Bachelor of Arts - Politics and International Relations (Honours)

BA (Hons) Politics and International Relations studies power at home and between states: political theory, British and comparative politics, international relations theory, security studies, global governance, and foreign policy analysis, developed across three years toward a final-year dissertation. The course sits in a politics group whose research strengths in diplomacy and international politics feed the option range.

Skills formation is deliberate rather than incidental — students write policy briefs to word limits and deadlines, run simulations of international negotiations and parliamentary processes, and defend positions in structured debate, building exactly the analytical-writing evidence that public-affairs and policy employers screen for. Leicester’s political diversity gives local studies unusual texture, and study-abroad windows extend the international dimension.

Extracurricular architecture carries unusual weight here, and DMU supplies it: model United Nations, debating, student media and the politics society’s speaker programme all function as the practice field for the degree’s assessed skills, and participation records appear in the references that policy employers actually check. The £16,800 fee sits well below comparable London politics degrees, in a city whose own political landscape — nationally watched constituencies, pioneering diversity — makes a live case study outside the seminar room.

The careers conversation should be honest about structure: few jobs are literally titled politics, several public-service schemes restrict by residency, and the graduate’s market is the broad analytical-generalist economy — public affairs, risk analysis, communications, management schemes — at £21,000–£25,000, where writing quality is the differentiator. The honours degree carries Graduate Route eligibility at the 18-month post-2026 length, and taught-route students cannot bring dependants.