Politics and Global Development
Politics and global development is a combination that addresses the most pressing questions of our time: how power is organised and exercised, how wealth and poverty are distributed across and within nations, and what development means and whether it can be achieved. Politics provides the conceptual tools to understand how governments work, how international institutions are structured, how conflicts arise and are resolved, and what drives policy change. Global development engages with the causes and consequences of inequality, poverty, humanitarian crises, and social change in the global south, drawing on economics, sociology, and political science in equal measure.
At the School of Oriental and African Studies this three-year programme, which includes a foundation year, is shaped by SOAS's distinctive and world-leading expertise in the politics and development of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. This is not a degree that treats European and North American experience as the default and everything else as an exception. SOAS brings genuine expertise in the specific histories, political economies, and cultural contexts of the global south, making the study of politics and development genuinely global in its range.
You will develop skills in political analysis, development theory, research methods, and policy engagement, and you will engage with some of the most contested and consequential debates in contemporary international affairs.
Graduates from politics and global development programmes work in international development organisations, NGOs, the diplomatic service, the civil service, policy research, journalism, and academia. The SOAS perspective is particularly valued in roles that require expertise in particular regions of the global south, and the combination of political and development knowledge is directly relevant to careers in international relief, governance support, and sustainable development policy. Further study at postgraduate level in development studies, international relations, or area studies is a natural next step.