Major Overview

In an increasingly but unevenly interdependent world, analyses of normative claims (philosophy), power constellations (politics), and efficient allocation of resources (economics) must be brought together in order to achieve a sufficiently profound grasp of global political processes. While inspired by the long-established and highly successful PPE degree offered at the University of Oxford, AUP’s major sets itself apart with an integrated approach, so that courses across the three disciplines mutually reinforce each other. We will help you establish a solid academic foundation, with introductions to the main concepts and theories within philosophy, politics, and economics, and discuss what their respective merits and limits are. 

LEARNING OUTCOMES

The educational goals for this major are as follows:

  • You will grasp the main concepts, approaches and theories within philosophy, politics and economics.
  • You will gain the ability to discern the assumptions and logics of distinct types of social scientific reasoning, to see how different modes of analysis interact, and what their respective merits and limits are.
  • You will gain the ability to structure and analyze complex phenomena from different perspectives, and to evaluate policy choices and outcomes according to different criteria or logics.

Learning Environment

We aim to equip you with the analytical tools you’ll need to understand crucial phenomena like globalization and democratization, as well as evaluate how policy choices affect human development. You’ll find that all three of the major’s disciplines are integral to helping you develop your critical thinking and reasoning skills, more effectively interpret the impact of political institutions on modern societies and systems, and master the ins and outs of government and business, with each course revealing new nuances and perspectives. 

Major Components
Build Your Degree

With every single one of our majors, you’ll find a carefully curated medley of core courses and electives, which will provide you with the tools you need to establish an unshakeable foundation in the principles and concepts fundamental to your growth within your disciplines of choice. Many majors also enable you to specialize further within the broader area of study.

Core Courses

Core Courses

We aim to help you develop a range of skills, capacities, and modes of inquiry that will be crucial for your future since employers and graduate schools are looking for the critical thinking and innovative problem-solving skills that are associated with a liberal arts education, including sophisticated writing abilities, willingness to pose difficult questions, and an understanding of the historical and cultural contexts surrounding a topic or decision. 

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Electives

Electives

Each elective provides you with entry to a variety of subject areas which you can choose among to further focus your studies. With the help of your academic advisor, you’ll be able to tailor your major so that it most effectively prepares you for the next step in your academic and professional journey.

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Core Courses

The Philosophy, Politics and Economics core courses, which you must take as part of the major requirements, will provide you with the tools you’ll need to ground your present and future studies. Your introduction to the fundamentals of Philosophy, Politics and Economics will help pave the way for your successful completion of other Philosophy, Politics and Economics courses.

 

PO1011 Foundations Of Modern Politics

What is politics - the quest for the common good or who gets what, when, and how? We study what defines politics in the modern age: states and nations in the international system, collective action and representation in mass societies, trajectories of democracy and dictatorship, politics and development in the context of capitalism. The course will introduce the student to the concerns, the language and the methods of Political Science.

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PO1012 Challenges Of Global Politics

This course examines key analytical and normative challenges of the present: global rebalancing and the emergence or reemergence of postcolonial states, uneven development, the role of culture in world politics, the future of the nation state, the global environmental imperative, mass forced and free migrations, the new landscape of armed conflict, the sources and implications of sharpening social divides, and the challenges to liberal-democratic theory and practice.

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PL2003 Political Philosophy

Political philosophy forms that branch of philosophy that reflects on the specificity of the political. Why are humans, as Aristotle argued, political animals? How are they political? What are the means and ends of the political, and how best does one organize the political with such questions in mind? The course offers a topic-oriented approach to the fundamental problems underlying political theory and practice.

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EC2010 Principles Of Microeconomics

Focuses on the role played by relative market prices in our society and on the forces of market supply and demand in determining these prices. Since the actions of consumers and firms underlie supply and demand, the course studies in detail the behavior of these two groups.

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EC2020 Principles Of Macroeconomics

Examines the determinants of the levels of national income, employment, rates of interest, and prices. Studies in detail the instruments of monetary and fiscal policy, highlighting the domestic and international repercussions of their implementation.

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EC2060 The Commons And The Market

What are the justifications and implications of using markets, and what arrangements are necessary to establish and protect the commons? This course studies foundational texts of (neo-)liberal economics that aim to legitimize market mechanisms; philosophical treatments and critiques of key concepts, such as rationality and motivation, property and common goods; political analyses of how allocative institutions produce distributional outcomes

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PO4037 Multi-disciplinary Perspect On Polit'l Econ

As the bridge-course for the major in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, this team-taught course offers a multidisciplinary perspective on key questions of political economy. First presenting the similarities and differences between philosophical, political and economic approaches to political and economic rationality, the course offers varied analyses of representation and government, the commons, security, inequality and debt. The overall purpose of the course is to engage students, at various levels of theoretical abstraction and empirical precision, with the fundamental issues lying between ethics, politics, and economics.

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