What justifies a Politics/Political Science degree being classified as BA vs BSc?

When I was applying for unis I remember being a little confused as to why UK courses were called 'Politics' whereas many of the courses overseas were called 'Political Science'. I also wasn't sure what made some UK courses BA and others BSc. I'm already quite my way through a BSc Political Science degree (not in the UK) and I'm still not too sure why my degree is named and classified this way vs some UK courses. Take the University of York's BA Politics. Cross comparing the course contents, they look pretty similar to what I study. Is there an actual concrete justification for this difference? Does the UK just call it 'Politics' because they just feel like it? Or, is there a different teaching approach that I'm not seeing?

Reply 1

Paulwyn

TSR Group Staff

A strange one which seems to have no rhyme or reason, but they both confer the same qualification. One is taking politics as part of a social science and thus BA, and some (I did International Relations which was a BSc) take it as a science.

I think course structure can sometimes vary between the application of political theory (BA) v the more terchnical or theoretical side of politics (BSc)

Reply 2

gjd800

There's usually no hard and fast difference in the way that there usually is between BSc and BA routes. BSc is usually more quantitative, but this often is not a factor in Politics unless there's some e mphasis on quant economics within the course. So yeah, often not much reasoning at all.