politics and economics or philosophy and economics?

out of pol/econ and phil/econ, what would be more likely to include more political philosophy? im trying to decide which to apply for out of the two. my main interest is political philosophy so id like to study this most but which course would be more likely to include more of it in most unis?

Reply 1

sfp04

It will depend a lot on the university. You will likely be able to study political philosophy in either degree, but the emphasis might be different. Very broadly speaking, philosophy departments are perhaps likelier to offer political philosophy modules with more of an analytic/normative/moral philosophy-adjacent emphasis, whereas politics departments might focus more on approaches drawn from, for instance, critical theory. But again, the best thing to do is to look at what modules are offered on the specific courses you’re interested in. Another option to consider would be PPE — you can get a taste of all three subjects in the first year, and then many courses allow you to drop one of the three in second year.

Reply 2

Uni of Southampton Students

Official Rep

Hi @jk999998

It varies depending on the university. I can tell you about how it is in the University of Southampton as I am a PPE student there.
Generally, the Politics department tends to offer political theory modules which tend to be philosophical. While, the Philosophy department tends to offer moral philosophy and ethics.
For one module, it is actually both a philosophy and politics modules. This is a final year political philosophy module run by the Politics department which Philosophy students can also pick and it will be counted towards their credits as a normal philosophy module. So, there is quite alot of overlap between the two departments with regards to political philosophy.

I recommend you visit the course pages of the universities you are interested in as they tend to list the modules so you would be able to ascertain which course may offer more political philosophy.

In addition, since you are interested in both Politics and Philosophy, I would recommend the PPE degree as this gives you the chance to explore topics in all 3 subjects, as well as their overlap. In most universities, you can drop a subject. In some universities, this is in year 2 while with others (such as the University of Southampton), you can drop a subject in year 3.

Hope this helps,
Gulcin