introduces students to economic perspectives on environmental and development issues. It covers various macro and microeconomic issues as well as economics of climate change.

The MSc Global Energy and Climate Policy addresses precisely these issues, treating climate and energy policy as inextricably linked. Cases drawn from both the Global North and South will form the basis of your studies as you examine how policy is made, advocated and implemented – or sometimes prevented – around the world.

This module examines ‘water justice’ in the global South from a combined Law and Development Studies perspective. The three main themes in the course are water rights/right to water, the modalities of access to water, and social movements on water issues. The course discusses examples from Asia, Africa and Latin America, and selected examples from the global North. It seeks to provide students with a broad understanding of the multi-faceted issues arising in the water sector from the local to the international level.

Students will be able to demonstrate the ability to understand and analyse issues concerning water law and policy, conflicts and governance from a broad perspective encompassing their economic, social and environmental dimensions. Students will acquire knowledge of basic concepts and principles underlying the regulation, management and conservation of water, focusing on national, regional examples in the international context in which governance evolves and the increasing importance of conflicts in the water sector.

This module introduces the foundations of international environmental law, including its subjects, sources, principles and measures of implementation, compliance and dispute settlement. It explores the range of laws and norms that impact on global environmental problems. This module is built around the understanding that international environmental law is about both conservation and use (captured in the notion of sustainable development). It is also structured around an understanding that it is the North-South dimension of environmental issues that explains a large part of existing international environmental law

It provides an introduction to the principles of international environmental law (such as the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and the precautionary principle), environmental justice (human rights, participatory rights), examines questions related to compliance, effectiveness and enforcement of international environmental law; the governance and institutional framework governing the environment at the international level; and links with other branches of international law, such as human rights.

This course offers an introduction and critical exploration of ‘Harmony with Nature’ and the emerging legal doctrine of ‘Rights of Nature’ as potential alternatives to sustainable development. It delves into the philosophical roots and evolution of the idea of granting legal rights to the natural world, all within the larger framework of Environmental Law, Earth Law, and the Anthropocene era. Harmony with Nature", in the context of this module, refers to developments at the international and domestic level that promote a paradigmatic shift away from human-centred environmental law, towards a more ecologically-centred legal system. Relatedly, "Rights of Nature" is a legal concept that recognises nature's intrinsic value and grants certain legal rights to elements of the environment. For instance, the recent rise in granting legal personhood to certain natural entities, like rivers, forests, or specific ecosystems, in different parts of the world, allowing them to be protected and represented, on their own account. These developments have arisen as responses to the shortcomings of sustainable development and traditional environmental law in addressing environmental degradation at local, national, and global levels. The course will examine case studies of rights of nature laws, in their political, social, and legal contexts in various regions, engaging with different developments, such as the granting or river rights in the Global North and Global South. Throughout the course, students will critically assess the structure and key features of these laws, accounting for this broader context .The course examines case studies of rights of nature laws, in their political, social, and legal contexts in various regions, engaging with different developments, such as the granting or river rights in the Global North and Global South. Throughout the course, students will critically assess the structure and key features of these laws, accounting for this broader context."

This course focuses attention to social movements in relation to civil society and to the development project itself. It examines some current positions on theorising 'civil society' and 'new social movements'.

The purpose of this module is to familiarise students with the main debates in gender and development and to introduce new ways of conceptualising the field, critiquing the concept of gender as generally applied in development, and also development itself. We will study issues relevant to gender and development not usually included within the development paradigm, like the coloniality of gender. We will also discuss how the gender binaries came to be so pervasive globally. Gender here is viewed as a set of normative behavioural prescriptions that apply to men as much as to women and men and masculinities will be treated as an integral part of the field alongside women and femininities. Gender is also understood not simply as an issue of individual male-female relationships but as inherently political.

This module provides an introduction to development practice. It examines some of the key challenges and constraints faced by development practitioners in the light of trends in development theory and policy, as well as some of the tools and frameworks commonly used in the world of development practice.

This module questions and investigates the way that forced migration takes place, is represented and is responded to at the international and national level. It uses multidisciplinary approaches, drawing on anthropological, legal, sociological and developmental perspectives to interrogate the causes and consequences of forced migration, the labelling and control of forced migrant populations, the international legal and policy frameworks that contextualize protection and other responses to them. Drawing particularly on examples from sub–Saharan Africa, it asks what options are open to displaced people in the context of political, humanitarian and developmental responses to them.

The module will offer an overview of the main research designs and techniques used in development research. It will put emphasis on both the use of secondary sources (text, numbers, images, audio, etc.) and the process of collecting primary empirical material for analysis.

This course aims to provide a critical, historically informed and empirically grounded perspective on war to peace transitions. It looks at the historical experience of countries emerging from war as well as contemporary examples. It explores the continuities between war and peace, as well as the moments of rupture, and asks how an appreciation of these continuities and transformations can inform policies and strategies in countries emerging from conflict. It also examines through case study material how liberal peacebuilding is ‘translated’ on the ground as it gets implemented (and resisted) through multiple, state, non state and private actors.

Whether we think about migration, development, geopolitics, or citizenship, all questions of our time seem to revolve around the conceptualisation, functions and effects of borders and bordering processes. Borders are central to processes of social change, and the course identifies different approaches to studying borders’ significance in such processes. Borders have also become a key site of policy and political intervention, and the course explores border management practices related to fostering, preventing or channelling the circulation of commodities and people. Finally, the course reflects on the relation between borders, border management and inequalities. Borders are gendered, racialised and power laden. Yet, they are also sites of agency, resistance and subversion. Borders are privileged sites of analytical enquiry, as they render concrete and reproduce selective opportunities, inequalities and contestations.

This course examines global supply chain capitalism and maps its implications for development, with emphasis on the realms of work, gender, poverty, mobility, social reproduction, and labour standards. The course examines the structure of different ‘global commodity chains’ (GCCs), ‘global value chains’ (GVCs) and/or ‘global production networks’ (GPNs), including those organising labour-intensive manufacturing like sweatshops, agro-food production like coffee, or the digital/platform economy. It highlights linkages between the current structure of global production and that characterising the colonial/imperial era. It explores debates on labour informalisation and feminisation; examines the global reorganisation of social reproduction at work in global chains; explains the relevance of labour mobility and forced labour; and analyses global labour standards and ‘modern slavery’ debates, mapping links between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and the new ‘abolitionist industrial complex’.

This team-taught course aims to provide an understanding of how aid and aid institutions have impacted on developmental prospects and practice. It explores the role, purpose, and complexities of aid in development through an examination of what forms ‘aid’ takes, and how this contributes to development; the role of specific types of organizations involved in delivering aid; the contexts in which aid is distributed; and the complexities and challenges involved. Thematically, the course is divided into three main areas: firstly and exploration of key ideas and themes in aid and development; secondly, an examination of aid at differing organizational levels; and thirdly, an exploration of aid delivery and practice in specific contexts. It will draw on experiences from a variety of contexts to provide a grounding in how aid and development are linked, and how ‘aid organizations’ function.

In this module we explore a wide range of policy processes around the world that shape the dynamics and impacts of international migration. The module provides students with the opportunity to engage critically with the complex configurations of institutions, politics and normative claims that underpin migration-related policy (with an emphasis on contemporary policy developments, although these are situated in an historical perspective). It also challenges students to explore alternative policy approaches. In particular, we consider debates and initiatives relating to international labour migration and migrants’ rights; education, skills and mobility; various forms of economic and political transnationalism; and refugee movements. Students investigate the positions taken by a variety of stakeholders, from migrant associations, NGOs, employers and trade unions, to emigration states, destination states, regional bodies and international organisations.

In this module, we are aiming for a participatory and intellectually stimulating learning experience. The module engages with theories and approaches that are applied in the study of the working poor in the Global South - and to a lesser extent the Global North - and their collective agency and activism through labour movements, social movements and struggles grounded in both productive and reproductive sites of contention. We begin with an exploration of the main approaches to labour and development in an historical context. We then move on to analyse how neoliberalism and globalisation have incorporated the labouring classes of the South through processes such as informalisation and feminisation of work. The module homes in on the strategies and campaigns of trade unions, labour organisations, social movements and environmental campaigns.

This module explores global health in relation to global development. It considers the links between health, illness and poverty; the ways in which poverty, insecurity and inequalities create particular risks and challenges for individuals and communities; the challenges of responding to health crises and issues; and how global health fits within global development discourses, debates and issues. It does so through a focus on three areas. (1) The place of global health within global development, and key social factors impacting on health. (2) Health systems for global health and development. (3) Key issues in global heath.

The growth of cities is a key features of our times. Today more than half of the world population lives in cities, and developing countries have sustained decades of rapid urbanisation. This module will explore the key academic debates on the relationship between cities and development; the key factors driving the growth of cities in developing countries, from colonial times to the present and its implications for development. The module, taught through a weekly 1 hour lecture and 1 hour tutorialin term 1, will expose students to a number of theoretical approaches to the “urban” in developing countries, including political economy and postcolonial narratives. Such theoretical debates will be used to make sense of a range of urban themes/sectors such as housing, crime, informal employment, transport, digital technology and migration.

This course explores feminist and gendered approaches to the study of global political economy. First, the course explores feminist contributions to the study of the world economy and its intersecting inequalities, including during COVID-19 times, and illustrates feminist analyses of the global assembly line. Second, it introduces social reproduction theorizations and illustrates processes of commodification of social reproduction under neoliberalism, by examining the rise and features of global care and reproductive chains. Third, the course explores links between accumulation, gender, and race, by introducing gendered approaches to racial capitalism, coloniality, and indigeneity. It analyses feminist intersectional, anti-racist and decolonial political movements including BLM; and introduces debates on abolition feminism and reproductive justice. Finally, the course illustrates gendered approaches to agrarian change, food, and the ecology. 

This module encourages students to explore the various pathways to peace that scholars, practitioners, communities and people have proposed and realized. The class provides students with A solid theoretical and historical basis to critical peace and conflict studies and moves from the individual, community, national and international level. This class is an experiential and highly participatory module , however, that moves beyond abstract and distant discussions of peace, war and justice. Each week we consider A different motivation, movement and challenge to understanding peace and achieving justice.

The International Development Placement Module delivers a virtual placement with an organisation working on aspects of development. The core activity is centred on students working in groups with development-orientated partner organisations (POs). Each student will enter into a Placement Agreement with a partner organisation consisting of 40 hours of work spread over February and March in term 2. Students will be allocated to Partner Organisations in teams varying in size from 2-9 students.

Migration and development are inextricably related, yet the understanding of this relationship is highly contested. This module introduces students to the so-called nexus between migration and development. The first part of the module explores different analytical understandings of this nexus (neoclassical, political economy, autonomist, feminist and decolonial). On these bases, the second part of the module explores and critically interrogates key policy perspectives concerned with harnessing this relationship. The main aim of this module is to tease out key differences and complementarities between these various understandings of the nexus.

The relationship between migration and development does not unfold in a vacuum, but it is always situated. This module complements the module Migration and Development: analytical and policy perspectives" and is concerned with studying this relationship as it unfolds in various (socio-spatial) contexts. As such, it inverts the perspective of the previous module by examining the so-called nexus between migration and development from the ground up. Each session develops grounded perspectives of the migrant experience as it is shaped by and as it shapes the various ‘contexts’ in which it unfolds."

This module provides a thorough analytical grounding in different social science approaches to violence and conflict, from civil wars to a range of other manifestations (e.g. systematic violence against women, large-scale urban violence, ethnic/religious pogroms and internationalist ‘terrorist’ violence) and their linkages to development problems. It presents ideas for understanding the origins, dimensions, dynamics, costs, and prevention of this broad range of violent conflicts, and tests ideas and approaches through a number of relevant case studies.

What distinguishes this module - one of two core modules of the MSc in Violence, Conflict and Development - from some others is that it approaches the study of violence (not only war) and political/social armed conflict from the perspective of development studies and the inter-disciplinary political economy of development. It challenges conventional wisdoms and engages with the world of practice and policy.

A particular feature of this module is the group case study presentation, accounting for 30% of the total module grade. Other assessments include an essay and a blog.

Students form groups of three or four and present an analytical case study on a place/theme as a video or animated powerpoint. Students attend a weekly lecture and participate in a weekly seminar group. Seminar sessions include student presentations and group discussion of assigned readings related to the lecture topics.

This module deepens knowledge and understanding, from an inter-disciplinary perspective, on the linkages between violence, violent conflict, and development. It focuses on particular dimensions of conflict and violence with powerful practical and policy implications - issues including climate change, land and borderlands, 'terrorism' and the war on terror, conflict resolution, post-conflict reconstruction, and knowledge production in the field of conflict/development. It ends with a panel discussion with invited policy officials/practitioners.
Like the other core module of the MSc in Violence, Conflict and Development this module has a distinctive development studies/political economy of development perspective on issues of conflict and violence. It challenges conventional wisdoms and engages with the world of practice and policy. A particular feature of this module is the assessed group case study presentation. The other assessed element of this module is a blog.