2003 Philosophy, Politics and Economics

PHILOSOPHY, POLITICS AND ECONOMICS
HANDBOOK 2003-04
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
PPE HANDBOOK 2003-04

This Handbook is revised annually and aims to be up-to-date in September for the next academic year. Comments and corrections should be addressed to the Academic Administrator, Department of Politics and International Relations. The current issue is available online at: www.politics.ox.ac.uk/teaching/ug/ppe/handbook/index.asp; for the latest course regulations, please be sure to check the web version.
* IMPORTANT *
1. Email: It is essential that you use email. It will be used to send you important information about your course. Please check your mail regularly, and do not exceed your user allocation, as this will prevent you from receiving new mail. The IT support staff in your college will set up an email account for you. 2. Lecture lists: A Social Sciences lecture list is published before the start of each term. The most up-to-date version is available on the following web sites: Philosophy Politics Economics www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk www.politics.ox.ac.uk www.economics.ox.ac.uk
Paper copies are available from your college tutor, in the departments and the Politics, International Relations and Sociology Library, the Economics Library, or the Philosophy Library. The paper copy does not contain material that is updated shortly before term. 3. Subject reading lists: These are available on the above websites and this is the easiest way to obtain them. Philosophy reading lists are also available at the Philosophy Library, and Politics subject outlines and tutorial reading lists are available from the Department of Politics and International Relations. Course outlines and subject reading lists for Economics can be obtained from the Department of Economics.
3
CONTENTS
PART A - THE COURSE

1. PPE 5 5 5 6 6 7 8 9 9 10 10 12 12 12 12 14 15 16
Content The PPE Degree Structure of the Course Choices Choosing your options Theses Supervised Dissertations in Politics Changing your Course Teaching and Learning Tutors Tutorials, Classes and Collections Lectures Vacations Examinations Procedures PPE Prelims PPE Finals Preparing for Examinations 2. Departments
Philosophy Centre Department of Politics and International Relations Department of Economics Department of Sociology Department of Social Policy and Social Work 3. Libraries and Computing
17 17 18 18 18
Libraries Computing IT Skills Data Protection
19 23 23 26
PART B - STUDENT ISSUES

4. Participation 31 31 32 32
Consultation Student Feedback Joint Consultative Committees (JCCs) Library Committees 5. Student Support
Equal Opportunities Harassment Disability Complaints Procedures Illness Scholarships, Prizes and Grants 6. The Future
33 33 33 34 34 35
Taking your degree Proceeding to Further Study Careers
37 37 37
Appendix A: Appendix B: Appendix C:
Outline of Papers in PPE Extracts from Examination Regulations 2003 List of key contacts
38 63 78
PART A - THE COURSE
1.
PPE
Content
The PPE Degree
PPE seeks to bring together some of the most important approaches to understanding the social and human world. It fosters intellectual capacities that you can apply across all three disciplines, and develops skills that you will find useful for a wide range of careers and activities after graduation. The degree is constructed on the belief that the parallel study of related disciplines significantly enhances your understanding of each discipline, bringing added dimensions of understanding and perspective. The study of Philosophy develops analytical rigour and the ability to criticise and reason logically. It allows you to apply these skills to many contemporary and historical schools of philosophical thought, and to questions concerning how we acquire knowledge and how we make ethical recommendations. The study of Politics gives you an understanding of the issues dividing societies and of the impact of political institutions on the form of social interest articulation and aggregation and on the character and effects of government policies. Among the big issues considered in Politics are, why democracies emerge and may be consolidated, or why states go to war or seek peace. The study of Economics aims to give you an understanding of the workings of contemporary economies. This includes the study of decisions of households, the behaviour of firms, and the functioning of markets under competition and monopoly, as well as the role of government policies in many areas. The course also looks at the determination of national income and employment, monetary institutions, inflation, the balance of payments and exchange rates, and considers issues in macroeconomic policy focusing in part on the UK economy.
The Structure of the Course
The PPE degree is divided into two parts. The first-year course is designed to give you a foundation in all three branches. In your second and third years, you may continue with all three or concentrate on just two. Whether or not your choice of subjects includes any of the specially designed bridge papers, such as Theory of Politics, Labour Economics, or Philosophy of Science and Social Science, your study in each subject will benefit from what you have learned and the skills you have acquired in other parts of the degree course.
The syllabus is set by the University, which grants degrees and therefore examines for them; but most teaching, apart from lectures, is arranged by your college. The PPE syllabus prescribes the subjects for two University examinations: the Preliminary Examination for Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE Prelims), normally taken at the end of your first year; and the Final Honour School of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE Finals),
normally taken at the end of your third year. Prelims consists of three subjects, Finals of eight. Each subject is examined in one three-hour paper, except that one subject in Finals may be a pre-submitted thesis, or a supervised dissertation in Politics. All syllabuses are published annually in the Universitys Examination Regulations (the grey book), to which this handbook will frequently refer. You received a copy of the undergraduate version of Examination Regulations when you arrived; you will be notified of any subsequent changes of regulation which significantly affect you, and if there are changes of syllabus which might affect you adversely, they will not apply to you without your consent. An up-to-date version is maintained on the Department of Politics and International Relations website. PPE Prelims is a part of the First Public Examination. Graduates of other universities can apply through their colleges for Senior Status, which exempts them from taking the First Public Examination. Everyone else must pass it in some form - i.e. pass some Prelims or Mods - before entering for a Final Honour School (or Pass School). Unless you are exempt, your college may require you to pass the First Public Examination before your fourth term from matriculating, as a condition of continuing with your course. If you take PPE Finals more than twelve terms after matriculating, you are overstanding for honours and can receive only a pass degree (unless your First Public Examination was Moderations in Classics, which allows you fifteen terms, or you have been granted dispensation by the University).
Choices
Choosing your options
In PPE Prelims you must offer all the three papers prescribed, one each in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. However, you are permitted to restrict your examination answers. In Philosophy the regulations require you to show adequate knowledge in at least two sections out of the three into which the paper is divided: Logic, General Philosophy, and Moral Philosophy. In Politics, they require you to show knowledge of at least two countries and of political theory/ideology. The Economics paper contains a mathematical/statistical section, which is optional. In none of these cases are you forbidden to range over the whole syllabus; and your tutors may expect you to study more than the examination minimum. But if they do not, then you have early choices to make within the Prelims syllabus, with the help of advice from your tutors. After Prelims the choices are greater. First you must decide whether to select two branches from Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, which will make you bipartite, or to keep going with the third as well, making you tripartite. This choice may be easy for you, if you were originally attracted to PPE for the sake of one or two of its branches and have not changed your priorities during your first year; or it may be difficult. If it is difficult, go by what interests you, provided that your tutors think you are suited to it; do not be too much affected by your marks in Prelims - which can differ greatly from Finals marks. A few subjects are available under more than one branch, and bipartite Politics and Economics candidates are allowed to include one Philosophy subject: see Examination Regulations.
Further guidance on the choice of individual subjects within the three disciplines is given in Appendix A.
Theses
One of your eight Finals subjects may be a thesis: see 199, 299 and 399 in the Honour School regulations in Examination Regulations. A Philosophy thesis must be combined with at least three other subjects in Philosophy. Bipartite candidates who offer a Politics or Economics thesis must combine it with at least three other subjects in the same branch. If you propose to offer a thesis, the latest date for seeking approval of its topic is Friday of Fourth Week of the Michaelmas Term preceding the Finals examination, but the right time to seek approval is before you start work on it, which is much earlier. Begin planning no later than your penultimate Easter Vacation, and have a talk with a tutor no later than the beginning of Trinity Term. If your tutor thinks that your proposal is manageable, get initial suggestions for reading and follow them up. Remember that tutors can only advise: the decision to offer a thesis is your own, and so is the choice of topic. So of course is the work; what makes a thesis worthwhile is that it is your own independent production. Good undergraduate thesis topics can vary in character a great deal, but all have two things in common: they are focused, so as to answer a question, or set of questions, or advance an argument; and they are manageable, so that the time available is enough for your research and reflection on it, and 15,000 words is enough for an interesting treatment. Titles of past PPE theses are listed in the PPE Examiners Reports, which can be found in the PPE Reading Room of the Bodleian and on the Philosophy or the Politics website. If you decide to go ahead, submit your title and 100-word outline, in accordance with the regulations for theses in Examination Regulations, for approval during Trinity Term, so that you can do the bulk of the work during the Long Vacation. Do not worry if your outline is not in the end very closely adhered to; the point of it is to make clear the general subject of the thesis and to show that you have some idea how to go about tackling it. The regulations state that you may discuss with your tutor the field of study, the sources available, and the method of presentation. Before you start work, go over the plan of the whole thesis very carefully with your tutor. The plan must be yours, but the tutor can help you make sure it is clear, coherent and feasible. Get more advice on reading. But bear in mind that much of your reading will be discovered by yourself; so arrange to be in Oxford, or near a large library, for some weeks of the Long Vacation. Avoid letting your topic expand, and focus your reading on the issue you intend to write about; 15,000 words is the length of two articles, not a book. Your tutor may also read and comment on a first draft (in the case of Philosophy, on drafts), and the amount of assistance the tutor may give is equivalent to the teaching of a normal paper; so tutorial sessions can be used for trying out first drafts of parts of the thesis. However, you have to write the finished version on your own; make sure you allow plenty of time - almost certainly more will be needed than you first anticipated. You must not exceed the limit of 15,000 words, excluding bibliography. That will probably, to your surprise, become a
problem; but the exercise of pruning is a valuable one, encouraging clarity and precision which you should be aiming for in any case. Some general advice: (i) the examiners cannot read your mind; explain in your introduction just what you are going to do, and in what follows present the argument, step by step, in as sharp a focus as you can achieve: (ii) examiners will notice if you try to fudge issues or sweep difficulties aside; it is much better to be candid about them, and to show that you appreciate the force of counter-arguments; (iii) take grammar and spelling seriously, and always aim at a simple English style, avoiding convoluted sentences and preferring short words to long (there is sound advice which may be relevant in George Orwell, Politics and the English Language, in his Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters, (1946), volume 4). Your bibliography should list all works to which you refer, plus any others you have used that bear on the final version. The style for references can be modelled on any book or periodical in your field. The rules for format and submission, and for change of title, are in the Examination Regulations. If for any reason you expect to submit your thesis late, consult your college Senior Tutor in good time. The Vice-Chancellor and Proctors may grant permission on payment of a latepresentation fee which they determine; but they may at the same time give permission to the examiners to reduce the mark on the thesis by up to one class. If permission is not sought, or is refused, the thesis may be rejected, or its mark may be reduced by up to one class. The Department of Politics and International Relations issues more detailed Notes of Guidance on Politics theses, which you can obtain from the Department Office.
Supervised Dissertations in Politics
One of your eight subjects may be a supervised dissertation in Politics, which is similar to a thesis except that there is a group of students, studying a common theme, all writing separate dissertations on it. The dissertation may not be combined with a thesis in any branch, or with fewer than three other politics subjects if you are a bipartite candidate. The regulations state that with the approval of the Politics Sub-faculty, members of staff willing to supervise a research topic shall through the Courses Manager of the Department of Politics and International Relations place on the noticeboard of the Department not later than Friday of Fourth Week of Hilary Term a short description of an area of Politics (including International Relations and Sociology) in which they have a special interest, a list of possible dissertation topics lying within that area, an introductory reading list, and a time and place at which they will meet those interested in writing a dissertation under their supervision for assessment in the following years [Final] examination... This means Hilary Term of your penultimate year. So if the idea appeals to you, it is best discussed with your tutor no later than the beginning of that term; if your interest arises too late for the Hilary Term meetings, you will need your tutor's advice about the practicalities too. You do not need to seek formal approval for a dissertation topic (unlike a thesis). The rules on length, format and submission, late submission, and change of title, are the same as for theses: see Examination Regulations.
The Department of Politics and International Relations issues `Notes of guidance' which you can obtain from the Department.
Changing your course
Sometimes the course you have chosen will not seem to be working out for you and you may wish to consider changing. Do not seek to change course at the first sign of difficulty. All courses that are worth anything bring the student up against obstacles, and your tutors will guide you past them. Seek the advice of your tutors at all times when in difficulty. Discuss problems also with your contemporaries; you are not in competition with them, and you should get into the habit of helping and being helped. But if, having thought the matter through, you wish to explore the possibility of changing, the first rule is, Do not delay - you could be losing vital learning time. Talk to your current tutors or, if that is embarrassing, to your College Adviser or the Senior Tutor or some other Fellow whom you know. If you decide you really do want to change, there are three bodies which must approve: the University, your college, and those who are paying for you. College approval is usually the most difficult. The University is unlikely to be a problem. There are no restrictions on examination entry: provided that your college approves, you may be a candidate in any part of the First Public Examination; and the condition for entering for a Final Honour School, besides college approval, is that (if not exempt) you should have passed some part of the First Public Examination - any complete Prelims or Mods will do. However, a few departments, such as Psychology, do have quotas for acceptance on to their courses. Your college has admitted you to read for a particular Honour School, or a particular combination of First Public Examination plus Honour School. You cannot change without its permission, which is liable to be refused if the `receiving' tutors think you unsuited to their course, or do not have room (in some courses, e.g. Law and English, the teaching resources are often very strained). If you hold an award from your Local Education Authority, even if it's fees-only, you will need the authority's permission to change course, which will be given only if backed with full college approval. Your Senior Tutor will do the correspondence. Other awards, scholarships, sponsorship, etc. may be tied to a particular course. Again the Senior Tutor will help, once your college has agreed to let you change.
Teaching and Learning

As you are no doubt aware, Oxford is almost unique in the way teaching is organised. Knowledge will be imparted to you through a mixture of lectures, classes and tutorials, with the latter playing a particularly important part. This is what differentiates Oxford from most universities in the world. The following brief notes should help you understand the importance of tutors, tutorials and University lectures for the course.
10 Tutors
Anyone to whom you go for tutorials or college classes counts as one of your tutors. In your preparation for PPE Prelims there are bound to be at least three of them, and over the whole course there may well be eight or ten. Some will be tutorial fellows or lecturers of your own college; some may be tutorial fellows or lecturers of other colleges, or research fellows, or graduate students. The overall responsibility for giving or arranging your tuition will lie with tutorial fellows or lecturers of your own college, probably one in each of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. Behind them stands the Senior Tutor, who must see that proper arrangements are made if one of these people is absent through illness or on leave. Tuition for a term is normally arranged at the end of the preceding term; so before going down each term you should make sure that you have received reading guidance and the names of your tutors for all the work you will be doing in the following term. (In the occasional cases in which the name of the tutor is not yet known you should make sure you have received an explanation and that you are confident that arrangements will be in place by the beginning of term.) Some tutors like to see their pupils at the end of the preceding term to make detailed arrangements. Colleges have different rules about when term begins. The official start is Sunday of First Week of Full Term, but you will almost certainly be required back before then, and you should try to ensure that by the Sunday at the very latest you know who your tutors for the term will be, have met or corresponded with them, and have been set work and assigned tutorial times by them. If you would like to receive tuition from a particular person in Oxford, ask the in-college tutor concerned; do not approach the person yourself, who cannot take you on without a request from your college. If you would like a change of tutor, say so if it is not embarrassing; otherwise Do not just do nothing, but take the problem to someone else in your college - your College Adviser, the Senior Tutor, the Womens Adviser, the Chaplain, or even the head of college, if your difficulty is serious. Most such problems arise from a personality clash that has proved intractable; but since in a university of Oxfords size there are almost certain to be alternative tutors for most of your subjects, theres no point in putting up with a relationship that is impeding your academic progress. In these circumstances you can usually expect a change, but not necessarily to the particular tutor whom you would prefer. In Economics, the provision of classes and tutorials for optional subjects will be organised by the Department. Centrally nominated subject convenors will communicate with college tutors at the end of each term on the allocation of students to particular tutors for the forthcoming term.
Tutorials, Classes and Collections
What you are expected to bring to a tutorial is knowledge of the reading that was set for it (or a variant on your own initiative if some book or article proves really inaccessible) and any written work demanded. What you have a right to expect is your tutors presence and scholarly attention throughout the hour agreed, plus guidance, e.g. a reading list, for next time. Beyond that, styles differ, depending on how many students are sharing the tutorial, the nature of the
11
topic, and above all the habits and personality of your tutor. You must not expect uniformity, and you will gain most if you succeed in adapting to differences. In PPE it is necessary to cover eight Finals subjects in five tutorial terms (the weeks before the Finals examination being usually set aside for revision). So you will nearly always have more than one tutorial a week. The three PPE disciplines have, however, agreed that you should not normally be expected to write more than twelve tutorial essays a term. Work on a tutorial essay involves library searches, reading, thinking, and writing. It should occupy a minimum of three days. Read attentively and thoughtfully. As your reading progresses, think up a structure for your essay (but do not write an elaborate plan which you will not have time to execute). Expect to have to sort out your thoughts, both during and after reading. USE ESSAYS TO DEVELOP AN ARGUMENT, NOT AS PLACES TO STORE INFORMATION. You will learn a lot if you share ideas with fellow students, and if you try out ideas in tutorial discussion. Remember that tutorials are not designed as a substitute for lectures, or for accumulating information, but to develop coherent verbal arguments and the capacity to think on ones feet, and to tackle specific difficulties and misunderstandings. This means that note-taking, if it occurs in a tutorial at all, should be very much incidental to the overriding dialogue. You should, however, leave time after the tutorial to make a record on paper of the discussion. Students are broadly encouraged to use word processors, though there are arguments for and against. On the one hand it makes ones notes and essays more inviting to read later, and in writing an essay it becomes possible to postpone commitment to all the stages in an argument until the very end of the essay-writing process. On the other hand there is a danger of getting out of practice in hand-writing time-limited examinations, especially University examinations, in which word-processors may not be used. Some tuition is by means of college or University department classes, a system specially suited to subjects in which written work is exercises rather than essays - e.g. logic, econometrics, or statistics. In the case of certain FHS papers in Politics, reading organised by colleges is supplemented by departmental classes. The information on the classes is included in the Course Outline and Bibliography for each of the papers. You have a right to expect that written work for a class will be returned to you with written or oral comments. Most colleges will require you to sit college examinations, so-called collections, before the start of each term. Their object is to test your comprehension of work already covered, and to give you practice in sitting examinations. Make sure at the end of each term that you know the tim es and subjects of next terms collections. Oxford trains you as a writer to deadlines; so equip yourself with a writers tools - a dictionary, such as the Concise Oxford Dictionary, and, unless you are very confident, a thesaurus and Modern English Usage.
12 Lectures
While tutorials and classes will be mainly organised by your College, lectures are provided centrally by the University departments. A lecture list is published each term, covering all three branches of PPE; and Philosophy issues lecture prospectuses which describe the contents of the terms lectures. Get a copy of the lecture list, and the relevant prospectuses, from the web sites, or from the Politics, International Relations, and Sociology Library, the Economics Library, and the Philosophy Centre. Take your copy of the list to your meetings with tutors: all of them will have advice on which lectures to attend. The lecture list includes a provisional programme for the remainder of the academic year, which will help you to plan for the future. Do not expect lectures on a subject always to coincide with the term in which you are writing essays on that subject. Important lectures may come a term or two before or after your tutorials, and in the case of some less popular options they may come in your second year and not be repeated in your third year: consult your tutors early about this risk. The importance of lectures varies from subject to subject within PPE. Some lectures give a personal version of what could be got, in other personal versions, from books. Others provide the last word on a fast developing subject, or the only satisfactory overview on a subject whose boundaries are not well recognised in the literature. It is perilous to miss the core lectures on your chosen options: although in Oxfords system lecturers do not necessarily set the University examinations, they may be consulted by those who do. The lecture prospectuses inform examiners as well as students about the content of lectures.
Vacations
UK degree courses are among the shortest in the world. They hold their own in international competition only because they are full-time courses, covering vacation as well as term. This is perhaps particularly true of Oxford, where the eight-week terms (technically called Full Terms) occupy less than half the year. Vacations have to include holiday time; and everyone recognises that for very many students they also have to include money-earning time. Nevertheless vacation study is vital. You are said to read for an Oxford degree, and PPE is certainly a reading course: its study is mainly the study of material obtained from books and other documents. In term you will mostly rush from one article or chapter to another, pick their bones, and write out your reactions. Vacations are the time for less hectic attention to complete books. Tutorials break a subject up; vacations allow consolidation. They give depth and time for serious thought. They are also particularly important for reading set or core texts.
Examinations
Procedures
Each year a board of seven moderators, drawn from the academic staff, is appointed to examine PPE Prelims, and a board of up to nineteen examiners, also drawn from the academic staff except for three external members, is appointed to examine PPE Finals. The
13
Finals examiners are assisted by a number of assessors, also staff members, who spread the load and deal with some of the specialised subjects. It is chance whether any of your own tutors examines you. If that happens, the convention is that the tutor takes no part knowingly in deciding your result; but since scripts are anonymous, tutors rarely take part knowingly so the convention is seldom required to operate. It is your personal responsibility to enter for University examinations, and if you enter, or change your options, after the due date, you must pay a late fee and gain the examiners consent. Entry is through colleges. The forms are kept in college offices, which may advertise times for applying. The University deadlines are listed each year in Examination Regulations. The starting dates of examinations, which Do not often vary in relation to weeks of term, are announced each year in Examination Regulations and the University Diary. Working to these dates, a timetable is issued a month or two before each examination; this is posted in the Examination Schools, and probably also in your college lodge. A month or two before Finals, the examiners send a memorandum to all candidates about the conduct of the examination. At University examinations, including vivas, you must wear academic dress with sub-fusc clothing. Academic dress is a gown, and a regulation cap or mortar board (it must be a mortar board for men). Sub -fusc clothing is: for women, a dark skirt or trousers, a white blouse, black tie, black stockings and shoes, and, if desired, a dark coat; for men, a dark suit and socks, black shoes, a white bow tie, and plain white shirt and collar. There are special University regulations on the typing of illegible scripts (NB: the cost of typing and invigilation shall not be a charge on university funds), on the use of typewriters in examinations, on blind candidates, on dyslexic candidates, on Jewish candidates unable to take papers on certain days, on the use (where permitted) of calculators in examinations, and on the use (where permitted) of computers in examinations; see Examination Regulations. If your native language is not English, you may request to use your own bilingual dictionary during examinations. The request must go to the Proctors through your college, usually your Senior Tutor. If you have any problems connected with University examinations which you want to take further, never approach the examiners directly: always communicate through your Senior Tutor. This applies to complaints too (although every student has a statutory right to consult the Proctors directly on any matter at any time in their Oxford career). The University regulations for PPE Prelims and PPE Finals are in Examination Regulations, which appear in the appendix to this han dbook. In addition to the two main public examinations described below, you are required to attend a one-day course in Information Technology. Following this course you must submit an ITbased project. For those coming up in October 2003 and thereafter, the course will be taken in Hilary Term of your first year of study. You will need to submit a satisfactory project in order to pass PPE Prelims. You will be sent details of these courses via email, and through your colleges. It is necessary to plan your tim etable well ahead, to ensure that you are available to attend them. (Further information on Computing and IT skills is provided in Section Three.)
14 PPE Prelims
To complete the PPE Prelim you must pass all three subjects and the IT project. If you fail one or more subjects in June (or miss any examinations through illness), the University allows you (subject to your colleges agreement) to retake in September any paper you failed (or missed). Papers are marked on the scale 0-85. The marks can be interpreted as follows - you will notice that this is much the same as for Finals, but the level of attainment that is expected for Prelims is, of course, considerably lower: 85-70: work displaying analytical and argumentational power, with good command of the facts and/or arguments relevant to the questions and evidence of ability to organise them with clarity, insight and efficiency. 69-60: work displaying analytical power and argumentational power, but with less comprehensive and thorough command of evidence; or work showing considerable thoroughness but less analytical skill or less clarity in organisation. 59-50: competent work with no major defects, but giving an incomplete account of the question, or marred by inaccuracies; or work which demonstrates lapses in (but does not lack) analytical and argumentational skills. 49-40: work that is generally weak with muddled argumentation, but containing some evidence of knowledge of facts and analytical skill; or work that, while competent and knowledgeable in itself, does not address the question asked by the examiners. 39 and below: very poor quality work, showing little if any evidence of effective study. 0: Any script which fails to fulfil the rubric for the paper is liable to be given this mark: e.g. failure to obey the instructions about answering questions from the different sections of the paper, or, in the case of Introduction to Politics, failure to show knowledge of two countries. You should note that one of the commonest reasons for answers receiving poor marks is irrelevance. It is very important to direct your answer at the question which has actually been asked. In 2003, Distinctions were awarded to candidates who scored a total of 200 or more on the written papers and submitted a satisfactory IT project. The pass mark for each of the three papers was 40; but compensation was allowed for fail marks in the range 37-39 on one paper, if marks on both the others were 58 or better. The examiners report your marks to the college, which normally communicates them to you. In 2003 the outcome of the June PPE Prelim was: Distinction 12.5%; Pass 68%; Fail in the IT Project only 17%; Fail in one or more subject 3%. To enter for Finals you must have passed the PPE Prelim as a whole (or some other First Public Examination), but your Prelims results do not contribute to your Finals result.
PPE HANDBOOK 2003-2004 PPE Finals
15
All scripts, theses and supervised dissertations are double marked. Any wide discrepancies, or discrepancies that might affect a candidates class, are either re-read by the two original markers or given an adjudicating mark by a third marker. The External Examiners play a special role in adjudication. The class boundaries are set as an average mark, except that the highest Honours can be obtained by excellence in a minority of s ubjects offered provided that adequate knowledge is shown throughout the examination (Examination Regulations), and a Fail mark in one or more subjects may disqualify for Honours or even, in extreme circumstances, for a Pass degree. Candidates who miss a paper are governed by the general regulations in Examination Regulations, which allow for classification in some circumstances. The mark scale for individual papers is divided by classes:
Class I 85 70
II 1 69 60
II 2 59 - 50
III 49 - 40
Pass 39 - 30
Fail below 30
The boundary for classifying each candidate to a class is an average mark which is in most cases set a little below the minimum mark associated with that class (e.g. it is not necessary to score an average of 70 for a First) and a preponderance requirement which states that at least two papers are marked within the relevant class (e.g. for a first you would need to papers marked at 70 or above, and an average a little below 70). There are penalties for a missing or negligible answer, and for ignoring instructions on the question paper (such as show knowledge of both authors), which vary according to the seriousness of the omission.
One mark is deducted from the aggregate average mark of candidates who came up before October 2002 and did not pursue, to an adequate standard, the prescribed course in Information Technology referred to above. Candidates coming up in October 2002 or after are required to submit an Information Technology project of a satisfactory standard to be able to enter for Finals in PPE. Uniform standards required of markers are as or like the following: First Class script: work displaying analytical and argumentational power, with good command of the facts and/or arguments relevant to the questions and evidence of ability to organise them with clarity, insight and efficiency. When these qualities are evident in all questions attempted, the mark should be 74 or above. Upper Second Class script: work displaying analytical power and argumentation of the quality associated with a First, but with less comprehensive and thorough command of evidence; or work showing considerable thoroughness but less analytical skill or less clarity in organisation.
16

Lower Second Class script: competent work with no major defects, but giving an incomplete account of the question, or marred by inaccuracies; or work which demonstrates lapses in (but does not lack) analytical and argumentational skills. Third Class script: work that is generally weak with muddled argumentation, but containing some evidence of knowledge of facts and analytical skill; or work that, while competent and knowledgeable in itself, does not address the question asked by the examiners. Pass Degree script: very poor quality work, showing only slight evidence of effective study. Fail script: work of still lower standard, but not so poor that it should prevent the candidate from being awarded a degree if able to show better ability in enough other subjects. Outright Fail script: work of such a dismal standard that the candidate should not be awarded a Pass degree irrespective of performance in other subjects, unless the examining board finds exceptional mitigating circumstances.
The examiners report your marks to your college, which communicates them to you. In 2003 the division by outcome of PPE Finals was: I, 16%; II 1, 75%; II 2, %; III, 1%; Pass, 0%; Fail, 0%.
Preparing for examinations
When planning your examination strategy, it is sensible to keep in mind the nature of the examination method which the University uses (the conventional method in UK higher education over the past two centuries). If the examiners allowed you to set the questions, you could prepare good answers in a few months; by setting the questions themselves, they ensure that a candidate cannot be adequately prepared without study over a broad area. They will therefore not be interested in answers which are in any way off the point, and they will severely penalise short weight - too few properly written out answers. The examiners are looking for your own ideas and convictions, and you mustnt be shy of presenting them as your own: whether you are conscious of having inherited them from somebody else doesnt matter one way or the other. When you have selected a question, work out what it means and decide what you think is the answer to it. Then, putting pen to paper, state the answer and defend it; or, if you think there is no answer, explain why not. Abstain from presenting background material. Do not write too much: most of those who run out of time have themselves to blame for being distracted into irrelevance. Good examinees emerge from the examination room with most of their knowledge undisplayed. Examiners reports are available on the departmental websites and can be helpful in identifying the characteristics of good and bad answers in the various papers.
17
2.
DEPARTMENTS
The Departments of Politics and International Relations, of Economics, of Sociology, and of Social Policy are in the Social Sciences Division, one of five Divisions in the University, between which the academic departments and faculties are divided. The Faculty of Philosophy is part of the Humanities Division. The administration of the PPE degree is carried out by the Department of Politics and International Relations. The PPE Committee, consisting of the members of the Faculty of Philosophy, the Department of Politics and International Relations, and the Department of Economics meets at least once a term to consider issues relating to the course. The members of the Departments and Faculties are those employed to carry out teaching or research within the University. Further details of staff in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, including their research interests, are available on the web sites: www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk www.politics.ox.ac.uk www.economics.ox.ac.uk
The Philosophy Centre

The Philosophy Centre at 10 Merton Street is open from 09.30 to 17.25, Monday to Friday (16.25 outside of weeks 0 - 9). The administrative offices are closed between 13.00 and 14.00. The Centre is sometimes open for evening meetings, or when its component Library (see below) has longer hours. The Centre is closed for about ten days at Christmas and Easter, and for five weeks from the beginning of August to early September. As well as the Library, it contains a lecture room, a seminar room, a meeting room, a common room, a garden, and the administrative offices. All enquiries, including the purchasing of Logic Exercises (widely used in Prelims logic teaching) and other study aids, should be directed to the Secretarial Assistant (Tel: (2)76926; Email: secretarial.assistant@philosophy.ox.ac.uk) in room G11 (second office on the left of the administrative corridor). A few members of the Philosophy Faculty have offices in this building, though most are based in their colleges.
Department of Politics and International Relations

The Department is located in George Street, opposite the cinema. The side entrance is from New Inn Hall Street. On all visits, bring your university card for access. The Department is open in term time from 09.00 to 19.00, Monday to Friday, and also 09.30 to 13.00 on Saturdays; in vacation from 09.00 to 17.00, Monday to Friday, except between Christmas and the New Year. It contains the Politics, International Relations, and Sociology Library; the offices of the Head of Department and departmental administrative staff; a common room; a lecture theatre, two seminar rooms, and a computing room. The Departmental offices are open for enquiries between 11.00 and 13.00, Monday to Friday, including the office of the Undergraduate Studies Secretary. Coffee, etc. may be purchased in the Common Room from 10.30 to 11.30, and tea from 15.30 to 16.30 (16.00 in vacations). There is an undergraduate noticeboard in the corridor by the Departments Courses Office. The Department will move
18
from its current location in George Street during the long vacation in 2004 to the new social sciences building in Manor Road, which already houses the Department of Economics. The Politics, International Relations and Sociology library (see below) currently in George Street will also move to the new building.
Department of Economics
The Department is located in the Manor Road Building, on the St Cross site, where you will also find the Economics Library and some lecture and seminar rooms. The full address is: Manor Road Building, Manor Road, Oxford OX1 3UQ (Tel: (2)71073), opening hours: 8.3018.00. Most members of the Department have an office and collect mail there and the Undergraduate Administrator is based there. This is where you can obtain lecture handouts, seminar notices, etc. These will, however, be available on the Economics web site and you should use this for information in the first instance.
Department of Sociology
The Department is concerned primarily with graduate degrees in Sociology. However, members give lectures and tutorials for PPE undergraduates in Political Sociology, Sociological Theory, Sociology of Industrial Societies, and Social Statistics. Its research programme includes work on social and political change, the sociology of elections, ethnicity and national identity, and the life course and ageing. A number of PPE students have written theses based on the Departments research projects. The Department is located at Littlegate House, St Ebbes Street (Tel: (2)86170). On all visits, bring your university card for access. All students are invited to attend the weekly departmental seminars. Further information on the Department and the seminars can be found at www.sociology.ox.ac.uk . The Department will move to the new social sciences building in the summer of 2004.
Department of Social Policy and Social Work

The Department is located at Barnett House, 32 Wellington Square (Tel: (2)70325). It is primarily concerned with graduate degrees in Social Work and Comparative Social Policy. Its senior members give lectures and tutorials for PPE undergraduates in Social Policy and in Demography. Its research programme includes work on social policy, demography, social security, the family, social deprivation and disadvantage, social work and probation, and psychology. The tutorials are usually held in the Department, as may be some of the lectures and classes. The Social Policy and Social Work library in the Department supports the reading lists for courses taught by the Department (see below).
19
3.
LIBRARIES AND COMPUTING
Libraries
The library provision in Oxford University is very good but rather complex. PPE students will need to use a variety of libraries during the academic year 2003-2004. From October 2004, all reading list texts in support of Politics and Economics will be housed in a single Social Science Library on Manor Road. Your local college l brary has a good selection of i books which can be borrowed. A more extensive range of books is available from the relevant University libraries. Brief information about each of these libraries is listed below. Looking at the web sites, picking up a paper guide, or asking the library staff can provide you with further information about specific services or the rules and regulations of each library. Admission: The university card, which is distributed by your college, will be required to enter and/or to borrow books or to order items from closed stacks. The best policy is to always carry your university card with you when you go to a library. (If you lose your university card, request a replacement as soon as possible from your college.) Induction: There are library induction sessions for all PPE students during 0th week. You will be taught how to use OLIS, the Oxford University library catalogue, and OxLIP, the local interface to a large selection of subject databases and internet resources. These sessions take place in the Computing Service (13 Banbury Road) and in the Philosophy Library (10 Merton Street). You will receive further instructions from your college about the timing of these sessions. If you miss your induction session, the Philosophy Library offers four sessions daily for new members throughout the year. Finding books: Begin by checking the OLIS catalogue for items listed on your reading lists but bear in mind that not all books are on OLIS. You may need to use the paper catalogue in some libraries. Ask library staff for assistance if you cannot find the books you need. Ask the library how to suggest new purchases if the item is not in an Oxford library. Finding journal articles: First look for the title of the journal in the OLIS catalogue. If it is not there, ask if there is a separate journal list. If you do not know the issue or the page number of the article, ask library staff who can help you search for the item in one of the many subject databases available from OxLIP, e.g. EconLIT, Philosophers Index. Over 7,000 journals are now available electronically via TDNet on OxLIP. This allows you to read the journal article from any PC in Oxford. Feel free to ask library staff for further information and assistance. Borrowing from a library or reading in the library: Once you have found the books or journal articles you wish to read, you will have a choice of either borrowing the item or reading the confined copy in the library. Please note that Bodleian Library books cannot be borrowed. In addition, your college library will often have lending copies of items on reading lists.
20
Subjects and Opening Hours:
Library Main subjects covered
Term opening hours Mon to Fri Saturday 9:00 - 13:00
BOD PPE
Economics, Management, Philosophy, Politics, International Relations, Sociology History, Education, Art, Anthropology Official Papers (Parliamentary papers, government publications etc) Economics
9:00 22:00
BOD Upper Camera BOD Official Papers (Radcliffe Camera Basement) Economics
9:00 22:00 9:00 22:00
9:00 - 13:00 9:00 - 12:30
9:00 - 22:00 (9:00 - 18:00 Fri) 9:00 19:00 9:30 17:30 9:00 18:00
9:30 - 17:00
History Philosophy International Development Centre Library (QEH)
History Philosophy Development Studies (Economics, Sociology, Politics, current history of developing countries) Science Business and Management Studies Social Policy and Demography
9:00 - 12:30 9:30 - 12:00 Closed
Radcliffe Science Library Said Business School Social Policy and Social Work
9:00 22:00 9:00 19:00 9:15 16:45
09:00 - 13:00 11.00 - 17.00 Closed
(some lunchtime closure)
Politics, IR and Sociology
Politics, International Relations and Sociology American Politics
9:00 19:00
9:30 - 13:00
Rothermere American Institute
9:00 19:00
9:00 13:00
Photocopying facilities and copyright law:
The copying of books and journals and the use of self-service photocopiers are subject to the provisions of the Copyright License issued to the University of Oxford by the Copyright Licensing Agency for the copying (from paper on to paper) of: up to 5% or one complete chapter (whichever is the greater) from a book; up to 5% or one whole article (whichever is the greater) from a single issue of a journal; up to 5% or one paper (whichever is the greater) from a set of conference proceedings.
21
Library
Number of copiers 2 2 2 3 3 2 1
Price per copy
Type of card
BOD PPE BOD Upper Camera BOD Official Papers Economics History Philosophy IDCL
7p self-service 7p self-service 7p self-service 5p 5p 6p 5p (Cashkard) 10p (cash) 7p A4, 10p A3 5p 5p 5p 7p
University common card University common card University common card University common card Key system (ask staff) University common card EMOS
Radcliffe Science Library Said Business School Social Policy and Social Work Politics, IR and Sociology Rothermere American Institute
8 2 1 2 1
University common card Photocopying Account University common card University common card University common card
Computing facilities:
Library Electricity mains for laptops? YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES Ethernet available for laptops? NO NO YES YES YES NO YES NO YES Location allowed
BOD PPE BOD Camera Economics History Philosophy International Development (QEH) Rhodes House Social Policy and Social Work Politics, IR and Sociology
Designated desks Designated desks Designated desks West Room Information Resources Room Designated desks Designated desks Reading Room Electricity: all reading rooms Ethernet: Periodicals Room All Rooms
Rothermere American Institute
PENDING
PENDING
22 Loan entitlement:
Econ History Philos IDCL SBS
SP and SW 6
PIRS
RAI
Loan Allowance Loan Period (days) Renewal allowed? Number of Renewals Renewal via OLIS? Reservation allowed? Reservation via OLIS?
20
10
6 normal 3 overnight 7
8 x 2 day 6 x 7 day 2 or 7
20
NIL
2, 7 or same day YES
2 or 7
2, 7 or overnight YES
2, 7 or same day YES
N/A
YES
YES
YES
YES
N/A
N/A
YES
NO
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
N/A
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
N/A
YES
NO
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
N/A
The Bodleian:
Reference Library Number of stack requests allowed 6 Held in library for how long? Reservation for stack material allowed? YES Reservation via OLIS OPAC possible? YES
Bodleian (inc PPE, Camera, Rhodes House)
7 days
Further information:
Library Bodleian Economics History Philosophy Int. Development (QEH) Web address www.bodley.ox.ac.uk www.ssl.ox.ac.uk http://www.history.ox.ac.uk/libraryit/faclib/index.htm www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/guides/philosophy/ www2.qeh.ox.ac.uk/library/index.html

Rhodes House Social Policy Politics, IR and Sociology Rothermere American Institute www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/guides/pdf/rhl01.pdf www.ssl.ox.ac.uk www.ssl.ox.ac.uk http://www.lib.ox.ac.uk/libraries/guides/VHL.html
23
Other libraries, which might be of interest to PPE students, include: Bodleian Japanese, Bodleian Law, Classics, Hooke, Indian Institute, Radcliffe Science and Theology. We hope you will enjoy using Oxfords libraries. Please respect other library users and take care of library books and facilities.
Computing
All colleges have a computer room, with software for word-processing and other applications, connections to the central University machines and the Internet, and printers. There are fourteen reader workstations situated throughout the Philosophy Library at 10 Merton Street, including three in the new Computing Resources Room, which also has a printer and mains and ethernet points for students who want to use their own laptops in the building. The Library and Centre are open 09.30 - 17.25 (16.25 outside of weeks 0 - 9) Monday to Friday. The Department of Politics and International Relations contains a computing room with 15 PCs connected to the Internet. They have access to a wide range of specialist social sciences research software. Undergraduates may apply to use computers in the Department by obtaining the support of their College Politics tutor and contacting the Departments IT Officers (mailto:it-support@politics.ox.ac.uk and webmaster@politics.ox.ac.uk ). The room is used also for computer-based courses. Computing facilities in the Department of Economics are listed at www.economics.ox.ac.uk/faculty/computing.htm. Oxford University Computing Services (OUCS) is at 13 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6NN. The building is open to non-keyholders Monday to Friday 08.30 - 20.30. Undergraduates have access to the IT training courses, to the Learning and Resource Centre (Monday to Friday 09.00 20.30), and to the shop (Monday to Friday 09.00 (Thursday 09.30) - 16.45); also, by application, to printers and software on the central UNIX computers. Further details may be obtained on-line at www.oucs.ox.ac.uk .
IT Skills
By the end of your first year we expect you to have the essential IT skills set out below; those listed as desirable would be useful for your future employment but are not a
24
requirement of your course. While many students coming to Oxford will already possess most if not all of these skills, those who need to develop any are required to do this in their own time. Your college will provide the basic hardware, software and support. For those who would prefer to attend training courses, OUCS (Oxford University Computing Services, 13 Banbury Road) has a number of relevant courses set out below; information about courses and registration details can be obtained either from your college IT support service, from the reception desk at OUCS, or on-line at www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/courses (where there is a description of each course as well as details about the prerequisite knowledge and dates). There is no fee for attending any of these courses but a charge is made for course documentation. OUCS also has the LaRC (Learning and Resource Centre), a supported working environment where you can teach yourself using a variety of materials such as videos, computer-based materials, multimedia courseware and books. You can also study the OUCS courses in your own time, and materials for the European Computer Driving Licence (ECDL) are available.
Skill Essential Basic use of a PC MS Windows Essential IT skills: basics and beyond (includes Windows, Word, Excel, data bases, www, file management) (1) Word styles and table of contents (2) Word tables, tabs and indents (3) Word mail merge (1) Introduction to Email (2) Configuring and using Outlook Express (3) Essential web publishing skills (4) Searching the web for on-line resources Recommended software OUCS Course
Word-processing
MS Word(*)
Email and use of the Internet
Netscape or Internet Explorer
Desirable Spreadsheets Presentation and drawing MS Excel (*) MS Power Point (*) Designing and Using Spreadsheets (1) Introduction to Power Point (2) Creating presentations with MS PowerPoint (1) Database design (2) Essential access
Database and filing systems
MS Access (*)
(*) These are part of the integrated Microsoft Office suite. The University has a site license for this software (available via the OUCS shop) for use in departments and colleges but it cannot supply copies to individual students. You can obtain your own copy for about 120 from a local supplier (see www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/shop/msl.html). You will not be examined in any of these skills. However, you may wish to gain the European Computer Driving Licence (ECDL). This qualification has been established across
25
the European Union (and is now recognised internationally) as a means of verifying computer literacy. It covers all the skills listed above and assessment will be carried out at a testing centre. OUCS provide training and testing; further details are on-line at www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ecdl/. Undergraduates are required in their first year to submit a report of an Information Technology-based project. There will be a one-day course in IT, in the middle of Hilary Term, which will provide instruction on the IT necessary to complete the project. The project report has to be handed in by the first day of Trinity Term in the first year. The submission of a satisfactory report is a requirement for entering the Final examinations. Should you fail to submit by the first day of Trinity Term in your first year, or should y our report not be deemed satisfactory, there is an opportunity to submit three weeks before the start of Michaelmas Full Term in your second year. This should be avoided if possible, though, as there is not third chance to submit should this second submission fail. You will be sent details of the IT course and project details through your colleges at the start of Hilary Term of your first year. It is necessary to plan your timetable well ahead to ensure that you are available to attend this course. For third year students, various optional papers in PPE may have integrated practical sessions involving the use of relevant software. You will need to use IT during your course. Many tutors encourage students to present at least some of their essays in word-processed form. There is a web-based information service for PPE students, which you are advised to use: www.politics.ox.ac.uk/teaching/index.htm . This contains information on, amongst other things, the lecture list, reading lists, recent finals papers and examiners reports; the JCC also has its own web page. It is essential that you use electronic mail as this will be used to communicate information to you by department or faculty staff. Your college will supply you with an email account. Your email address will be of the form: firstname.lastname@college.oxford.ac.uk
26
Data Protection
DATA PROTECTION ACT 1998: INFORMATION ON STUDENT PERSONAL DATA
Please read this document carefully. It will help you to understand the purposes for which your College and the University of Oxford, including its departments, faculties and administration (the University) process (i.e. collect and use) your personal data and any disclosures that they may make of those data outside the College/University. It is important that you are aware of the personal data which is held about you, especially the sensitive personal data as defined by the Data Protection Act 1998 (see section A.2 below), where special provisions apply.
A.
PROCESSING
In order to fulfil their educational, pastoral, and administrative responsibilities before, during and after your studies at Oxford, your College and the University will need to collect and process personal data about you. The Data Protection Act 1998 requires that any such information is processed fairly and lawfully, is held securely, and is kept up-to-date. In some cases this processing is permitted under the Data Protection Act 1998 as being necessary to enable your College and the University to fulfil their operational responsibilities and where your rights and legitimate interests are not prejudiced by the processing. Your consent is not needed for processing of this data, which is described in section 1(a) below). There are other cases where your consent is similarly not required and these are described in 1(b) and 1(c) below. The final category of processing is that of sensitive personal data which does require your consent and that is described in section 2 below. In all cases data will be collected by your College and may be passed to the University and vice versa, so that necessary processing can be undertaken. Data may also be shared with other Colleges. 1. Non-sensitive personal data
Categories of the non-sensitive personal data which may be collected and processed are set out below; these lists are not exhaustive but indicate the main sorts of such data. (a) Non-sensitive data which may be collected during the applications process and during your studies at Oxford Name, address, telephone number and email address; any other contact details; date of birth and gender; marital and family/household details; name of doctor; person to be contacted in case of emergency and contact details; school and admissions documentation; matriculation details and course studied; information on academic performance; examination details; distinctions, prizes, positions of responsibility held; membership of University clubs and societies; disciplinary action taken; financial ma tters (including loans, fees, college invoices, scholarships and bursaries etc).; information provided to the College/University during the course of your studies; information needed to permit access to College/University facilities such as computing facil ities, libraries and for the issue of the University card, where access will be subject to regulations available from the provider of the
27
facility; passwords and IDs used to access College or University facilities; provision of student advice and support (eg OUSU and Careers Service). Your consent for such processing is not required as it is processing needed to allow the College(s) and the University to fulfil their educational, pastoral and administrative responsibilities. (b) Additional non-sensitive data which may be collected and processed after your studies have been completed. Details of qualifications and skills; employment details; membership of professional bodies; publications. Processing of data of this kind does not require your written consent but you may wish to indicate to your College/the University if you do not wish it to be collected or processed. (c) Alumni data Unless you request otherwise, your College and the University will add your details to their alumni records so that you may receive relevant publications and information about alumni activities, events and programmes and be kept informed more generally about the activities of your College and the University . Your data may also be included in College/University alumni publications. Such data will be held securely and will be treated confidentially for your benefit and the benefit of your College and the University. The data will be available to your College, the Universitys Development Office, International Offices, faculties, academic and administrative departments, and to the Oxford University Society and other recognised alumni societies, sports and other clubs associated with your College and the University. It may be disclosed to bodies outside your College/the University where such bodies are acting as agents of your College/the University . Data will be used for a full range of alumni activities as described above. Data may also be used in fundraising programmes, which might include an element of direct marketing by your College/the University. Data will not, however, be passed to external commercial organisations without your explicit consent. 2. Sensitive personal data
The Data Protection Act 1998 defines sensitive personal data as information about racial or ethnic origins; political opinions; religious beliefs or other beliefs; trade union membership; physical or mental health; sex life; criminal allegations, proceedings or convictions. Save in limited circumstances specified in the Act, those collecting and processing sensitive personal data are required to seek explicit consent to do so. However, much of the sensitive personal data handled by the Colleges and University will be provided by students themselves so that consent to process in those cases is not an issue. The Colleges and University have no need or intention to collect information concerning the political beliefs, sexual orientation, or trade union affiliations of students. Nor do they have
28
any need or intention to collect or process data on religious beliefs or practices except in so far as students may, for example, require special dispensation to avoid sitting examinations on certain days or may have special dietary requirements. However the student will probably have volunteered the sensitive data him/herself so consent to collect and process is unlikely to present a problem. If a student is convicted of an offence under the criminal law, this may be the subject of further disciplinary proceedings within the Colleges when data may be collected and processed; this will not happen without the students knowledge. Conviction of a criminal offence may in certain limited circumstances have to be mentioned in a reference to an employer or professional body. The University and Colleges may need to process information relating to a students health. For example, it may be necessary to ask for dispensation to miss an examination or special provision may be needed for certain health problems or in cases of disability, or suspension of status m ay be needed for graduate students. If a student is following a course leading to a professional qualification, the College/University will need to be able to report to the appropriate professional body, such as the General Medical Council, that he or she is a safe and suitable entrant to a given profession. The Data Protection Act allows action to be taken to process personal sensitive data, and to disclose such information to an individual/body outside the College/University, without consent, where it is regarded as in the students vital interest. However, this is generally likely to apply only in cases of illness or accident where the student is unable or unwilling to give consent. This exemption may only be used in exceptional circumstances. There is also an exemption in the Act to allow collection of data without explicit consent in order to identify or keep under review the existence or absence of equality of opportunity or treatment between persons of different racial or ethnic origins. Such data is collected by the Colleges and University for the purposes of monitoring and of upholding equal opportunities policies. If you have any concerns about the processing of any information in the sorts of circumstances outlined above you should contact your College Data Protection Officer or the University Data Protection Officer via email to data.protection@admin.ox.ac.uk.
B. DISCLOSURE OF DATA TO BODIES OUTSIDE YOUR COLLEGE/THE UNIVERSITY

Your College/the University may be required to provide non-sensitive personal data to the Inland Revenue, Community Charge Registration Officers, local authority electoral registration, assessment and valuation departments, other education and training establishments and examining bodies, and students sponsors (eg local authority education departments, the Student Loan Company and funding councils (and including the Higher Education Statistics Agency).
29
Your College/the University will respond to requests for references, transcripts or other information on your educational attainments, from employers or prospective employers or from other educational institutions, funding bodies or recognised voluntary organisations. However, the information will not be provided unless the request is made in writing and appears to be bona fide. Disclosure may also be necessary in certain other circumstances, for example to comply with legal or statutory requirements; in any legal proceedings; or for medical reasons to medical staff. Your College/the University will not normally send information about you to outside organisations at home or overseas other than of the kind indicated. Your personal data will not be placed on any website by your College or the University without your consent. You should be aware that many countries outside the European Economic Area do not have data protection legislation and so may not always protect your personal data to the same standard.
C.
KEEPING YOUR PERSONAL DATA UP-TO-DATE
The Data Protection Act 1998 requires that your College and the University take reasonable steps to ensure that any personal data which they process is accurate and up-to-date. It is therefore important that you let [insert details of relevant College officer] know of any changes to your personal data, or of any error in those data. The University will be informed of changes as appropriate.
D. QUERIES AND ACCESS REQUESTS

The Data Protection Act 1998 gives you the right to know what personal data your College and the University are processing, subject to certain exemptions provided in the legislation and to consideration of third party rights. If you wish to seek access under the Data Protection Act provisions, you should contact either your college in the case of personal data processed by your College or the Universitys Data Protection Officer, via email to data.protection@admin.ox.ac.uk. A fee is required for such access. General queries about the Data Protection Act 1998 may be addressed to the Universitys Data Protection Officer using the email address, data.protection@admin.ox.ac.uk E. ARCHIVES The College and University records are normally archived as a matter of routine, but your College and the University are not liable for any failure to archive, or maintain the archive or for deletion of archive material however arising and you are advised to retain any original certificates issued by the University safely and securely. As indicated in section A2 above it is possible that sensitive data may appear on your file. It is unlikely that your College or the University will have to process sensitive data without your knowledge and consent. It may, however, be necessary to process information about
30
your health. If when you leave Oxford you are concerned about the retention of any such material on your file or about the possibility that other types of sensitive data (as defined by the Act) may have been collected, you should discuss these concerns with the college Data Protection Officer in the first instance.
31
PART B - STUDENT ISSUES
4.
PARTICIPATION
Consultation
Consultation of students is a serious concern to the departments and faculties and takes a number of forms discussed below. It is important that you give us your views and feel free to do so, in order that we may deal with problems that arise both relating to you personally and to the course. Feedback from students takes both an institutional form via the Joint Consultative Committees (JCCs) and also involves you as individuals making the effort to complete lecture or tutorial report forms or to seek out college or departmental officers for discussion. Confidentiality is preserved when we seek feedback and will be maintained if you wish it when you discuss issues of concern to you. It is important that you remember that both the college and the departments will seek and welcome your feedback in various ways.
Student Feedback
The feedback which you provide to lecturers and tutors is valued and is taken seriously. It has an important contribution to make to maintaining the quality of the education you receive at Oxford. Lecture questionnaire forms will be provided for you to comment on each set of lectures. They will be handed out by the lecturer towards the middle or end of his or her set of lectures, and further copies will be available from department or faculty offices. Completed forms may either be given to the lecturer at the end of the lecture or sent to the departmental office. The results of the questionnaire are seen by the lecturer and also by the Director of Undergraduate Studies or Teaching/Lectures Committee or panel. The DUS and/or committee or panel are responsible for ensuring that any problems reported through the questionnaires are addressed. These are reported on to JCC and the department or faculty. You will also be expected to provide feedback on tutorial teaching to your college, and although colleges may differ in the exact ways in which they provide for this, in general they will ask your views on the amount and quality of teaching, reading materials, timeliness of comments on essays and tutorial performance, and feedback on your progress on the course. Colleges also arrange for you to hear or read reports written by your tutor and to make comments on them, and also for you to submit your own self-assessment of your progress to date and your academic goals.
32 Joint Consultative Committees (JCCs)
Each department/faculty has an Undergraduate Joint Consultative Committee on departmental/faculty matters (JCC). The JCC is your forum, through which departmental/faculty/ officers will keep you informed of developments within the department/faculty. Typical agenda items include course developments, lecture arrangements, library provision and IT. Senior members will be looking to you for comments and suggestions, which may bring beneficial changes. It is also the forum in which you should raise any matters of concern to you relating to the organisation, content and delivery of the course. The Politics JCC comprises the Director of Undergraduate Studies, the Academic Administrator (or Undergraduate Studies Secretary), the PIRS Librarian, and an undergraduate representative from each college. It meets once a term at 2pm on Monday of 3 rd Week. The undergraduates must be reading for a degree in PPE. (There is a separate Politics JCC for the Modern History and Politics degree.) The Economics JCC comprises several senior members, including the Director of Undergraduate Studies, and an undergraduate representative from each college. The undergraduate representatives must be reading for one of the Honour Schools involving Economics. The JCC meets once per term. It elects one of its undergraduate representatives as convenor. The convenor prepares the agenda and minutes for meetings. The Philosophy JCC is similar in structure to the Politics JCC, but comprises junior members from across all seven of the joint honour schools involving Philosophy. It meets once a term on Thursday of Fourth Week at 3.15 p.m. in the Ryle Room at 10 Merton Street. The JCC convenors attend their respective Sub -faculty meetings and should send one representative to attend the PPE Committee. For the JCCs to function well, it is important that undergraduate representatives participate actively in its work. Make sure your college has a representative, and ask him/her to raise matters of concern at the JCC and to report back to you.
Library Committees (CoLP)

The Committee on Library Provision in Social Studies includes student representatives from the relevant JCCs. The Committee meets once a term. The Librarian also attends JCC meetings.
33
5.
STUDENT SUPPORT
Equal Opportunities
The University has in place policies relating to equal opportunities, harassment and disability which are kept under review. Details can be found in the University prospectus, on the Oxford University website (www.admin.ox.ac.uk/eop/) and in the Proctors and Assessors Memorandum, a booklet which is given to all students on arrival.
Harassment
The University has a Code of Practice on Harassment, which is published in Essential Information for Students. The Code of Practice makes it a disciplinary offence for any member of the university to harass another on any grounds. There are confidential advisers who can be contacted for help on any matter related to harassment: Politics: Dr Louise Fawcett(Tel: (2)71792),louise.fawcett@stcatz.ox.ac.uk Dr Nicholas Owen (Tel: (2)79175), nicholas.owen@politics.ox.ac.uk Economics: Dr Kenneth Mayhew (Tel: (2)76434), ken.mayhew@economics.ox.ac.uk Dr. Katy Graddy (Tel: (2) 81296, katy.graddy@economics.ox.ac.uk Philosophy: Mr Derek Parfitt (Tel: (2)79282), derek.parfitt@all-souls.ox.ac.uk Dr Katherine Morris (Tel: (2)70985 katherine.morris@mansfield.ox.ac.uk You will also find that your college has people that you can approach if you feel harassed. You may wish to go to your tutor or to the Senior Tutor; alternatively, if you wish to deal with someone who is not connected directly with your academic work or your course, consult the Chaplain, Women's Adviser, or Welfare officers in your college.
Disability
The University operates a code of practice to provide equality of opportunity for those with disabilities. There are currently over 500 students with disabilities at Oxford and the University and the colleges are committed to making arrangements to enable students with disabilities to participate as fully as possible in student life. The Universitys Committee for Disabled People is responsible for considering the issues facing disabled staff and students of the University, improving access to University buildings for people with impaired mobility, and providing support to disabled staff and students. Detailed information about provision and sources of assistance, including the Universitys Disability Statement and the Access Guide for People with Disabilities, which gives details about the accessibility of most University buildings, can be found on the web site at http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/eop/. Local information on access and resources can be found on the Philosophy Faculty webs site at http://www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk . Further information and advice are available from the Universitys Disability Office, on 80549 and or disability@admin.ox.ac.uk . The Disability Coordinator for the Philosophy Faculty is Dr Hilla Wait, Tel: 92)76927, E-mail: hilla.wait@philosophy.ox.ac.uk . Observations or complaints concerning disablement issues should be addressed via college and departmental complaints procedures
34 Complaints Procedures
It is the policy of the departments/faculty responsible for the teaching of PPE to deal with all complaints from individuals fairly, promptly, and in confidence. Complaints concerning college matters should in the first instance be referred to your college authorities. Complaints concerning University matters, including all centrally-provided teaching except that for option papers in Economics, should normally be addressed in the first instance to the Chair of the Faculty of Philosophy or to the Heads of the Departments of Politics and International Relations or of Economics. In the case of harassment, complaints should be made to the individuals named in the paragraphs above in this section of the Handbook. Alternatively, students can approach the Secretary of the Faculty of Philosophy or the respective Directors of Undergraduate Studies in Politics or Economics. The names of all these officers are set out in Appendix C. Complaints regarding teaching of option papers in Economics should first be taken to the college tutor. The college tutor will take the matter up with the option tutor and/or the convenor in the first instance, and if not satisfied will ask the Director of Undergraduate Studies to take up the issue. If the matter is still not satisfactorily resolved, the college Senior Tutor should be informed (either by the undergraduate concerned, or the college tutor) who will then take up the issue with the Director of Undergraduate Studies and/or the Head of Department. In addition, at Oxford the Universitys Proctors provide a special forum for dealing with complaints. They have power to investigate directly complaints from any member of the University and to take appropriate measures to provide redress. Details can be found in the Proctors and Assessors Memorandum, which sets out complaints procedures, and provides further information on disciplinary procedures, equal opportunities policy, harassment, disability and other welfare issues. It is important to remember, in a collegiate University, that even on matters relating exclusively to University teaching and examining, your college tutor, or your colleges Senior Tutor and its other officers concerned with welfare, provide an immediate and wellinformed source of advice about the best procedure to adopt.
Illness
If illness seriously affects your academic work, make sure that your tutors know this. If at all possible choose a Fellow of your college in whom to confide - otherwise it will be difficult for the college to help. Help may involve: excusing you tutorials for a while; sending you home; asking the University to grant you dispensation from that terms residence (to qualify for the BA you must reside and study in Oxford for nine terms - or six if you have Senior Status - and a term for that purpose means forty-two nights); or permitting you to go out of residence for a number of terms, with consequent negotiations with your funding body as appropriate. If illness has interfered with preparation for a University examination, or has affected you during the exam itself, your college will, if appropriate, report the fact to the ViceChancellor and Proctors, who will pass the information to your examiners if, in their
35
opinion, it is likely to assist the examiners in the performance of their duties. Your college also reports to the Proctors if illness or disability has prevented you from attending part of a University examination, or makes it desirable that you should be examined in a special place or at a special time. The college officer concerned is the Senior Tutor. You must deal with your Senior Tutor, never with the examiners. Give the Senior Tutor as much notice as possible; in particular, examinations specially invigilated in a special place (usually your college) take a lot of organising, and the deadline for getting permission in respect of foreseeable problems such as dyslexia is Second Week of the term of the examination. Probably you will need a medical certificate; college doctors have the relevant University forms.
Scholarships, Prizes and Grants

After your first year you will be eligible for a scholarship or exhibition from your college, on academic criteria which the college decides and applies. The University administers a number of trust scholarships, mostly narrow in remit and none specifically for PPE subjects; they are listed in the Universitys Statutes, Decrees and Regulations (the blue book), which you can consult in your college office or a library. University prizes are listed in a supplement of the University Gazette each year, which can be bought from the Oxford University Press bookshop at 116 High Street (tel. 242913). Those particularly concerning PPE are as follows. (1) The Henry Wilde Prize, value about 200, is offered for an outstanding performance in the Philosophy subjects in one of the Final Honour Schools; and a Gibbs Prize, value up to 100, is offered for an outstanding performance in the philosophy subjects in PPE. No applications are needed. (2) Gibbs Prizes in Politics are awarded for the best performance in Politics written papers in PPE and for the best Politics thesis in PPE. (3) Hicks/Webb Medley Prizes are awarded for the best Economics performance (value 300) and the best Economics thesis (value 150) in one of the Final Honour Schools. No applications are needed. (4) The Gladstone Memorial Essay Prize, value about 500, is awarded for a thesis on some subject connected with recent British History, Political Science, or Economics, or with some problem of British policy - domestic, imperial or foreign - in relation to finance or other matters, submitted for the Honour School in Modern History, Modern History and Economics, or PPE. No application is needed. (5) The Arnold Modern Historical Essay Prize, value about 500, is awarded for the best thesis in Modern History, which may be a PPE thesis. (6) The Sara Norton Prize, value about 600, is offered for an essay within the field of the political history and institutions of the USA; candidates must apply by March and submit by May; details in the University Gazette. (7) The Duns Scotus Prize in Medieval Philosophy, value 150, may be awarded each year, if there is a candidate of sufficient merit, by the examiners of the Medieval Philosophy paper in any of the Final Honour Schools involving Philosophy. No special application is required. Grants for special purposes such as research travel, or for hardship, are available from many colleges to their members. There are also two more general schemes. (1) Access Funds are provided by the state to give financial help to full-time home undergraduates and graduates where access to higher or further education might be inhibited by financial considerations, or where students, for whatever reasons, including disabilities, face financial difficulties. Application should be made to your college. (2) The Universitys Committee on
36
Student Hardship makes grants and loans for the relief of financial hardship, which must have been unforeseeable at the time of admission. It meets once a term, and application forms, which are held in your college office, must be completed and in the hands of a designated college officer, probably the Senior Tutor, before a designated time, probably in Fourth Week (First Week in Trinity Term).
37
6.
THE FUTURE
Taking your Degree

Once your name has appeared on the PPE Class List or Pass List, you may supplicate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts, that is, ask to be presented to the Vice-Chancellor or the Vice-Chancellors deputy, either in person or in absentia as you choose. Your college presents you, and you must apply through it. If you wish to be presented in person, you must apply many months in advance: there are about a dozen ceremonies each year (usually in the Sheldonian), but they are heavily booked. You may ask your college for up to three tickets entitling guests to attend a degree ceremony, and your college will probably invite you, and possibly your guests, to lunch on the day. Dress is sub-fusc, and you must also make sure that you have, perhaps by loan from your college, an undergraduate gown, mortar board or cap, and also a BA gown and hood. The same procedure applies to the degree of MA, for which you may supplicate - together with or after your BA - in or after your twenty-first term from matriculation.
Proceeding to Further Study

If you are thinking of further study, mention it to your tutors by the beginning of your final year at the latest. Most graduate applications (to the northern hemisphere) have to be submitted by December or January. Overseas fellowships and scholarships may have closing dates as early as November. Applications for ESRC or British Academy Postgraduate Awards have to be received by the funding body by 1 May, complete with references from your Oxford tutors and evidence of at least provisional acceptance on to a named course at a named UK university: you should therefore apply to the university concerned early in the New Year - including in the case of Oxford, where departments/faculties not colleges control graduate admission. You should collect and complete an application form for these awards as soon as the forms arrive in your college office, usually during February. Your initiatives are the beginning of an elaborate process which fails if not completed by 1 May.
Careers
A wide range of careers is available to PPE graduates, and in recent years employers have recruited very actively. You are strongly recommended to start thinking carefully about your career plans early in your course. The Universitys Careers Service is at the disposal of all students, while studying and for four years after they leave Oxford. Their advice is that students should contact them early in the second year to be able to take full advantage of the extensive range of resources available through them. The Careers Service is located at 56 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6PA (Tel: 274646). It is open from 10.00 to 13.00 and 14.00 to 17.00 on Mondays to Fridays all the year, and from 10.00 to 13.00 on Saturdays during Full Term.
38
APPENDIX A: OUTLINE OF PAPERS IN PPE The Preliminary Examination in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics
Introduction to Philosophy: The purpose of the course is to introduce you to some central philosophical issues and to help you to acquire some concepts and ways of thinking which will be useful if you continue with the study of Philosophy, or even if you do not. The course has three parts, I General Philosophy, studied in connection with Descartes: Meditations on First Philosophy, II Moral Philosophy, studied in connection with J. S. Mill: Utilitarianism, and III Logic, studied in connection with W. Hodges, Logic (Penguin Books) and parts of Mark Sainsbury, Logical Forms: an Introduction to Philosophical Logic (Blackwell). In the preliminary examination you are required 'to show adequate knowledge' in at least two of these. Your college tuition may cover all three or only two parts; the decision may be your tutor's or left partly to your choice. In any case you are free to attend lectures on all three parts. Logic (usually taught in college classes) is the study of patterns of valid inference, and involves some study of a formal system (that found in W. Hodges, Logic). Students are required to do exercises and proofs in a formal system, and also to understand the relation between the elements of the formal system and the kinds of inference and argument used in ordinary language. Even if you do not plan to answer questions from the Logic section of the examination paper, you are likely find it useful in further philosophical study to have some familiarity with a formal logical language and the ability to use it to investigate logical relationships and to understand its use by others. In I and II (usually taught in tutorials or small groups) students are introduced to central issues in philosophy, studied through reading a classic text in conjunction with other writings, including critical responses and modern treatments of the same issues. Part I, General Philosophy, with Descartes's Meditations, introduces students to issues such as the foundations of knowledge, scepticism, the nature of the mind and its relation to the body, and arguments for the existence of God. Part II, Moral Philosophy, with J. S. Mill Utilitarianism, involves the study of an influential but controversial moral theory, with discussions of subjects such as happiness and pleasure, the criterion of right action, the role and foundation of moral principles, and justice. Students learn how to read and to evaluate philosophical writings, how to identify the author's arguments and conclusions, and are encouraged to think critically and write lucidly about the issues discussed. Introduction to Politics: This course introduces students to the empirical and theoretical study of Politics, to some of the key concepts of the discipline and to major methods of contemporary analysis. Section (a), entitled Theorizing the Democratic State introduces you to some of the main concepts which inform theoretical and empirical discussion of democracy, such, liberty and power, and to the role of ideology in interpreting and linking
39
them. It also identifies some of the core normative issues which arise in democratic politics, such as the desirability of democracy itself and the legitimate scope of state authority in a democracy. It also introduces you to the major theoretical frameworks used to explore the distributions and exercise of power in a democratic state, including Marxist, pluralist and public choice approaches. It also provides an introduction to the work of some of the major political thinkers who have considered these questions, especially Rousseau, Tocqueville, Mill and Marx. Section (b), entitled Analysis of Democratic Institutions focuses on the practice of democracy, and especially its institutions, processes and political outputs. It asks you to think about the nature and functioning of institutions and rules in a liberal democracy; to consider their aims and how well they realise them; and to identify the effects they have on the design and implementation of public policies. This part of the course also encourages you to consider the necessary and sufficient conditions of democratic government and political stability. These questions may be approached both by the close study of four contemporary political systems (the United States of America; the United Kingdom; France; Germany) and also by the comparative study of a range of countries. In the examination, you will be required to answer four questions, of which at least one must be drawn from each of the two sections. Candidates choosing to answer two questions from section (b) must show knowledge of at least two of the following political systems: the United States of America; the United Kingdom; France; Germany. Candidates choosing to answer three questions from section (b) must show knowledge of at least three of the following political systems: the United States of America; the United Kingdom; France; Germany. There will be a range of questions sufficiently broad to afford a reasonable choice to candidates who have studied the topics country by country; to those who have studied them comparatively; and those who have done something of each. It is worth noting that this course is being taught and examined for the first time in 2003-04. It has a great deal in common with its predecessor, but there are some important differences. Your tutors and fellow-students should all be aware of these, but you should bear them in mind as you study, especially when, for example, looking at past examination papers or old reading-lists. A sample examination paper for the new course is available on the website, alongside the new reading-list Introductory Economics: This course is compulsory for those taking PPE Prelims, and is shared with students taking Prelims in Economics and Management, and Mods in Modern History and Economics. For those who are intending to continue with Economics it provides an introduction to economic analysis, equipping you with the concepts and tools which will be developed further in the later years of the course. The course covers both microeconomics and macroeconomics, and includes the mathematical techniques used in Economics, mainly simple algebra and calculus, along with elementary statistics. For those who will not carry the study of Economics beyond Prelims it is designed to provide a reasonably complete perspective, at an introductory level, of microeconomic and macroeconomic issues and how economic analysis tackles them. While A -level economics and A-level maths will be an advantage, many students will not have one or other, or even either, of these. If you do not, be prepared to work rather harder! The microeconomics part of the course covers the functioning of the market economy: the decisions of h ouseholds, who have wants and budget constraints; the behaviour of firms, who employ labour and capital and choose their level of output; and the functioning of markets under competition and monopoly. The macroeconomics part of the course looks at the determination of national income and
40
employment, monetary institutions and the money supply, inflation, the balance of payments and exchange rates, and considers issues in macroeconomic policy in part with reference to the UK economy.
The Final Honour School of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics

For your second and third years you may choose to continue with all three subjects or to pursue only two of them. This is a matter you should discuss with your college tutors. There are various requirements to take particular papers, and restrictions on the option papers you can take, and these are listed in detail after p. . What follows here is an outline of what the individual papers involve. You may well find it helpful to look at recent examination papers (available on the departmental websites) to help build up a picture of what is involved in the various papers. If you find the examination questions interesting you are more likely to find working on the paper engaging. 1. Philosophy
Formal requirements: Students must take two core subjects: 103 Ethics and one of 101 History of Philosophy, or 102 Knowledge and Reality. In your choice of further subjects you should be guided by the Normal Prerequisites (see below). You may only take 199 (Philosophy Thesis) if you are taking at least three other Philosophy subjects. You may not take both of 105 and 106, or both of 117 and 118. Bi-partite Politics and Economics students may take any one Philosophy subject (except 199, Thesis in Philosophy), but should be guided by the Normal Prerequisites (see below). The official syllabuses for subjects may be found in the Grey Book (Examination Regulations, which are in the appendix to this Handbook), and it is these which form the framework within which exam questions on a paper must be set. But to help your choices, see below brief, informal descriptions of the subjects, followed in some cases by a suggested introductory reading. You should always consult your tutor about your choice of options, noting also the advice in the next paragraph. Normal Prerequisites (indicated by NP): In what follows you will find that some subjects are named as 'normal prerequisites' for the study of others. For instance: 112 The Philosophy of Kant (NP 101) means that those studying 112, Kant, would normally be expected to have studied 101 (History of Philosophy from Descartes to Kant). In some cases alternatives are given as the prerequisite, e.g. 107 Philosophy of Religion (NP 101 or 102) means that those studying 107, Philosophy of Religion, would normally be expected to have studied either 101 (History of Philosophy) or 102 (Knowledge and Reality). It may be inadvisable to study a subject if you have not met the designated prerequisite, and if you propose to do so you must consult your tutor beforehand.
101. History of Philosophy from Descartes to Kant: The purpose of this subject is to enable you to gain a critical understanding of some of the metaphysical and epistemological ideas of some of the most important philosophers of the early modern period, between the 1630s to the 1780s.
41
This period saw a great flowering of philosophy in Europe. Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz, often collectively referred to as "the rationalists", placed the new "corpuscularian" science within grand metaphysical systems which certified our God-given capacity to reason our way to the laws of nature (as well as to many other, often astonishing conclusions about the world). Locke wrote in a different, empiricist tradition. He argued that, since our concepts all ultimately derive from experience, our knowledge is necessarily limited. Berkeley and Hume developed this empiricism in the direction of a kind of idealism, according to which the world studied by science is in some sense mind-dependent and mind-constructed. Kant subsequently sought to arbitrate between the rationalists and the empiricists, by rooting out some assumptions common to them and trying thereby to salvage and to reconcile some of their apparently irreconcilable insights. Reading the primary texts is of great importance. Since you are required to show knowledge of "at least two" of the philosophers listed, choice is wide, although those taking paper 111 may not answer questions on Descartes, Spinoza or Leibniz, and those taking Paper 112, may not answer questions on Kant. If you are offering 102 as well as 101, you should avoid repetition of material across examinations, but you may assume that good answers to questions would not involve repetition for which you might be penalised. R.S.Woolhouse, The Empiricists; J.Cottingham, The Rationalists (both O.U.P. Opus series). 102. Knowledge and Reality: The purpose of this subject is to enable you to examine some central questions about the nature of the world and the extent to which we can have knowledge of it. In considering knowledge you will examine whether it is possible to attain knowledge of what the world is really like. Is our knowledge of the world necessarily limited to what we can observe to be the case? Indeed, are even our observational beliefs about the world around us justified? Can we have knowledge of what will happen based on what has happened? Is our understanding of the world necessarily limited to what we can prove to be the case? Or can we understand claims about the remote past or distant future which we cannot in principle prove to be true. In considering reality you will focus on questions such as the following. Does the world really contain the three-dimensional objects and their properties - such as red buses or black horses - which we appear to encounter in everyday life? Or is it made up rather of the somewhat different entities studied by science, such as colourless atoms or four-dimensional space-time worms? What is the relation between the common sense picture of the world and that provided by contemporary science? Is it correct to think of the objects and their properties that make up the world as being what they are independently of our preferred ways of dividing up reality? These issues are discussed with reference to a variety of specific questions such as 'What is time?', 'What is the nature of causation?', and 'What are substances?' The examination paper also contains a number of optional questions in Philosophy of Science concerning the nature of scientific explanation and scientific method. There is an opportunity in this subject to study such topics as reference, truth and definition, but candidates taking 102 and 108 should avoid repetition of material across examinations, though it is safe to assume that good answers to questions would not involve repetition for which you might be penalised. Jonathan Dancy, Introduction to Contemporary Epistemology (Oxford), chs. 1-3; Michael J. Loux, Metaphysics (Routledge) 103. Ethics: The purpose of this subject is to enable you to come to grips with some questions which exercise many people, philosophers and non-philosophers alike. How should we decide what is best to do, and how best to lead our lives? Are our value judgments on these and other matters objective or do they merely reflect our subjective preferences and viewpoints? Are we in fact free to make these choices, or have our decisions already been determined by antecedent features of our environment
42
and genetic endowment? In considering these issues you will examine a variety of ethical concepts, such as those of justice, rights, equality, virtue, and happiness, which are widely used in moral and political argument. There is also opportunity to discuss some applied ethical issues. Knowledge of major historical thinkers, e.g. Aristotle and Hume and Kant, will be encouraged, but not required in the examination. John Mackie, Ethics (Penguin), chs. 1-2. 104. Philosophy of Mind (NP 101 or 102): The purpose of this subject is to enable you to examine a variety of questions about the nature of persons and their psychological states, including such general questions as: what is the relation between persons and their minds? Could robots or automata be persons? What is the relation between our minds and our brains? If we understood everything about the brain, would we understand everything about consciousness and rational thought? If not, why not? Several of these issues focus on the relation between our common sense understanding of ourselves and others, and the view of the mind developed in scientific psychology and neuroscience. Are the two accounts compatible? Should one be regarded as better than the other? Should our common sense understanding of the mind be jettisoned in favour of the scientific picture? Or does the latter leave out something essential to a proper understanding of ourselves and others? Other more specific questions concern memory, thought, belief, emotion, and perception. Paul Churchland, Matter and Consciousness (Cambridge) chs. 1-3. 105. Philosophy of Science and Philosophy of Psychology and Neuroscience (NP 101 or 102) (paper formerly called Philosophy of Science and Psychology): The purpose of this subject is to enable you to topics in the philosophy of science in general, and topics in the philosophy of psychology and neuroscience in particular. In the broadest sense the philosophy of science is concerned with the theory of knowledge and with associated questions in metaphysics. What is distinctive about the field is the focus on "scientific" knowledge, and metaphysical questions - concerning space, time, causation, probability, possibility, necessity, realism and idealism - that follow in their train. As such it is concerned with distinctive traits of science: testability, objectivity, scientific explanation, and the nature of scientific theories. The philosophy of psychology and neuroscience addresses questions that arise from the scientific study of the mind. (The philosophy of mind, in contrast, starts from our ordinary everyday thinking about mental matters.) Some of the questions addressed are extremely general and are closely connected with topics, such as explanation and reduction, that you will cover in the philosophy of science part of the course. Other questions relate to key notions that are used in cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience, such as representation, computation, tacit knowledge, implicit rules and modularity. There are also questions that focus on specific aspects of contemporary research into topics such as consciousness, perception, memory, reasoning and the way that cognitive abilities break down after brain damage. It is not necessary for you to be studying neuroscience or experimental psychology; nor do you need expertise in statistics. What is important is that you should enjoy reading about psychology and neuroscience and that you should be interested in the relationship between scientific and philosophical ways of approaching questions about the mind. Don Gillies, Philosophy of Science in the Twentieth Century (Blackwells) Paul Churchland, Matter and Consciousness (Cambridge) chs. 1-3. 106. Philosophy of Science and Social Science (NP 101 or 102): The purpose of this subject is to enable you to topics in the philosophy of science in general, and topics in the philosophy of social science in particular.
43
In the broadest sense the philosophy of science is concerned with the theory of knowledge and with associated questions in metaphysics. What is distinctive about the field is the focus on "scientific" knowledge, and metaphysical questions - concerning space, time, causation, probability, possibility, necessity, realism and idealism - that follow in their train. As such it is concerned with distinctive traits of science: testability, objectivity, scientific explanation, and the nature of scientific theories. Whether economics, sociology, and political science are "really" sciences is a question that lay people as well as philosophers have often asked. The technology spawned by the physical sciences is more impressive than that based on the social sciences: bridges do not collapse and aeroplanes do not fall from the sky, but no government can reliably control crime, divorce, or unemployment, or make its citizens happy at will. Human behaviour often seems less predictable, and less explicable than that of inanimate nature and non-human animals, even though most of us believe that we know what we are doing and why. So philosophers of social science have asked whether human action is to be explained causally or non-causally, whether predictions are self-refuting, whether we can only explain behaviour that is in some sense rational - and if so, what that sense is. Other central issues include social relativism, the role of ideology, value-neutrality, and the relationship between the particular social sciences, in particular whether economics provides a model for other social science. Finally, some critics have asked whether a technological view of 'social control' does not threaten democratic politics as usually understood. Martin Hollis, The Philosophy of Social Science (Cambridge); Alexander Rosenberg, Philosophy of Social Science (Westview). 107. Philosophy of Religion (NP 101 or 102): The purpose of this subject is to enable you to examine claims about the existence of God and God's relationship to the world. What, if anything, is meant by them? Could they be true? What justification, if any, can or needs to be provided for them? The paper is concerned primarily with the claims of Western religions (Christianity, Judaism and Islam), and with the central claim of those religions, that there is a God. God is said to be omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good, a source of moral obligation and so on. But what does it mean to say that God has these properties, and are they consistent with e ach other? Could God change the past, or choose to do evil? Does it make sense to say that God is outside time? You will have the opportunity to study arguments for the existence of God - for example, the teleological argument from the fact that the Univer se is governed by scientific laws, and the argument from people's religious experiences. Other issues are whether the fact of pain and suffering counts strongly, or even conclusively, against the existence of God, whether there could be evidence for miracles, whether it could be shown that prayer "works", whether there could be life after death, and what philosophical problems are raised by the existence of different religions. There may also be an optional question in the exam paper about some specifically Christian doctrine - does it make sense to say that the life and death of Jesus atoned for the sins of the world, and could one know this? There is abundant scope for deploying all the knowledge and techniques which you have acquired in other areas of philosophy. Among the major philosophers whose contributions to the philosophy of religion you will need to study are Aquinas, Hume and Kant. M. Peterson and other authors, Reason and Religious Belief, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion (Oxford University Press) 108. The Philosophy of Logic and Language (NP Prelims/Mods Logic): The purpose of this subject is to enable you to examine some fundamental questions relating to reasoning and language. The philosophy of logic is not itself a symbolic or mathematical subject, but examines concepts of interest to the logician. If you want to know the answer to the question 'What is truth?', this is a subject for you. Central also are questions about the status of basic logical laws and the nature of logical necessity. What, if anything, makes it true that nothing can be at the same time both green and not green all over? Is that necessity the result of our conventions or stipulations, or the reflection of how
44
things have to be independently of us? Philosophy of language is closely related. It covers the very general question how language can describe reality at all: what makes our sentences meaningful and, on occasion, true? How do parts of our language refer to objects in the world? What is involved in understanding speech (or the written word)? You may also investigate more specific issues concerning the correct analysis of particular linguistic expressions such as names, descriptions, pronouns, or adverbs, and aspects of linguistics and grammatical theory. Candidates taking 102 as well as 108 should avoid repetition of material across examinations, though it is safe to assume that good answers to questions would not involve repetition for which you might be penalised. Mark Sainsbury, 'Philosophical Logic', in Philosophy, a Guide through the Subject, edited by A. C. Grayling (Oxford). 109. Aesthetics (NP 101 or 102 or 103 or 104 or 115): The purpose of this subject is to enable you to study a number of questions about the nature and value of beauty and of the arts. For example, do we enjoy sights and sounds because they are beautiful, or are the beautiful because we enjoy them? Does the enjoyment of beauty involve a particular sort of experience, and if so, how should we define it and what psychological capacities does it presuppose? Is a work of art a physical object, an abstract object, or what? Does the value of a work of art depend only upon its long- or short-term effects on our minds or characters? If not, what sorts of reasons can we give for admiring a work of art? Do reasons for admiring paintings, pieces of music and poems have enough in common with one another, and little enough in common with reasons for admiring other kinds of things, to support the idea that there is a distinctive sort of value which good art of every sort, and only art, possesses? As well as general questions such as these ones, the subject also addresses questions raised by particular art forms. For example, what is the difference between a picture and a description in words? Can fiction embody truths about its subject-matter? How does music express emotions? All of these questions, and others, are addressed directly, and also by examining classic texts, including Plato's Republic, Aristotle's Poetics, Hume's Essay on the Standard of Taste and Kant's Critique of Aesthetic Judgement. Malcolm Budd, Values of Art (Penguin) 110. Medieval Philosophy: The purpose of this subject is to provide you with the opportunity for the critical study of some of the writings either of Thomas Aquinas or of Duns Scotus and Ockham. Does God exist? What is the nature of God? Are we immortal? Are we free? How does human action differ from the behaviour of animals? What is happiness, and where can we find it - on earth or in heaven? Should I do what my conscience tells me is right or what is in fact right? These are some of the questions raised in the writings of the great medieval theologian and philosopher, Thomas Aquinas. These are studied in translation rather than the Latin original, though a glance at Aquinas's remarkably readable Latin can often be useful. Aquinas's writings are not treated as sacred texts, and candidates are encouraged to criticise them as well as to understand them. A choice of texts and issues within Aquinas's philosophy is offered. Paper 116, Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, goes well with this option. You can, as an alternative, study the philosophy of Duns Scotus and Ockham, two influential writers on issues in logic and metaphysics. For this option 101 or 108 or Aristotle's Physics (131(b)) are a good background. B. Davies, The Thought of Thomas Aquinas (O.U.P.) F. Copleston, A History of Philosophy vol 2 part II: Medieval Philosophy, Albert the Great to Duns Scotus 111. Continental Philosophy from Descartes to Leibniz (NP 101 or 102 or 103 or 112): The purpose of this subject is to enable you to study some of the metaphysical ideas, and the theories of knowledge,
45
of a group of seventeenth-century philosophers, themselves deeply influenced by Platonism, whose work has influenced everything that has been done since. Their ways of dealing with philosophical questions are different enough from those now current to provide a stimulating set of alternatives well worth reflecting on; later philosophers who have rejected their conclusions have frequently underestimated the force of the considerations that led them to these views. Descartes, Spinoza, Malebranche and Leibniz are often called "rationalists", because they all held that we have a capacity for purely rational thinking, independent of sense-experience, by which we can achieve an understanding of the world and of our place in it. They differed considerably in what they took this to imply, and as a result held radically different views on the nature of the world. Spinoza for example argued that there is really only one genuinely individual thing, or "substance", which could be equated with God or Nature; Leibniz held that there are infinitely many substances, all of them (in a sense) mental. Gassendi was a vigorous opponent of rationalist thinking in any form, holding knowledge to be grounded on sense-experience, and in consequence very limited in extent. You do not have to know the work of all these authors in equal detail; in the examination you have to show knowledge of at least three of them. R. S. Woolhouse, The Concept of Substance in Seventeenth -Century Metaphysics (Routledge) 112. The Philosophy of Kant (NP 101): The purpose of this paper is to enable you to make a critical study of some of the ideas of one of the greatest of all philosophers. Immanuel Kant lived from 1724 to 1804. He published the 'Critique of Pure Reason' in 1781, and the 'Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals' in 1785. The 'Critique' is his greatest work and, without question, the most influential work of modern philosophy. It is a difficult but enormously rewarding work. This is largely because Kant, perhaps uniquely, combines in the highest measure the cautious qualities of care, rigour and tenacity with the bolder quality of philosophical imagination. Its concern is to give an account of human knowledge that will steer a path between the dogmatism of traditional metaphysics and the scepticism that, Kant believes, is the inevitable result of the empiricist criticism of metaphysics. Kant's approach, he claims in a famous metaphor, amounts to a "Copernican revolution" in philosophy. Instead of looking at human knowledge by starting from what is known, we should start from ourselves as knowing subjects and ask how the world must be for us to have the kind of knowledge and experience that we have. Kant thinks that his Copernican revolution also enables him to reconcile traditional Christian morality and modern science, in the face of their apparently irreconcilable demands (in the one case, that we should be free agents, and in the other case, that the world should be governed by inexorable mechanical laws). In the Groundwork Kant develops his very distinctive and highly influential moral philosophy. He argues that morality is grounded in reason. What we ought to do is what we would do if we acted in a way that was purely rational. To act in a way that is purely rational is to act in accordance with the famous categorical imperative, which Kant expresses as follows: Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law. Texts: Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith (Macmillan); Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans, H.J. Paton (Hutchinson). Roger Scruton, Kant. 113. Post-Kantian Philosophy (NP 101 or 102 or 103 or 112): Many of the questions raised by German and French philosophers of the 19th and early 20th centuries were thought to arise directly out of Kant's metaphysics, epistemology and ethics: Hence the title of this subject, the purpose of which is to enable you to explore some of the developments of (and departures from) Kantian themes in the work
46
of Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre and Merleau-Ponty. Students typically focus their study on only two chosen authors. Hegel and Schopenhauer delineate global, metaphysical systems out of which each develops his own distinctive vision of ethical and (especially in the case of Hegel) political life. Nietzsche's writings less obviously constitute a system, but they too develop certain ethical and existential implications of our epistemological and metaphysical commitments. Husserl will interest those pupils attracted to problems in ontology and epistemology such as feature in the Cartesian tradition; his work also serves to introduce one to phenomenology, the philosophical method later developed and refined by Heidegger, Sartre and Merleau-Ponty. In Heidegger and Sartre, that method is brought to bear on such fundamental aspects of human existence as authenticity, social understanding, bad faith, art and freedom. Merleau-Ponty (who trained as a psychologist) presents a novel and important account of the genesis of perception, cognition and feeling, and relates these to themes in aesthetics and political philosophy. While this is very much a text-based paper, many of the questions addressed are directly relevant to contemporary treatments of problems in epistemology and metaphysics, in aesthetics, political theory and the philosophy of mind. Robert C. Solomon, Continental Philosophy since 1750: The Rise and Fall of the Self (O.U.P.). 114. Theory of Politics (NP 103): In order to understand the world of politics, we also need to know which views of politics and society people have when they make political decisions, and why we recommend certain courses of action rather than others. This purpose of this subject is to enable you to look at the main ideas we use when we think about politics: why do we have competing views of social justice and what makes a particular view persuasive, possibly even right? What happens when a concept such as freedom has different meanings, so that those who argue that we must maximise freedom of choice are confronted with those who claim that some choices will actually restrict your freedom? Is power desirable or harmful? Would feminists or nationalists give a different answer to that question? Political theory is concerned with developing good responses to problems such as: when should we obey, and when should we disobey, the state? But it is also concerned with mapping the ways in which we approach questions such as: how does one argue in favour of human rights? In addition, you will explore the main ideologies, such as liberalism, conservatism and socialism, in order to understand their main arguments and why each of them will direct us to different political solutions and arrangements. Will Kymlicka, Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction (O.U.P.) 115. Plato, Republic: Platos influence on the history of philosophy is enormous. The purpose of this subject is to enable you to make a critical study of The Republic, which is perhaps his most important and most influential work. Written as a dialogue between Socrates and others including the outspoken immoralist Thrasymachus, it is primarily concerned with questions of the nature of justice and of what is the best kind of life to lead. These questions prompt discussions of the ideal city -which Karl Popper criticised as totalitarian -, of education and art, of the nature of knowledge, the Theory of Forms and the immortality of the soul. In studying it you will encounter a work of philosophy of unusual literary merit, one in which philosophy is presented through debates, through analogies and images, including the famous simile of the Cave, as well as rigorous argument, and you will encounter some of Platos important contributions to ethics, political theory, metaphysics, philosophy of mind and aesthetics. You are expected to study the work in detail; the examination contains a question requiring comments on chosen passages, as well as a choice of essay questions.
47
Julia Annas, An Introduction to Plato's Republic, Introduction and ch. 1. Set translation: Plato: Republic, tr Grube, revised Reeve (Hackett). 116. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics: The purpose of this subject is to give you the opportunity to make a critical study of one of the most important works in the history of philosophy. Like Plato in the Republic, Aristotle is concerned with the question, what is the best possible sort of life? Whereas this leads Plato to pose grand questions in metaphysics and political theory, it leads Aristotle to offer close analyses of the structure of human action, responsibility, the virtues, the nature of moral knowledge, weakness of will, pleasure, friendship, and other related issues. Much of what Aristotle has to say on these is ground-breaking, highly perceptive, and still of importance in contemporary debate in ethics and moral psychology. You are expected to study the work in detail; the examination contains a question requiring comments on chosen passages, as well as a choice of essay questions. J. L. Ackrill, Aristotle the Philosopher, ch. 10. Set translation: Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics translated and with notes by T.H. Irwin (Hackett). 117. Frege, Russell, and Wittgenstein (NP Prelims/Mods Logic): The purpose of this subject is to enable you to study some classic texts from which emerged modern logic and philosophy of language. Frege invented and explained the logic of multiple generality (quantification theory) and applied this apparatus to the analysis of arithmetic. Russell continued this programme, adding some refinements (the theory of types, the theory of descriptions), and he applied logic to many traditional problems in epistemology. Wittgenstein's Tractatus outlined an ambitious project for giving a logical account of truths of logic (as tautologies). The texts are dense and sophisticated, but they are elegant and full of challenging ideas. Ability to understand logical symbolism is important, and previous work in philosophical logic would be advantageous. Anthony Kenny, Frege (Penguin) and Wittgenstein (Penguin); J. O. Urmson, Philosophical Analysis. 118. The Later Philosophy of Wittgenstein (NP 101 or 102 or 108 or 117): The purpose of this subject is to enable you to study some of the most influential ideas of the 20th century. The main texts are Wittgensteins posthumously-published Philosophical Investigations and The Blue and Brown Books. These writings are famous not just for their content but also for their distinctive style and conception of philosophy. There is much critical discussion about the relation between those aspects of Wittgenstein's work. Wittgenstein covers a great range of issues, principally in philosophy of language and philosophy of mind. In philosophy of language, one key topic is the nature of rules and rule-following. What is involved in grasping a rule; and how can I tell, in a new case, what I have to do to apply the rule correctly? Indeed, what makes it the case that a particular move at this stage is the correct way of applying the rule; is there any standard of correctness other than the agreement of our fellows? Other topics include: whether language is systematic; the relation between linguistic meaning and nonlinguistic activities; whether concepts can be illuminatingly analysed. In the philosophy of mind, Wittgenstein is especially famous for the so-called private language argument, which tries to show that words for sensations cannot get their meanings by being attached to purely internal, introspective, private objects. Other, equally important, topics include the nature of the self, of introspection and of visual experience, and the intentionality (the representative quality) of mental states. Most generally, can we (as Wittgenstein thought) avoid Cartesianism without lapsing into behaviourism?
48
The texts: try Philosophical Investigations paras 1-80; Blue Book pp. 1-17; Saul Kripke: Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language (Blackwell); Marie McGinn: Wittgenstein and the Philosophical Investigations (Routledge, 1997, in the Routledge Philosophy Guidebooks series) 119. Formal Logic (NP Prelims/Mods Logic): This subject is precisely what its name suggests, an extension of the symbolic logic covered in the Prelims/Mods logic course. Only in highly exceptional circumstances would it be appropriate to do this subject without first having done Prelims/Mods logic, indeed without first having done it very well. Formal Logic is an extremely demanding and rigorous subject, even for those who have Mathematics A Level. If you lose your way in it, there is liable to be no way of avoiding disaster. But granted these caveats, the subject is a delight to those who enjoy formal work and who are good at it. Its purpose is to introduce you to some of the deepest and most beautiful results in logic, many of which have fascinating implications for other areas of philosophy. There are three sections. The first, Propositional and Predicate Logic, is compulsory, and is the most closely related to the material covered in the Prelims/Mods course. You can then concentrate on either of the other two sections: Set Theory, which includes the rudimentary arithmetic of infinite numbers; and Metamathematics, which includes some computability theory and various results concerning the limitations of formalization, such as Gdel's theorem. George S. Boolos, John P. Burgess and Richard C. Jeffrey, Computability and Logic (Cambridge, 4th edn.) 120. Intermediate Philosophy of Physics: The purpose of this subject is to enable you to come to grips with conceptual problems in special relativity and quantum mechanics. Only those with a substantial knowledge of physics should offer this subject, which is normally available only to candidates reading Physics and Philosophy. 122. Philosophy of Mathematics (NP 101 or 102 or 108 or 117 or 119 or 120): What is the relation of mathematical knowledge to other kinds of knowledge? Is it of a special kind, concerning objects of a special kind? If so, what is the nature of those objects and how do we come to know anything about them? If not, how do we explain the seeming difference between proving a theorem in mathematics and establishing something about the physical world? The purpose of this subject is to enable you to examine questions such as these. Understanding the nature of mathematics has been important to many philosophers, including Plato, Aristotle, and Kant, as a test or as an exemplar of their overall position, and has also played a role in the development of mathematics at certain points. While no specific knowledge of mathematics is required for study of this subject, it will be helpful to have studied mathematics at A-level, or similar, and to have done Logic in Prelims/ Mods. Stephen F. Barker, Philosophy of Mathematics (Prentice-Hall). 198. Special subjects: See Regulations for Philosophy in All Honour Schools including Philosophy, 199. Thesis: See Examination Regulations 2003.
2. Politics
These notes give an introduction to the various Politics subjects. Further details, including course outlines, rubrics, and reading lists are available on the Politics website (www.politics.ox.ac.uk ), and from the Undergraduate Secretary, Department of Politics and International Relations, George Street, Oxford. You should choose your core subjects with care. The choice of two from five core subjects is deliberately permissive. In the first year, you acquire the basic tools of political analysis, but
49
the discipline of Politics consists of several distinct schools of analysis, none of which is selfevidently more fundamental than the others. The core papers are each designed to enhance your ability to conceptualise, to compare, and to develop analytical skills. In a joint honours degree, to require you to take papers covering all approaches would leave no space for choice and specialisation. Your choice of core subjects will however have a bearing on your subsequent work in Politics, and you are strongly advised to consult your college tutor and option-paper tutors before selecting any optional subject. For a number of options, it is helpful, though not essential, already to have taken a related core subject. Thus the study of political systems in particular areas or countries is based on issues that are raised in Comparative Government and Political Sociology; several subjects in the area of political theory are most readily tackled with the background provided by Theory of Politics; the two optional subjects in International Relations follow most naturally from the core paper, as to a lesser degree, do those in Sociology from the core paper in Political Sociology. The Department sets no normal prerequisites (papers you should normally have studied before studying others) similar to those in Philosophy. It prefers to leave final decisions on the appropriateness of particular choices to the individual, in conjunction with college tutors, and to leave open the possibility, where you might otherwise lack sufficient background, that you attend additional lectures or follow a course of directed vacation reading covering important material from the relevant core subject.
a. Core subjects 201. Comparative Government: 201. Comparative Government: This course is a comparative study of the main political institutions through which contemporary societies are governed. These include constitutional frameworks, executives, legislatures, bureaucracies, constitutional courts, systems of devolved power, electoral systems, political parties, and party systems. The course also considers some of the main political processes that affect governance and regime stability, such as styles of leadership, processes of regime transition and democratisation, and patterns of policy-making. Through reference to the distinct methodological approach used by different scholars in studying these phenomena - socio-cultural and behavioural approaches, the various 'institutional' schools, and rational-choice analysis - students acquire an understanding of the utility and limits of these individual schools of analysis. The course builds on the country-based institutional knowledge introduced in the first-year course (Introduction to Politics). In the first year, the focus is on singlecountry analysis of broad themes in the recent historical development of specific countries. In Comparative Government, the approach is explicitly comparative. It provides students with an understanding of key concepts and tools of empirical political analysis, and in this way also prepares them for the more specialised study of specific regions or single countries that follow as options later in the PPE syllabus. While the main instruction is via the usual mixture of lectures and tutorials, students should note that the range of knowledge covered makes the lectures even more vital than they might be for some courses. The lecture course has been increased to twenty lectures, and students are therefore expected to treat it as a commitment running right through the academic year. The course also involves two compulsory Department run classes to assist students in dealing with some of the broader comparative and theoretical themes. 202. British Politics and Government in the Twentieth Century: This course consists of the close study of political developments in Britain since 1900 and the major academic debates surrounding them. It allows students to study a single political system in depth, over a period long enough both to make visible long-run processes of social, economic and political change, and to permit comparisons and contrasts to be drawn between the situations of political actors at different times. It is also a period with an extraordinarily rich and rewarding academic literature, which encourages students to
50
explore problems of evidence and interpretation, and to consider a range of explanations, based on different scholarly traditions, for the same events. These include techniques and methods as diverse as archivally-based historical analysis, political biography and political science modelling. Among the topics covered are the decline of the Liberal Party and the rise of the Labour Party; the political effects of the two world wars and the widening franchise; the development of the institutions and procedures of modern government; the changing party system under mass democracy; the challenges and failures of political extremism; the domestic impact of foreign policies such as appeasement, decolonisation and European integration; the challenges posed to modern governments by relative economic decline, and efforts to transform the system such as tariff reform, social democracy and Thatcherism. 203. Theory of Politics: The course is designed to acquaint students with the political concepts central to the theoretical, normative and interpretative analysis of politics. T study of concepts such as he liberty, justice, authority or power provides the foundation for understanding the nature of political thought. These concepts underpin the study of politics in general and are therefore crucial to enhancing the awareness of the relation between political thought and action. Students are also directed towards discursive ideologies displaying complex conceptual arrangements such as liberalism or socialism. The course is devised so as to develop a manifold range of skills necessary for constructing critical arguments in political theory, for working with problems of consistency and justification, for analysing the complexities of the usage of political language, for understanding the principal forms through which political thought presents itself, both as theory and as ideology, and for appreciating the main current and recent debates that command attention in the field. To those ends philosophical, ideological and historical analyses are all appropriate, and the merits of each type may be assessed and contrasted. Students are therefore encouraged to explore different ways of approaching these issues, though they are also enabled, if they so wish, to choose a specific strategy from among these approaches. Students are also invited, in consultation with their tutors, to balance a broad appreciation of the field with a development of their own interests within the wide choice of available concepts and ideologies. The literature to which they are directed is therefore diverse, encompassing classical texts, seminal philosophers and theorists, significant journal articles, and typical examples of ideological debate. Both substantive arguments and methodological issues are consequently aired. By extending the initial understanding of political thought gained by students in the first year introduction to politics, or by building on other related introductory lectures and subjects, the course provides the basis for specialization in political theory, as well as tools that other specializations may draw upon. It will enable students to reflect on the principles underlying politics, to make reasoned assessments of political discourse, and to develop their own arguments at a requisite degree of sophistication. 214. International Relations: The aim of this core subject is to introduce PPE students to the academic study of International Relations and to develop a broad knowledge and understanding of the major issues in international relations, concentrating on the period since 1985. The subject seeks to strike a balance between empirical knowledge and theoretical understanding. Those taking the subject will have the opportunity to study some of the major questions in contemporary international relations (e.g. the reasons why the Cold War ended; the role of the United Nations and of alliances such as NATO; the impact on international relations of globalization and of democratization; the development of European integration; the international impact of civil wars and humanitarian disasters; and problems that arise from national self-determination and attempts to promote human rights). But they will also develop a broad knowledge of the most important analytical and theoretical tools that are needed to make sense of these questions. This knowledge of the principal theories and concepts is intended to tie in closely with work for the Further Subjects in International Relations (International Relations in the Era of the Cold War [subject 213] and International Relations in the Era of the Two World Wars [subject 212].
51
220. Political Sociology: The course builds on some of the concepts, theories and knowledge introduced in the Politics Prelims syllabus - notably the study of electorates, parties and interest groups, and the study of the interaction of political ideas such as democracy with political processes. In this Final Honour School subject students will study in more detail the major theoretical approaches to social class, race and ethnicity, gender, religion, nationality, states, interest groups including unions, parties, movements and single issue campaigns, and the interrelationships between culture, economy, social structure, and political processes and institutions. The theoretical approaches will be critically assessed in the light of empirical evidence from a range of countries, and also put in the context of the philosophically rigorous analysis of power and change. To aid students in attaining a comprehensive grasp of the field of study, they will have the opportunity to look at approaches such as structuralism, rational choice theory, political culture theory, and the historical and comparative perspective as such, as well as studying the application of these to the specific topics mentioned. Thus by the end of the course students should have an understanding of recent sociological explanations of political processes and events, a grasp of the competing approaches in the field, an understanding of the main methods of data collection and analysis, and an appreciation of the role of models and theories in sociological knowledge. b. Further subjects: N.B. Presentations on all the Politics option subjects will be given in Hilary Term of your second year. Course providers will give you an introduction to the content of the course, its organisation and the teaching arrangements. Details of these meetings will be circulated to you during Hilary Term.
204. Modern British Government and Politics: The course aims to provide a specialist knowledge of contemporary British government and politics. It provides candidates with both an awareness of the most significant debates in the academic literature and of different methodological approaches to the subject and a thorough understanding of the issues and controversies surrounding the operation of British government. This involves the study of the UK electoral system, political parties and voting behaviour; of the organisation and political activities of the executive, legislature, judiciary and civil service; of the powers of Parliament and local government; of the devolution of power to regions of the UK; and of the political influence of the media and pressure groups. The interaction of these political institutions with the European Union is also studied. Current and recent proposals for reforming the constitution are a particular focus of attention. The course includes the examination of a wide range of primary documents, including parliamentary papers and government reports. It aims to provide candidates with the ability to retrieve and analyse official information and other primary documents and to place them in historical and political context. On completion of the course candidates will be familiar with the detailed workings of British governmental institutions, with decision-making processes in government and the evolution of strategies for managing the public sector, and with the political dynamics of the system. 205. Government and Politics of the United States: This subject seeks to provide students with a basic understanding of American exceptionalism, of the United States political institutions, and of selected areas of public policy, and a good knowledge and understanding of the scholarly literature in the field. It covers the constitution; federalism and separation of powers; the presidency; congress; the federal courts; the federal bureaucracy; parties and the party system; electoral politics; political culture; mass media; interest groups; state and local politics; processes of policy formation and implementation, especially as related to urban policy, e conomic policy, race, and civil rights. It enables students to use data drawn from the large resources available (inter alia) in the Harmsworth Library (in the Rothermere American Institute) and the Law Library to form their own interpretations
52
of governmental processes, to refine the skill of thinking rigorously and critically for themselves, and thus to contribute more fully to tutorials and classes held in other subjects in Politics. 206. Government and Politics in Western Europe: The course is a comparative study of West European political culture, party systems, institutions of government, and policy processes. The course enables students to understand both the ways in which specific patterns of party configuration and policy-style have developed in different parts of the sub-continent, and the extent to which, despite this variation, there remains a common European political culture, and common political responses to key aspects of the European political agenda, such as the crisis of the welfare state, the development of post-material values and issues, and the pressures of multi-ethnic societies. Since wide areas of contemporary European political life are affected by economic and political integration, the course also covers the institutions, development, and policy processes of European integration, the linkages between the national and European Union tiers of government, and the implications for European liberal democracy of the growth of multi-tiered governance. The course develops the skills of empirical political analysis acquired earlier in the degree course, and enables students to become familiar with some of the basic sources of information from which they can henceforth renew and update their knowledge of changes and developments in European politics, including key academic periodicals, official publications at national and EU level, sources of political monitoring and commentary, and key IT sources. 207. Russian Government and Politics: Candidates will be required to show knowledge of government and politics both in the Soviet Union (with particular reference to the period from the end of the Stalin era in 1953 to the end of the USSR in 1991) and in post-Soviet Russia. Major objects of study are the power structure and the changing relationships between political institutions under Communism and post-Communism, the process of political transformation of the Soviet system, and the post-Soviet transition. Specific attention is devoted to political leadership, the development of representative institutions, the national question and federalism, the relationship between economic and political power, political parties and interests, ideology and political culture. 208. Politics in Sub-Saharan Africa: This course will enable students to acquire a knowledge and understanding of the recent history and contemporary politics of particular African countries; to analyse their political processes and institutions, to situate them in their social and economic context; and to examine the political conditions and consequences of economic policies. Students will be expected to study the politics of at least three African countries in some detail. These should include one or both of South Africa and Nigeria. They will also be expected to read material on other countries relevant to the study of specific themes and topics dealt with in tutorials and in a weekly class. These include the politics of democratization, structural adjustment, labour and unions, agricultural policy, gender, class and ethnicity. The course will allow students to extend their understanding of comparative politics, and particularly of issues common to Africa and other regions they may be studying, of political theory, of political sociology and of international relations by raising relevant questions in African circumstances. Students will acquire a more informed and critical understanding of African countries, which often appear to be far-away places of which we know little. Students may use this course as a foundation for further work in and about Africa in journalism, business, government, NGOs and academic research. It will contribute to their wider education as informed citizens. 209. Politics in Latin America: The aim of this subject is to study the major issues in the politics of Latin America. The subject will focus on the politics of a number of major countries, but in a way that leads to comparisons between them. The countries will include Mexico. Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Chile and Venezuela - chosen because they all represent interesting problems to the student, and because they have accessible literature in English. The broad theme that links these countries together is the study of the conditions that facilitate or hinder the consolidation of political stability. This subject will
53
examine institutional approaches to the study of Latin American politics, and will draw upon the political sociology and the political economy of the countries concerned, as well as upon the international context. Attention will be paid to the politics of the military; to the politics of economic stabilisation; to the nature of the governing elites; and to questions of political participation of the major social groups. 210. Politics in South Asia: This course introduces students to the nature of political change in the major South Asian countries (India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh) in the period after independence from colonial rule. The subject is intended to educate students in the most significant themes and issues in contemporary South Asian politics, through the study of illustrative cases taken from the various countries of the region. The subject also seeks to enable students to develop a critical engagement with the analytical literature on South Asia, in particular, and on the Third World or developing countries, more generally. While each of the major South Asian countries is studied separately, students are, at the same time, encouraged to analyse political developments comparatively. The course examines the nature of the post-colonial state and the evolution of political institutions and party politics, with a focus on the functioning of democracy and the tendencies towards authoritarianism or martial rule. The interface of democratic politics with the political economy of the developmental state is also addressed. The course also explores the development of movement politics or social movements as an important element of the democratic process. The course gives attention to social organisation, culture and identities as they bear on politics. In particular, the politics of gender, class, caste, religion and ethnicity are emphasised. The course engages with the evolution of political ideologies, especially those of nationalism and development, which have played significant roles in the political history of post-colonial states. The course is expected to enable second and third year students to develop the ability to construct rigorous arguments on South Asian politics, based on empirical knowledge and informed by a critical awareness of the scholarly literature on the subject. This course will prepare students to undertake post graduate studies on South Asia and the Third World, and for careers in journalism, diplomacy, national and international development organisations, NGOs and Think Tank or consultancy organisations, which specialise on the Third World and the field of development. 211. Politics in the Middle East: The course aims to give the student a wide-ranging and sophisticated introduction to the domestic political dynamics of the contemporary Middle East and its wider social relations. The course is organised thematically, with weekly topics including the nature of the state, political economy, the military, democratisation, succession and gender. The thematic emphasis gives the student maximum flexibility to concentrate on whichever countries most interest him/her. The geographical scope of the course is inclusive, covering North Africa, Turkey and Iran, as well as the core countries of region. It is expected that the student will complete the course knowing six or seven countries in some depth. The course is designed to relate to the discipline of politics in general, eschewing the notion that the Middle East is somehow unique and mysterious; students are encouraged to bring their knowledge of political concepts to bear in the course. Inter-regional comparisons are also encouraged, with students who have studied other parts of the developing world especially welcome. The course has been designed both for the generalist, who may go on to work in business, government, journalism or the professions, and for the budding specialist who may then proceed to a Masters in Middle Eastern studies. 212. International Relations in the Era of the Two World Wars: This course is the study of central issues in the international history of a period which had a profound influence on the subject of international relations. Students are introduced through the study of historical topics to the major debates and different theoretical approaches. These include Realist, Liberal, and Marxist views of the international system, levels of analysis, decision making processes and the role of individual leaders, the concepts of the balance of power, collective security, and dtente and the concert of powers,
54
isolationism and appeasement. The course also considers the impact of total war on the international system, causes of regional instability (nationalism, imperialism), the inter-action of different regional theatres in an evolving global international system, the role of financial and economic factors, revolutionary ideologies (Communism and Fascism), and the learning process as it affected policymaking in and immediately after the Second World War. The course enables students to consider the major theories and concepts of international relations critically in relation to the historical evidence, on which several of the theories were based, and to draw on a rich academic literature. It develops the skill of analysing empirical material in a way which is both informed by theory and sensitive to the complexity of the evidence. The course is closely related to the core subject International Relations and to the option International Relations in the Era of the Cold War. 213. International Relations in the Era of the Cold War: The course covers the international relations of a period crucial for the evolution of todays world. These have always generated much writing of high quality, which is now further enlivened by the progressive release and assimilation of archive material; and the period now appears sufficiently self-contained for scholars to be able to step back and gain perspective by viewing it as a whole. The course links strongly with the Politics core International Relations course, providing factual context and tests for many of that subjects theoretical approaches to international relations, and also valuable background for its treatment of the post-1985 contemporary scene. The Cold War subject also links back to the Further Subject International Relations in the Era of Two World Wars, especially as many post-war statesmen were avowedly seeking to avoid the mistakes of that earlier period, and it provides case studies useful for the Government and Politics of the United States Further Subject. 215. Classical Political Thought: The objective of this subject is to introduce students to some of the canonical texts in political thought and to help them to develop an appreciation of their significance for their own time and for contemporary political theory. The subject is designed to enhance students skills in reading and interpreting texts and to develop their appreciation of the richness of the traditions of political thought in the West which will contribute to their broader understanding of the discipline. The subject allows students to chose from a range of classical texts in the history of political thought and also offers a number of supplementary topics which encourage students to examine issues raised by these texts in the context of related discussions in the wider cannon of political thought. In both cases, the subject encourages students to develop skills in reading and critically reflecting on the arguments of complex works of political philosophy. It offers students the opportunity to develop an appreciation of the intellectual context in which the texts were written and/or to discuss the arguments of the texts in relation to issues in contemporary political theory. Students, in consultation with their tutors, may follow one or other of these options exclusively so long as they are able to demonstrate a sound grasp of the arguments of the texts on which they answer questions. The subject permits students to take either a narrow focus, concentrating on a few thinkers in depth, or aiming for a wide coverage of many. Either approach, however, relies on developing the capacity to grasp both the way particular texts work as arguments, and to gain some independent critical purchase on the arguments themselves. Students are also encouraged to examine different methods of interpretation in the History of Political Thought. 216. Foundations of Modern Social and Political Thought: This subject is designed to acquaint students with the transition from classical political philosophy to modern social theory --- that is, to introduce them to major theories developed from the late eighteenth century to the early twenty century, theories which (a) explored the nature and direction of social and economic change in Europe and (b) grappled with the moral and political issues raised by social and economic change. The subject enables students to study in depth a range of important texts, helping them to develop the skills required to identify and comment critically on the principal arguments contained in those texts. Students are also encouraged to appreciate the intellectual and historical context in which the texts
55
were written. Students may, in consultation with their tutors, choose between a number of approaches to this subject. They may concentrate on a smaller number of named theorists in greater depth or aim for a broader coverage of many theorists by way of topics. Thus, they may approach the subject by choosing a number of clusters of thinkers (e.g. Bentham and Mill, Hegel and Marx, Weber and Durkheim, Saint-Simon and Tocqueville). Or they may focus on topics such as individualism and community, centralisation, the idea of progress, science and religion, by reading further primary texts in addition to those specified in the reading list. These further texts can include both additional works by the named thinkers and works by other relevant writers, for instance those who pre-date the named thinker and who were particularly influential for him, contemporary writers whose work was pertinent and, in some cases, later writers. In any event, students will be expected to demonstrate detailed and critical acquaintance with the major texts, and to analyse some of the main issues of contention, or agreement, in the period covered by the subject. This subject will enable students to read complex texts with discrimination and attune themselves to the variety and depth of modern social and political debates in an historical perspective. 217. Marxism: The course, unusual in being devoted to a single intellectual and political tradition, gives students the opportunity to develop a deep and systematic understanding of Marxist theory and practice. Depending on their interests, and reflecting the interdisciplinary breadth of the Marxist tradition, students are able (in consultation with their tutors) to concentrate on one or more of Marxist philosophy, politics, sociology and economics. (Students primarily interested in Marxist economics may consider taking the Economics course Classical Economic Thought: Smith, Ricardo, Marx (312)). Similarly, although all students are required to cover the essentials of Marxist theory with reference to the key writings of Marx and Engels, the course permits students to strike their own balance between concentrating on these texts - and their interpretation and evaluation - and considering the theoretical contributions of later Marxists. While most attention is devoted to issues in Marxist theory, students are also expected to approach Marxism as a practical, political ideology, with concrete political consequences. In all cases, the course teaches students to be able critically to evaluate, not just to show knowledge of, the Marxist tradition. 218. Sociological Theory: The course permits students to specialise in and develop their understanding of theoretical perspectives, some of which will have been introduced by the core course in Political Sociology. Although it includes the ideas of some of the Founding Fathers of sociology - Marx, Weber, and Durkheim - the course is not primarily focussed on the history of sociological thought or on any particular texts. (Foundations of Modern Social and Political Thought (216) is an author - and text-based subject covering these and others). It rather attempts to encourage critical and analytical engagement with live issues in the assessment of a range of theoretical perspectives such as: rational choice; social exchange; functionalism; Marxism; symbolic interactionism; ethnomethodology; feminism. These are studied in relation to a number of substantive explananda such as: social order and integration (what holds society together?); social norms and roles (where do informal rules come from and why do people comply with them?); social change (is there an underlying dynamic to the historical process?); class and stratification (what generates systematic social inequality and what are its consequences?); deviance (in what circumstances and why do people contravene laws or less formal social rules?) The course also allows students to study more abstract o methodological issues such as: the relation between social structure and individual r agency; strategies for integrating macro- and micro-sociology; the merits and limitations of different research methods; the nature and aims of sociological theorising. (Students particularly interested in these more abstract issues might consider Philosophy of Science and Social Science (106)). The course is devoted exclusively to the understanding and evaluation of sociological theories. Since this depends on considering such theories in relation to the empirical facts, processes or institutions that they seek to explain or illuminate, the course requires students to be familiar with relevant empirical studies.
56
(Students interested in a course essentially devoted to empirical rather than theoretical sociology might consider taking Sociology of Industrial Societies (219)). 219. Sociology of Industrial Societies: The aims of the course are to introduce students to the major contemporary theories and central concepts relevant to the study of industrial societies, to show how such theories can be tested against the empirical data, and to give students some knowledge of the relevant comparative literature and thus place the study of contemporary British society within a broader cross-national perspective. One focus of the course is on the study of social stratification, with a particular emphasis on the debates over stratification by social class, gender, ethnicity and national identity. The second focus is on social change, especially with regard to debates over the withering away of social class, the growth of individualism, the process of secularisation, and the changing nature of the contemporary family. By the end of the course students should have gained a good knowledge of the scholarly literature and debates in the fields of stratification and mobility, gender and so on; they will have gained some empirically-based knowledge of the ways in which British society is similar to or different from other contemporary advanced societies; and they should understand how to test theories of industrial society against the empirical evidence.
221. British Society in the Twentieth Century: The course aims to introduce undergraduates to issues and controversies in modern British social history and to the types of evidence and modes of analysis employed by social historians. Candidates have some freedom to select themes for study but they must familiarise themselves with the main features of social change - for example, in demography, class structure, gender, living standards and urban and rural development. They must also acquire a critical knowledge of the recommended documents that have a bearing on their chosen topics. By the end of the course they should be able to give their own account of patterns and processes of social change, making use of primary sources and taking an informed view on controversial questions. 222. Labour Economics and Industrial Relations: (Can also be taken as an Economics subject, see Economics entry 307 below) 223. The Government and Politics of Japan: This course provides a study one of the very few nations outside the Western world whose politics appears to be stably based on democratic principles and a democratic constitution. It introduces students to Japanese political history since 1945 and the social context of Japanese institutions and policy-making, enabling them to understand the vicissitudes of Japanese experience in the last twenty years: from the 1980s, when Japanese exports were seen as threateningly ultra-competitive in Europe, North America and elsewhere, through the more difficult 1990s and 2000s which have precipitated a concentrated debate on restructuring both of the economy and of the political system. The course covers the constitutional framework and structure of government; parliamentary and local politics; the electoral and party systems; the role of corporate interests and pressure groups; the bureaucracy; foreign policy. It aims to provide an understanding of the major debates on the nature of Japanese liberal democracy, and to some of the main interpretive models: bureaucratic polity, developmental state, iron-triangle dominance by bureaucrats, business leaders and politicians, patterned pluralism etc. The underlying principle of the course is that Japanese politics is just as capable of being understood empirically as is any other political system, so long as preconceptions are not allowed to get in the way of understanding. No previous knowledge of Japan is required. 224. Social Policy: The course enables students to develop a critical understanding of welfare states, different approaches to social policy, and definitions and explanations of problems such as poverty, deprivation, and social exclusion. It permits students to draw on different perspectives in their previous study of, for example, public economics or political theory. Students are expected to read
57
widely in the empirical research literature on policy formulation and implementation and to make themselves familiar with current statistics and reports. The course encourages students to engage with both theoretical principles and empirical evidence across a range of issues and policy areas such as: the development and problems of welfare states; voluntary effort and the informal sector; the mixed economy of welfare; citizenship, rights, markets and welfare; the impact of demography on social policy; poverty, inequality, deprivation and social exclusion; urban policy and inner cities; underclass and welfare dependency; income maintenance; family policy; health policy; housing policy and homelessness; education policy; ageing societies. Principles, concepts and institutions are analysed on a cross-national basis. Where specific policy areas are examined, the focus is on contemporary Britain. However, the policies of EU member states and other countries are considered when these have a bearing on British arrangements. 225. Comparative Demographic Systems: (Can also be taken as an Economics subject, see Economics entry 315 below) [Until 1 st October 2004] 226. Statistical Methods in Social Science: This can be offered either as an Economics or Politics course. It contains a compulsory section on methods of statistical analysis, followed by applications to either economics or politics. Which section applies depends on whether you are taking it as an Economics or Politics course. The Politics section introduces you to problems of measurement and sampling typically experienced by political scientists, especially when using sample surveys. General methodological problems arising from the quantitative study of issues in political science and sociological are considered, as are analytic techniques particularly useful given the issues and data most commonly found. [From 1 st October 2004] Quantitative Methods in Politics and Sociology: Candidates will be expected to show an understanding of applications of quantitative methods in politics and sociology including the following: the principles of research design in social science: data collection, the logic of causal inference, and comparative method; major statistical methods and concepts: types of random variables, independence, correlation and association, sampling theory, hypothesis testing, linear and non-linear regression models, event-history analysis, and time-series. Candidates will also be expected to interpret information and show familiarity with major methodological debates in Politics and Sociology. 227. Politics in China: This course will enable students to acquire a knowledge and understanding of the recent history and contemporary politics of China. China has been in transition from the long rule of Mao Zedong since 1978, and its politics and society have transformed radically during that period. Students will gain an understanding of the Chinese Communist party (the most powerful Communist party left in the world), looking at its historical background before analysing its current strategy to remain in control of China in the post-Cold War era. The reform era under Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin will be analysed through a variety of themes, including elite politics and the Tiananmen crisis of 1989, rural reforms, urban culture, and gender. Chinas new status as a regional power in international relations will also be examined, as well as its relations with Taiwan and Hong Kong, two very different Chinese societies. This course will allow students to develop a strong knowledge of one of the worlds most important countries, and could serve as stimulation for further work in and about China in journalism, business, government, NGOs and academic research. 297. Special Subject in Politics: For first examination in June 2005, the Department of Politics and International Relations is introducing a new category of undergraduate paper: the Special Subject in Politics. Special Subjects are examined like most other papers in Politics: by three hour unseen examination, in which three questions must be answered. What is distinctive about them is that their
58
subject matter is likely to be more narrowly defined than is the case with other papers, and may be closely linked to the specialist research areas of the members of staff who teach them. What they offer therefore is the opportunity, hitherto only available to those writing theses or supervised dissertations, to study an area of political studies in greater depth. Special Subjects will only be available to undergraduates in Michaelmas Term of their third year. They will be taught for the first time in Michaelmas Term 2004 for those taking Schools in June the following year. The range of Special Subjects available will be announced at the beginning of the fourth week of Hilary Term 2004 via the website and noticeboards of the Department of Politics and International Relations and circulated to Politics tutors at colleges admitting undergraduates. Presentations on them will be held at the Options Circus the Department organises to present details of all its optional papers. The teaching provided for a Special Subject will be equivalent to the teaching provided for a normal Politics paper. Some special rules apply to the Special Subject and these are set out in full in the Examination Decrees. No candidate may offer more than one Special Subject. A Special Subject may not be offered by candidates also offering a thesis (199, 299, 399) or Supervised dissertation (298). Depending on the availability of teaching resources, not all Special Subjects will be available to all candidates in every year. There might be other further subjects which it would not be possible to offer alongside it. For example, if there were a Special Subject on The U.S. Supreme Court, it might be restricted to candidates not taking Government and Politics of the USA. Any such restrictions would be announced at the same time as the Special Subjects introduction. There may also be restrictions on the numbers of students permitted to take a given Special Subject. These restrictions would also be announced in advance, and a fair means of deciding who could take the Special Subject (e.g. a ballot) would be used in the event of excessive numbers. 298: Supervised dissertation in Politics: see the separate entry under Section One of this Handbook. 299: Thesis in Politics: see the separate entry under Section One of this Handbook.
3.
Economics
These notes give an introduction to the various Economics subjects. Further details, including course outlines, rubrics, teaching arrangements and reading lists are available on the Economics website (www.economics.ox.ac.uk ).
301. Microeconomics core course (second year): This subject is compulsory for all PPE (and EM and MHE) finalists. You will be expected to take it in your second year, and most of the lectures are given in Michaelmas Term. The course is in two parts: Microeconomic Theory, which is examined in Section A of the Finals paper, and Applied Topics in Microeconomics, examined in Section B. You will be required to answer questions from both Sections in Finals. The theory section of the course aims to introduce you to some of the fundamental ideas and tools of modern microeconomic theory. It covers welfare economics and social choice; market failure including externalities and public goods; the behaviour of the firm and the role of market structures, with an introduction to game theory; the economics of risk, uncertainty and information; international trade and protection. The applied part considers issues in public policy, currently environmental economics, competition policy, the microeconomics of technological change, and the economics of education. These applied topics are changed at intervals; the lectures and tutorials will be your guide to applied topics relevant for your Finals. 302. Macroeconomics core course (second year): This is the second compulsory course for all PPE (and EM and MHE) finalists. As with the Microeconomics core course you will be expected to take it in your second year. The lectures are given in Hilary Term. The course will introduce you to the ideas and tools of modern macroeconomic analysis, and show how these tools can be applied to issues in
59
macroeconomic policy. The division between theory and applied material in macroeconomics is not clear-cut, and the lecturers will move between them on most topics. The Macroeconomics paper in Finals will contain two sections, questions in Section A being primarily analytical and those in Section B having a more applied or policy-relevant slant. You will be required to answer questions from both. The course will cover: the main macroeconomic theories and their policy implications; the determination of exchange rates; macroeconomic performance; unemployment; inflation; monetary and fiscal policy, including EMU; economic growth. Applied issues will be studied mainly in the relation to the UK and its membership of the European Union, but experience of other OECD countries will also be used. Option subjects in economics N.B. A presentation on all the Economics option subjects will be given in Hilary Term of your second year. At this one of the tutors teaching on each course will give you an introduction to the content of the course, its organisation and the teaching arrangements. 303. Economic Theory: This course is intended for the more ambitious economist, who is perhaps thinking about proceeding to graduate study. It will introduce you to some of the fundamental ideas and tools of modern economic theory at a more advanced level than in the core subjects. It will also give you the opportunity to deploy further mathematical tools for economic analysis. The main areas which are covered are: game theory; welfare and social choice; consumers, producers and general equilibrium; uncertainty and contracts; macroeconomic equilibrium and disequilibrium; distribution, growth and capital. 304. Money and Banking: What is money, and how does it relate to other types of financial assets in a modern economy? Through what channels does money influence output and employment? What is its role in inflation and the control of inflation? How far should financial institutions be regulated? These are some of the questions which are addressed in this course. Topics covered include: the nature and definition of money; portfolio choice; the role and behaviour of banks and other financial intermediaries; the supply of money and credit; interest rates and the prices of equities; monetary policy in theory and practice; how changes in money and credit conditions affect expenditure, output and prices; the regulation of banks and other financial intermediaries; foreign exchange markets; the government debt, debt management and the relations between monetary and fiscal policy. 305. Public Economics: Public Economics is a very wide-ranging discipline, concerned with the principles underlying most aspects of economic policy. Market failure is a key theme, along with the design of policies in response to it. The course covers both principles and applications. It starts by developing the welfare-theoretic foundations of policy analysis, the rationale for government intervention and the constraints on government action. Taxation and government expenditure are considered extensively. On the revenue side of the public accounts we consider the principles involved in tax design and analyse different types of taxes, including social insurance systems. On the expenditure side the course assesses the rationale for major categories of public spending, including health, education and pensions. 306. Economics of Industry: This popular course centres on the behaviour of private sector firms. It builds on the analysis of the firm developed in the Microeconomics core course, extending this to key elements of modern industrial organization analysis, relating that analysis to the empirical reality of firms and markets in the advanced industrial economies, and exploring some of the major themes of industrial and competition policy. The major topics covered are: oligopolistic competition and empirical models of oligopoly pricing; product differentiation; strategic entry deterrence and social efficiency; monopoly, advertising and their social costs; price discrimination; vertical integration in
60
markets; R & D, concentration and patent races; market structure, concentration and profitability; and the growth of firms. 307. Labour Economics and Industrial Relations: For PPE students this course counts as either an Economics or a Politics special subject. Partly because of this, it encompasses a wider range of topics than many other special subjects. Accordingly a rather bigger choice of questions is available on the Finals paper. The examination paper is not sectionalised and choice is not restricted by whether you are deeming this an Economics or a Politics option. The aim of the subject is to understand how the labour market works and the macroeconomic and distributional outcomes it produces. Important dimensions of this are: the behaviour of employees and employers, including the role and functioning of trade unions and employers organisations, and employer-employee relations, especially industrial cooperation and conflict; turnover, unemploy ment, and labour market adjustment; theories of wages, including analysis of the minimum wage; labour market segmentation and discrimination; government policy towards labour issues. Most of the topics can be studied from an international comparative perspective, though students can adopt a dominantly UK focus if they wish. 308. International Economics: With the increasing internationalisation of economic life the study of International Economics has much to offer in helping to think about global developments. The course will analyse the determinants of international trade, including the implications of imperfect competition in international markets; the cases when a protectionist policy towards international trade may be appropriate; regionalism in international trading arrangements; the fundamental determinants of the balance of payments and exchange rates; the theory and evidence relating to exchange rate behaviour and to alternative exchange rate arrangements; the international context within which domestic macroeconomic policy is designed and conducted; international macroeconomic linkages; and the importance of international macroeconomic policy co-ordination. 309. Command and Transitional Economies: The goals of this course are to lead you to an understanding of the theory and functioning of the traditional command economy, attempts to reform it in the direction of market socialism, and the complex process of transition to a market economy. You will be expected first to learn about the evolution of the command economy in the preWorld War II period in the USSR (War Communism, New Economic Policy, Stalinist Central Planning) and in the post-war period in the USSR, Eastern Europe and China. But emphasis will be placed on knowledge of the features and policies of the main variants of the command system (e.g. central planning, performance of state enterprises, fiscal and monetary policies, foreign trade), rather than details of economic history or experience of countries. The second subject area includes the 1965 reform and perestroika in the USSR, the New Economic Mechanism in Hungary, self-management in Yugoslavia, and post-1978 reforms in China. The third area comprises the theory of the transition from command to market systems, as well as policies and e conomic developments in the major countries after 1989. The main countries to be studies are Russia, Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic. Although most questions in the exam will deal with the Soviet Union/FSU and Eastern Europe, at least two will relate fully or partially to the economy of China. 310. Economics of Developing Countries: Economic development for the worlds poorer nations is a self-evident challenge, which demands serious economic analysis. This course introduces you to key areas of development economics, relating analysis to conditions in developing countries, and exploring some of the major economic policy issues relating to developing countries. The topics covered include: theories of growth and development; poverty and income distribution; human resources, labour markets and employment; industrialisation and technology; agriculture and rural development. Familiar topics which have to be adapted to the situation in developing countries also include monetary and fiscal issues; inflation; foreign trade and payments; foreign and domestic capital; the role of economic aid. An overarching theme is the role of government in development and
61
the operation of markets. While the approach taken in the course is analytical, you will be expected to have an interest in the problems and policies of particular regions or countries, and use knowledge of actual situations to inform and illustrate the analysis. Note: Planning and transition in China and a number of ex-Soviet economies are at present excluded from this subject as they are part of the course on Command and Transitional Economies. 311. British Economic History since 1870: This subject analyses the record of the British economy since 1870 from an economists perspective. A continuing theme is the assessment of the extent and sources of the decline of the British economy. For the period 1870-1918 topics of particular interest include British overseas investment and changes in agriculture, both of which played a significant role in developments here and abroad. The analysis of the inter-war period begins from a review of the industrial problems of the British economy, and then covers the return to the Gold Standard in 1925, the great depression and unemployment, including the departure from gold in 1931, and the sources and nature of the economic recovery in the 1930s. The post-1945 period brings the Keynesian Revolution, demand management and the role of fiscal policy. Economic growth in the golden age was tarnished by price and wage inflation, followed by rising unemployment and the slowdown in output and productivity growth beginning in the 1970s. 312. Classical Economic Thought: This course involves detailed analysis of the key works of the classical economists Adam Smith, David Ricardo and Karl Marx together with subsequent controversies about their interpretation and what distinguishes classical economics from modern neoclassical approaches. 313. Statistical Methods in Economics (paper for examination from 2005): This contains a compulsory section on methods of statistical analysis, followed by applications to economics. In methods of statistical analysis you are introduced to elements of probability theory, the standard statistical distributions, estimation and hypothesis testing. The applications in Economics are concerned with the application of techniques of statistical inference to economic problems. Additional techniques which are examined include the seasonal adjustment of time series and the construction of index numbers. 314. Econometrics: Econometrics is concerned with the application of statistical theory to the analysis of economic data and the estimation of economic relationships. This course covers both an introduction to econometric theory and methods, and a range of applications, including the use of computer software packages. In the theory of econometrics the following topics are covered: regression and correlation; interpretation, estimation, and prediction in single equation two- and three-variable linear models, including test of significance and goodness of fit; problems of bias, multi-collinearity, and autocorrelation; simultaneous equations problems: reduced form, identification. The applications part of the course considers the estimation of consumption functions, demand analysis, production functions, and macroeconomic policy models. Part of the teaching for the course involves the use of the computer and standard software packages to actually do econometrics, and to give experience of the various theoretical techniques covered in the lectures. 315. Comparative Demographic Systems: The course deals with the major subject areas and controversies in contemporary demography. Students will gain an understanding of major contemporary demographic trends, the theories advanced to account for them and their practical importance. These include: the status of demographic transition models, theories of low fertility and of divergent mortality in the industrial world; the prospects for welfare systems in ageing societies, new forms of family and household and their future; the realities and prospects of mass migration. Population growth, economic development, environmental pressures and new threats to health in the post war third world will receive attention, and the future of world population as growth rates
62
slacken and poor societies begin population ageing. Intended and unintended consequences of government actions on demographic phenomena, and the historical origins of Europes distinctive demography will be emphasised. On the technical side of the subject, by the end of the course students will know the limitations and origins of demographic data, the advantages of measuring demographic phenomena through different indices and the use of models in population analysis. They will be able to perform elementary operations in the analysis of fertility and mortality, including methods of standardization, the construction and manipulation of the life table and simple population projection. Only elementary arithmetic ability is needed, but sympathy for arguments presented as graphs, numbers or simple expressions is important. No previous demographic knowledge is required. This subject provides an unusual opportunity to combine numerical analysis of human populations with an interdisciplinary comparative analysis of population change at micro and macro level. 316. Economics of OECD Countries: This course analyses developments since 1945 in the major OECD economies. A comparative framework is used to examine overall developments, centring on the USA, Japan and Europe. Students may then specialise in one of the major areas. Broad topics covered in comparative perspective include economic growth in the golden age; the growth and productivity slow -down starting in the 1970s; the rise of unemployment; the inflation of the 1970s and the disinflation of the 1980s and the international monetary system. Within Europe the course focuses on the process of European integration, its results and challenges. It also looks at features of individual economies such as the German model and the Swedish model. The US section covers issues such as the new economy of the 1990s, macro-economic policy and the causes of inequality. The Japanese section includes the transition from rapid growth to stagnation, the Japanese labour market and financial systems. 399. Thesis: See Section One of this Handbook.
PPE HANDBOOK 2003-2004 APPENDIX B: Extracts from the Examination Regulations 2003
63
The published Examination Regulations, the Grey Book, is out of date, because it goes to print in the summer and the legislative cycle continues to just before the start of Michaelmas Term. The version printed below is that current at the beginning of Michaelmas Term 2003. An up-to-date version of the regulations is maintained on the Department of Politics website.
Preliminary Examination for Philosophy, Politics, and Economics

A 1. The subjects of the Preliminary Examination for Philosophy, Politics, and Economics shall be: (1) Introductory Economics (2) Introduction to Philosophy (3) Introduction to Politics. 2. A candidate shall be allowed to offer himself for examination in one, two, or three subjects. Candidates must also pursue a course of study in Information Technology, and are required to submit an information technology-based project by the first day of the Trinity Full Term in which the examination is taken. Details of the course are to be found in the Student Handbook for Philosophy, Politics and Economics.
3. A candidate shall be deemed to have passed the examination if he shall have satisfied the Examiners in three subjects, and has submitted a satisfactory project for the Information Technology course (as described above). Any candidate who fails to submit a project for the Information Technology course by the deadline, or whose project is deemed to be unsatisfactory, will be allowed to resubmit the project by the Monday of the week falling three weeks before First Week of the following Michaelmas Full Term. Submission of a satisfactory project is a requirement for entering the Second Public Examination.
4. The Examiners may award a distinction to candidates of special merit who have passed all three subjects at a single examination.
64
B
Three three-hour papers will be set as follows. Introductory Economics
Elementary economics: including demand theory, production theory, perfect competition, monopoly, monopolistic competition, oligopoly, factor markets, general equilibrium and welfare, the theory of international trade, national income accounting, the determination of national income and employment, monetary institutions and the money supply, inflation, balance of payments, and exchange rates. Elementary mathematical economics: applications of functions and graphs, differentiation, partial differentiation, maxima and minima, maximization subject t o constraints. Economic statistics: presentation of statistics, descriptive statistics, index numbers, elementary sampling and significance, simple correlation and regression. Calculators may be used in the examination room subject to the conditions set out under the heading 'Use of calculators in examinations' in the Special Regulations concerning Examinations. Introduction to Philosophy
The paper shall consist of three sections: (I) General Philosophy, (II) Moral Philosophy, (III) Logic. Each candidate shall be required to show adequate knowledge in at least two sections.
I. General Philosophy and II. Moral Philosophy These sections shall be studied in connection with respectively: Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy, trans. Cottingham, Cambridge University Press, and Mill, Utilitarianism. These sections while not being confined to the detailed views of the authors of the set texts, will be satisfactorily answerable by a candidate who has made a critical study of these texts. In neither section will there be a compulsory question containing passages for comment. III. Logic Subjects to be studied include: propositional and predicate languages; truth tables; tableaux; relations; the critical application of formal logic to the analysis of English sentences and inferences (problems of symbolization; scope; truth-functionality; quantification, identity, descriptions). The logical symbols and tableaux rules to be used are those found in Wilfred Hodges, Logic, 2nd edition (Penguin Books), sections 1-11 and 16-40 omitting theorem XII of section 24. The logical symbols and tableaux rules to be used are those found in that book. Some philosophical questions about logic may b studied by reading Mark Sainsbury, Logical Forms, 1st or 2nd edition (Blackwell), chapters 1-2. Introduction to Politics: The Theory and Practice of Democracy The paper will contain two sections. Candidates are required to answer four questions, of which at least one must be from section (a) and two from section (b). Candidates choosing to answer two questions from section (b) must show knowledge of at least two of the following political systems: the United States of America; the United Kingdom; France; Germany. Candidates choosing to answer three questions from section (b) must show knowledge of at least three of the following political systems: the United States of America; the United Kingdom; France; Germany. (a) Theorizing the Democratic State Questions will be set on the following topics: the nature and grounds of democracy; power and influence in the democratic state; ideology; civil society; public choice approaches to democracy; the nature and limits of iberty. Questions will also be set on the following texts: J. J. Rousseau, The Social Contract; J. S. Mill, On Liberty; Alexis de Toqueville, Democracy in America; Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto , Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, Preface to a Critique of Political Economy, Critique of the Gotha Programme, plus readings 14, 37, 39 in David McLellan, ed., Karl Marx: Selected Writings, Second Edition (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000).
(b) Analysis of Democratic Institutions Questions will be set on the following topics: the state and its institutions (executives, legislatures, parties and party systems, courts, constitutions and centre-periphery relations); political representation; the politics of instability; policy continuity and policy change; democratic transitions and consolidation. Questions will also be set on these topics with reference to the following political systems: the United States of America; the United Kingdom; France; Germany.
65
SPECIAL REGULATIONS FOR THE HONOUR SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY, POLITICS, AND ECONOMICS A 1. The subject of the Honour School of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics shall be the study of modern philosophy, and of the political and economic principles and structure of modern society. 2. Candidates must offer Philosophy, Politics, and Economics or such combination of these subjects as may be determined by the Division of Social Sciences. 3. No candidate shall be admitted to examination in this school unless he or she either (a) has passed or been exempted from the first Public Examination or (b) has successfully completed the Foundation Course in Social and Political Science at the Department for Continuing Education. 4. The examination for this school shall be under the joint supervision of the Social Sciences Board and the Humanities Board which shall make regulations concerning it subject always to the preceding clauses of this sub-section.
B
Candidates may offer either Philosophy, Politics, and Economics or Philosophy and Politics or Politics and Economics or Philosophy and Economics. The highest Honours can be obtained by excellence in a minority of subjects offered provided that adequate knowledge is shown throughout the examination. [Until 1 October 2004: The heads of the departments of Economics and Politics shall make available to the examiners records showing whether candidates have pursued a course in informat ion technology to an adequate standard. The examiners shall deduct one per cent of the aggregate mark of those candidates who have failed to reach an adequate standard.] Candidates must take eight subjects in all [Until 1 October 2004: excluding the course in information technology referred to above,] and must satisfy requirements of particular branches of the school, including, in Philosophy, those set out in the Regulations for Philosophy in all Honour Schools including Philosophy, and, in Politics and Economics, requirements to take core subjects. In Politics, the core subjects are any two of 201, 202, 203, 214 and 220; in Economics, the core subjects are 301 and 302. In Politics, any of 201, 202, 203, 214 and 220 which are not offered as core subjects may be offered as further subjects. On entering his or her name for the examination by the date prescribed, each candidate must give notice to the Registrar of the papers being offered. Calculators may be used in the examination room for all Economics subjects, subject to the conditions set out under the heading 'Use of calculators in examinations' in the Special Regulations concerning Examinations.
A. Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. Candidates must take subjects (i) either subject 101 or 102, and (ii) subject 103, 301 and 302 and any two of 201, 202, 203, 214 and 220. Their other two subjects may be chosen freely from those listed under Philosophy and under Politics and under Economics, except that certain combinations of subjects may not be offered (see List of Subjects below), and except that not all Economics subjects may be offered in any particular year (see below for details). There may also be restrictions on numbers permitted to offer some Economics subjects in any particular year.
B. Philosophy and Politics. Candidates must take (i) either subject 101 or subject 102, and (ii) subject 103 and any two of 201, 202, 203, 214 and 220.
66
Their other four subjects may be chosen freely from those listed under Philosophy and under Politics, except that (i) at least one must be a subject in Philosophy and the Regulations for Philosophy in all Honour Schools including Philosophy must be adhered to; (ii) at least one must be a further subject in Politics (other than the thesis (or the supervised dissertation) if offered); (iii) certain combinations of subjects may not be offered (see List of Subjects below). C. Politics and Economics. Candidates must take subjects 301 and 302 and any two of 201, 202, 203, 214 and 220. Their other four subjects may be chosen freely from those listed under Politics and under Economics except that (i) at least one must be a further subject in Politics (other than the thesis (or the supervised dissertation) if offered); (ii) at least one must be a further subject in Economics (other than the thesis if offered); (iii) one but only one may be a subject in Philosophy; (iv) certain combinations of subjects may not be offered (see List of Subjects below); (v) not all Economics subjects may be offered in any particular year (see below for details). There may also be restrictions on numbers permitted to offer some Economics subjects in any particular year. D. Philosophy and Economics. Candidates must take (i) either subject 101 or subject 102, and (ii) subjects 103, 301 and 302. Their other four subjects may be chosen freely from those listed under Philosophy and under Economics, except that (i) at least one must be a subject in Philosophy and the Regulations for Philosophy in all Honour Schools including Philosophy must be adhered to; (ii) at least one must be a further subject in Economics (other than the thesis if offered); (iii) certain combinations of subjects may not be offered (see List of Subjects below); (iv) not all Economics subjects may be offered in any particular year (see below for details). There may also be restrictions on numbers permitted to offer some Economics subjects in any particular year. LIST OF SUBJECTS Certain combinations of further subjects may not be offered: in parentheses after the title of each further subject is the number of any other subject or subjects with which it may not be combined. The syllabuses for the subjects in this List are given in Regulations for Philosophy in all Honour Schools including Philosophy or in the schedule below.
Philosophy 101. History of Philosophy from Descartes to Kant 102. Knowledge and Reality 103. Ethics 104. Philosophy of Mind 105. Philosophy of Science and Philosophy of Psychology and Neuroscience (106) 106. Philosophy of Science and Social Science (105) 107. Philosophy of Religion 108. The Philosophy of Logic and Language 109. Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Criticism 110. Medieval Philosophy 111. Continental Philosophy 112. The Philosophy of Kant 113. Post -Kantian Philosophy 114. Theory Of Politics (203) 115. Plato Republic 116. Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics

117. Frege, Russell, and Wittgenstein (118) 118. The Later Philosophy of Wittgenstein (117) 119. Formal Logic 120. Intermediate Philosophy of Physics 122. Philosophy of Mathematics 198. Special Subjects 199. Thesis (298, 299, 399) Politics (including Sociology) 201. Comparative Government 202. British Politics and Government in the Twentieth Century 203. Theory Of Politics (114) 204. Modern British Government and Politics 205. Government and Politics of the United States 206. Government and Politics in Western Europe 207. Russian Government and Politics 208. Politics in Sub-Saharan Africa 209. Politics in Latin America 210. Politics in South Asia 211. Politics in the Middle East 212. International Relations in the Era of Two World Wars 213. International Relations in the Era of the Cold War 214. International Relations 215. Classical Political Thought up to 1800 216. Foundations of Modern Social and Political Thought 217. Marxism 218. Sociological Theory 219. The Sociology of Industrial Societies 220. Political Sociology 221. British Society in the Twentieth Century 222. Labour Economics and Industrial Relations (307) 223. The Government and Politics of Japan 224. Social P olicy 225. Comparative Demographic Systems (315)
67
68
[Until 1 October 2004 226. Statistical Methods in Social Science (313)] [From 1 October 2004 226. Quantitative Methods in Politics and Sociology (313)] 227. Politics in China [From 1 October 2004 297. Special subject in Politics (199, 298, 299, 399)] 298. Supervised dissertation (199, 297, 299, 399) 299. Thesis (199, 297, 298, 399) Economics
Not all Economics subjects may be offered in any particular year. There may also be restrictions on numbers permitted to offer some Economics subjects in any particular year. Economics subjects available to candidates in any particular year will depend on the availability of teaching resources. Candidates may obtain details of the choice available for the following year by consulting the Economics Supplement of the Handbook of the Honour School of Philosophy, Politics and Economics. This will be issued by the beginning of the fourth week of the first Hilary Full Term of candidates work for the Honour School. 301. Macroeconomics 302. Microeconomics 303. Economic Theory 304. Money and Banking 305. Public Economics 306. Economics of Industry 307. Labour Economics and Industrial Relations (222) 308. International Economics 309. Command and Transitional Economies 310. Economics of Developing Countries 311. British Economic History since 1870 312. Classical Economic Thought: Smith, Ricardo, and Marx 313. Statistical Methods in Social Science (226) 314. Econometrics 315. Comparative Demographic Systems (225) 316. Economics of OECD Countries 399. Thesis (199, 298, 299)

SCHEDULE
69
The schedule of subjects in Philosophy is given in the Regulations for Philosophy in all Honour Schools including Philosophy 201. Comparative Government Candidates will be expected to show knowledge of the following topics: party systems; electoral systems; political parties as organizations; forms of government and the constitutional allocation of power between institutions; the political executive and sources of political leadership; the roles of legislatures; the structure and political power of bureaucracy; public policy-making; judicial review, and judicial influence on politics; the territorial decentralization of power; regime transformation, civil-military relations, and democratization. Candidates will be required to answer all questions comparatively. 202. British Politics and Government in the Twentieth Century British politics (including the major domestic political crises, ideologies and political issues) and the evolution of the British political and constitutional system (including elections and the electoral system, political parties, parliament, the cabinet system, and machinery of government). 'Political issues' will be taken to include the political implications of social and economic development and the domestic implications of foreign and imperial policy. Candidates will be expected to show knowledge of developments both before and since 1945. 203. Theory of Politics* The critical study of political values and of the concepts used in political analysis: the concept of the political; power, authority, and related concepts; the state; law; liberty and rights; justice and equality; public interest and common good; democracy and representation; political obligation and civil disobedience; ideology; liberalism, socialism, and conservatism. * May be offered alternatively as a further subject in Philosophy as 114. 204. Modern British Government and Politics A study of the structure, powers, and operations of modern Brit ish Government, including its interaction with the European Community: the Crown, Ministers, Parliament, elections, parties and pressure groups, the legislative process; Government departments, agencies, and regulatory bodies; local authorities, administrative jurisdiction and the Courts. Candidates will be expected to show familiarity with certain prescribed documents, a schedule of which may be revised annually. All of these documents will be displayed on the open shelves of the PPE Reading Room in the Bodleian Library. Any revisions to the schedule shall apply only to candidates taking the Final Honour School five terms hence, and if no proposals for revising the schedule have been received by noon on Friday of week one of Hilary Term, the previous year's list shall stand. The revised schedule will be displayed on the PPE syllabus notice-board at the Department of Politics and International Relations, George Street. 205. Government and Politics of the United States The constitution; federalism and separation of powers: the presidency; congress; the federal courts; the federal bureaucracy; parties and the party system; electoral politics; mass media; interest groups; state and local politics; processes of policy formation and implementation; political culture. 206. Government and Politics in Western Europe The emphasis of the paper will be upon the three major countries (France, the Federal Republic of Germany, and Italy) but candidates will have the opportunity of showing knowledge of other Western European countries and of the European Union. They will be required to show knowledge of at least two major countries and of one further country or the European Union: knowledge of the United Kingdom will not count towards the satisfaction of this requirement. Nor should questions be answered solely with reference to the United Kingdom, though comparisons of the United Kingdom with other Western European countries may be appropriate. 207. Russian Government and Politics Candidates will be required to show knowledge of government and politics both in the Soviet Union (with particular reference to the period from the end of the Stalin era in 1953 to the end of the USSR in 1991) and in post-Soviet Russia. Major objects of study are the power structure and the changing relationships between political institutions under Communism and post-Communism, the process of political transformation of the Soviet system, and the post -Soviet transition. Specific attention is devoted to political leadership, the development of representative institutions, the national question and federalism, the relationship between economic and political power, political parties and interests, ideology, and political culture. 208. Politics in Sub-Saharan Africa Candidates will be required to show knowledge of the politics of the countries of sub-Saharan Africa with respect to their political institutions, political sociology, and political economy. The following topics may be considered: nationalism; forms of government, civilian and military; parties and elections; conditions for democracy; class, ethnicity, religion, and gender; business, labour, and peasantries; structural adjustment and agricultural policies; the influence of external agencies.
70
209. Politics in Latin America Candidates will be required to show knowledge of politics in Latin America; of the structure of government of the major states of the area; and of their political sociology and political economy. The following topics may be considered: presidential systems; the role of congress; public administration; party and electoral systems, the politics of major groups such as the military, trade unions and business groups, and the churches; political ideologies; political movements; the politics of economic stabilization; the politics of gender; theories of regime breakdown, and of democratic transition and consolidation; the influence of external factors. 210. Politics in South Asia Candidates will be expected to show knowledge of political developments in South Asian countries since their independence, with regard to their political institutions, political sociology, and political economy. The following topics may be considered: th nature of the state; government and political institutions; party and electoral systems, politics in the provinces or states of a federation; the evolution of political ideologies; the politics of gender, caste, religion, language, ethnic regionalism, and national integration; the political economy of development, social change, and class relations, 'New' social movements and Left politics; regional conflicts in South Asia and the influence of external factors on South Asian politics. South Asia is taken to include India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh. 211. Politics in the Middle East Candidates will be expected to show knowledge of the politics of the Middle East with regard to their political institutions, political sociology, and political economy. The following topics may be considered: the emergence of the state system in the modern Middle East; the influence of colonialism and nationalism in its development, the military in state and politics; party systems and the growth of democratic politics; the politics of religion; women in the political sphere; the influence of major inter-state conflicts and external factors on internal politics. The Middle East is taken to comprise Iran, Israel, Turkey, and the Arab States. 212. International Relations in the Era of Two World Wars The relations between the major powers; the twentieth-century origins of the First World War and the origins of the Second World War; war aims, strategies, and peace-making; the disintegration of war-time alliances; the League of Nations and the establishment of the United Nations; the impact of major political movements (Communism, Fascism, nationalism) on international society; monetary and economic developments as they affected international politics. Knowledge of events before 1900 and after 1947 will not be demanded, nor will questions be set on extra-European developments before 1914. 213. International Relations in the Era of the Cold War The relations among the major powers 1945-85, including domestic and external factors shaping foreign policy: the origins and course of the Cold War, detente, and subsequent developments; East-West relations in Europe, with particular reference to the foreign policies of France and the Federal Republic of Germany; the movement towards European unity; the external relations of China and Japan, particularly with the Soviet Union and the United States; the Soviet Union's relations with eastern Europe and the USA's relations with its allies, decolonization; conflict in the developing world, including regional and global dimensions. 214. International Relations The principal theories, concepts, and instit utions of international relations. Topics include: law and norms, order, self-determination, security, war and conflict resolution, foreign -policy analysis, international political economy, dominance and dependence, regional integration, and international institutions. Candidates will be required to show knowledge (in at least two answers) of developments in international affairs since 1985. Questions requiring specific knowledge of earlier events will not be set, but opportunities will be given to display it. 215. Classical Political Thought The critical study of political theorists whose ideas are still influential. Candidates will be expected to show knowledge of at least three of the following authors, with a primary though not necessarily exclusive focus on the following texts: Plato, The Republic; Aristotle, Politics; Aquinas, Selected Political Writings ed. D'Entreves; Machiavelli, The Prince, The Discourses ed. Plamenatz; Hobbes, Leviathan, Parts I and II; Locke, Second Treatise of' Civil Government; Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, Books I-VIII, XI, XII, XIX; Rousseau's Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, The Social Contract; Hume, Moral and Political Writings ed. Aiken. Questions may also be set on the following topics: theories of political s tability and civic virtue; the relationship between the personal and the political; utopian political thought; theories of natural law. In answering examination questions candidates are expected to discuss the primary texts identified in this rubric, but may also draw on their knowledge of a range of other primary texts from the canon of classical political thought, as indicated in the bibliography issued by the Department of Politics and International Relations. 216. Foundations of Modern Social and Political Thought The critical study of modern social and political theorists. Candidates, will be expected to show knowledge of at least three of the following authors, with a primary though not necessarily exclusive focus on the following texts: Bentham, Political Thought ed. Parekh; J. S. Mill, On Liberty, essays 'The Spirit of the Age', 'Civilization', 'Bentham', 'Coleridge'; Hegel, The Philosophy of Right. Lectures on the
71
Philosophy of World History (Introduction) (CUP edn.); Saint-Simon, Selected Writings 1760-1825 ed. Taylor; Tocqueville, Democracy in America (Vol. 1: Introduction, chapters 2-6, the last section of chapter 8, chapters 11, 12, the first section of chapter 13, chapters 14-17; Vol 11: Book 11, chapters 1 -8, 1 6 -20 Book 111, chapters 1, 2, 13-21, Book IV, chapters 1-8); Marx, Selected Writings, ed. McLellan, nos. 6-8, 13, 14, 18, 19, 22, 23, 25, 30, 32, 37-40; Weber, From Max Weber, eds. Gerth and Mills; Durkheim, The Division of Labour in Society (Prefaces, Introduction, Book 1, chapters 1-3, 7; Book 2, chapters 1, 3; Book 3, chapters 1, 2; Conclusion), Professional Ethics and Civic Morals, chapters 4-9. Questions may also be set on the following topics: state, society, and the family; individual and community; history and social change; science and religion. In answering examination questions candidates are expected to discuss the primary texts identified in this rubric, but may also draw on their knowledge of other primary texts from the canon of modern social and political thought, as indicat ed in the bibliography issued by the Department of Politics and International Relations. 217. Marxism The study of the ideas of Marx and Engels, of later Marxists and critics of Marxism. Candidates will be expected to study Marxism as an explanatory theory, and also to examine its political consequences. They will be required to show first -hand knowledge of the principal writings of Marx and Engels and of some later Marxists. 218. Sociological Theory The critical study of the major theoretical approaches to social order and integration; social structure and action; social norms and roles; social change; class and stratification; deviance; the link between micro- and macro-sociology; the scientific status of sociological theory. Candidates will be expected to show knowledge of the application of theoretical approaches to the explanation and understanding of empirical social phenomena. 219. The Sociology of Industrial Societies Candidates will be expected to show knowledge of the following aspects of the social structure of urban-industrial societies: occupation and economic structure; social stratification and mobility; education; the social significance of gender and ethnicity; demography and the family; the social structure of religion; and the impact on society of the state and politics. They must show knowledge of modern Britain and at least one other industrial society, and of the main general theories of industrial society. 220. Political Sociology The critical study of the major sociological approaches to politics and their application to the following topics: the social bases of political identities; forms of state and organization of interests; the sources and distribution of political power; political transformations. Candidates must show knowledge of more than one major industrial country. 221. British Society in the Twentieth Century This further subject offers an opportunity to study in depth the profound changes that affected British society and popular culture in the past century. The focus is on the history of society rather than on social policy and the paper extends to the present day. Themes explored within the further subject are: population, sexuality, and the family; class, gender, and stratification; immigration and ethnicity; health and living standards; urban life; the experience of work and of unemployment; religion; education; crime; leisure and the influence of the mass media; and methods of social research. There is an extensive, lively and often topical secondary literature and primary source material includes oral history and memoirs as well as social surveys and commentaries, official reports and quantitative data. There are opportunities, too, for using film. The paper will include questions that require familiarity with primary sources, notably statistical material in A.H. Halsey and J Webb (eds.), Twentieth-Century British Social Trends (2000, Parts I-III and VI); Royal Commission on Alien Immigration Report (Parliamentary Papers, 1903 ix, Part I, Results, Recommendations); Royal Commission on Population Report (P.P. 1948-9 xix chs. 2-15, 20 and pp.21837); Royal Commission in the Press Report (1949, Cmnd. 7700, including Appendices II, IV and VII); Wolfenden Report on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution (1957); Report of the Committee on Broadcasting (Pilkington report, 1962, Cmnd 1753); The Brixton Disorders April 10 to 12, 1981; Report of an Inquiry (the Scarman Report, 1981, Cmnd 8427); B.S. Rowntree, Poverty, a study of town life (1901, chs. 4, 5, 9), and Poverty and Progress (1941, pp.28-33, 96-126, 150-71, 276-7, 286-98, 450-77); Lady Bell, At the Works (1907); George Sturt, Change in the Village (1912; repr 1955, 1984); Pilgrim Trust, Men without Work (1938); J.B. Priestley, English Journey (1934; latest repr. 1997); Terence Y oung, Becontree and Dagenham (1934); George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier (1937; latest repr. 1998); Richard Hoggart, The Uses of Literacy (1958; latest repr. 1992); R. Roberts, The Classic Slum (1971); Marie Stopes, Married Love (1918); M Spring-Rice, Working-Class Wives (1939); N. Last, Nellas Last War. A Mothers Diary 1939-45 (ed. R. Broad and S. Fleming, 1983); E. Roberts, Women and Families: an oral history 1940-70 (1995); J. Sarsby, Missuses and Mouldrunners. An oral history of women pottery workers at home and at work (1988); N. Dennis, F. Henriques and C. Slaughter, Coal is Our Life (1951; repr. 1969); J.B. Mays, Growing Up in the City. A study of juvenile delinquency in an urban neighbourhood (1954); J. White, The Worst Street in North London (1986); Faith in the City. A Call for Action by Church and Nation (The Report of the Archbishop of Canterburys Commission on Urban Priority Areas, 1985); ed. S. MacLure, Educational Documents. England and Wales (3 rd edn., 1985); B.S. Rowntree and G.R. Lavers, English Life and Leisure (1951); M. Young and P. Willmott, Family and Kinship in East London (1957, repr. 1984); and Family and Class in a London Suburb (1967) J.H. Goldthorpe et al., The Affluent Worker in the Class Structure (1969); Q.D. Leavis, Fiction and the Reading Public (1932, repr. 1968, Part I chs. 1-3, Part II ch. 4, Part III chs. 1-3); H.T. Himmelweit, Television and the Child (1958); Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Inquiry into Income and Wealth (1995). 222. Labour Economics and Industrial Relatio ns As specified for 307 below.
72
223. The Government and Politics of Japan The constitutional framework and structure of government; parliamentary and local politics; the electoral and party systems; the role of corporate interests and pressure groups; the bureaucracy; foreign policy. Candidates will be expected to show knowledge of Japanese political history since 1945 and of the social context of Japanese political institutions and policy-making. 224. Social Policy The nature and development or social policy and welfare states. Public, private and informal systems of welfare. Alternative definitions and explanations of poverty and deprivation. The sources, growth, organization and outcomes of British social policy with special reference to health, housing, social security, and education. 225. Comparative Demographic Systems As specified for 315 below. [Until 1 October 2004 226. Statistical Methods in Social Science As specified for 313 below.] [From 1 October 2004: Candidates will be expected to show an understanding of applications of quantitative methods in politics and sociology including the following: the principles of research design in social science: data collection, the logic of causal inference, and comparative method; major statistical methods and concepts: types of random variables, independence, correlation and association, sampling theory, hypothesis testing, linear and non-linear regression models, event-history analysis, and time-series. Candidates will be expected to interpret statistical information and show familiarity with major methodological debates in politics and sociology.] 227. Politics in China Candidates will be required to show knowledge of the government and politics of China since 1949, and with particular reference to the perio d since 1978, with respect to their political institutions, political sociology, and political economy. The following topics may be considered: the Communist party and its structure; urban and rural reform since 1978; foreign relations; nationalism; elite politics; gender legal culture; and the politics of Hong Kong and Taiwan. [From 1s October 2004: Special Subjects will be examined by examination paper. No candidate may offer more than one Special Subject. A Special Subject may not be offered by candidat es also offering a thesis (199, 299, 399) or Supervised dissertation (298). Depending on the availability of teaching resources, not all Special Subjects will be available to all candidates in every year. Candidates may obtain details of the choice of Special Subjects for the following year by consulting lists posted at the beginning of the fourth week of Hilary Full Term in the Department of Politics and International Relations and circulated to Politics tutors at Colleges admitting undergraduates.] 298. Supervised dissertation* With the approval or the Politics sub-faculty, members of staff willing to supervise a research topic shall through the Administrator of the Department of Politics and International Relations place on the notice board of that Department not later than Friday of Fourth Week of Hilary Term a short description of an area of politics (including international relations and sociology) in which they have a special interest, a list of possible dissertation topics lying within that area, an introductory reading list, and a time and place at which they will meet those interested in writing a dissertation under their supervision for assessment in the following year's examination. Members of staff agreeing to supervise an undergraduate shall provide him or her with tutorials or intercollegiate classes equivalent to a term's teaching for a normal paper, the cost of such tutorials or classes to be met by the college. They shall notify the colleges of the undergraduates involved and the Administrator of the Department of Politics and International Relations. Candidates offering a thesis (199, 299, or 399) [From 1 October 2004: or a Special Subject in Politics (297)]may not also offer a supervised dissertation. The regulations governing the length, t he format, and the time, date and place of submission of a supervised dissertation shall be the same as those for the thesis. Every candidate who wishes to submit a supervised dissertation shall give notice of his or her intention to do so to the Registrar on his or her examination entry form. Every candidate shall sign a certificate to the effect that the supervised dissertation is his or her own work and that it has not already been submitted, wholly or substantially, for another Honour School of this University or for a degree of any other institution. The supervisor(s) shall countersign the certificate confirming that to the best of his, her or their knowledge and belief these statements are true, and shall also submit a short statement of the supervision provided, together with the original specification of the research topic and any other course material provided. The candidate's certificate and the supervisor's or supervisors' statements shall be presented together with the supervised dissertation. Candidates are warned that they should avoid repetition in papers of material in their supervised dissertation and that substantial repetition may be penalized. Every candidate who wishes to have his or her supervised dissertation returned is required to enclose with the thesis, in an envelope bearing only his or her candidate number, a self-addressed sticky label. * This option may not be available every year. 299. Thesis As specified for 399 below.
73
301. Macrocconomics Alternative macrocconomic theories and policy implications; aggregate consumption; aggregate investment; demand for money growth and fluctuations; productivity and the determinants of competitiveness; unemployment and inflation; balance of payments adjustment and exchange rates; supply -side policies; monetary and fiscal policy; international aspects of macroeconomic policy.
Applied issues are to be studied mainly in relation to the UK and its membership of the European Community, but the opportunity will be given to candidates to show knowledge of other OECD countries.
The paper will contain both theoretical and applied questions, and candidates will be required to answer two questions of each type. 302. Microeconomics Risk, uncertainty and information; the firm and market structures; welfare economics, externalities, public goods and the sources of market failure; the distribution of income; trade and protection; applications of microeconomics to public policy issues.
The paper will contain both theoretical and applied questions, and candidates will be required to answer two questions of each type. The topics to be examined under the rubric of applications of microeconomics to public policy issues will be announced by the chairman of the Sub-faculty of Economics not later than Trinity Term each year for the examination two years later.
303. Economic Theory The paper will be set in two parts. Candidates will be required to answer at least one question from Part A. They will not be required to answer questions from Part B. Part A. Questions on the f llowing topics: consumers, producers. and general equilibrium, uncertainty and contracts; game theory; o macroeconomic equilibrium and disequilibrium; welfare and social choice; distribution, growth, and capital. Part B. Questions on the use of mathematical methods in economic theory. Questions may be set on theoretical topics in areas covered by other economic papers. 304. Money and Banking
The nature and definition of money; the demand for money and other assets; the role and behaviour of banks and other financial intermediaries; the supplies of money and credit; the aggregate and sectoral effects of changes in money and credit on expenditure and prices; the interest rate structure and equity prices; the aims, instruments, and practice of monetary policy; the regulation of banks and other financial intermediaries; foreign exchange markets and monetary policy in an open economy; debt management and the relations between monetary and fiscal policy. Candidates will be given the opportunity to show knowledge of relevant experience in the UK and other countries.
305. Public Economics
Welfare-economic foundations; the measurement of well-being, taxation and incentives; taxation, debt and behaviour over time; commodity taxation; taxation of persons; taxation of companies; cost-benefit analysis; health, education; social security; jurisdictional issues; public goods, externalities and market failure; policy towards natural resources and the environment.
306. Economics of Industry Market structures, costs and scale economies, oligopoly and the theory of games, entry, empirical studies of pricing and profitability, advertising, product differentiation managerial theories of the firm, investment and finance. mergers and vertical integration, innovation, public policy towards market structure and conduct, public enterprises. Candidates will be expected to show knowledge of empirical studies relating to one or more of the advanced industrial economies, but questions relating to specific industrial economies will not be set.
74
307. Labour Economics and Industrial Relations* The organization and policies of trade unions and employers' associations: problems of employee involvement and attachment; employer-employee relations, with special reference to industrial co-operation and conflict; the theory and practice of collective bargaining, including the role of government and the impact of work groups on the bargaining process. The application of economic analysis to labour markets; economic aspects of trade unions; the economics of labour policy, including incomes policies; factors affecting the distribution of income. * May be offered alternatively as a subject in Politics as 222. 308. International Economics Theories of international trade and factor movements, positive and normative, and their application to economic policy and current problems. Theory and practice of economic integration. Current problems of the international trading system. Methods of balance of payments adjustment and financing., policies for attaining internal and external balance. Behaviour of floating exchange rates: theory and evidence. Optimum Currency Areas and Exchange Rate Regimes. International Policy Co -ordination and the International Monetary System. 309. Command and Transitional Economies
This paper covers the traditional command economy, attempts to reform it in the direction of market socialism, and transition to a market economy. Candidates will be expected first to be familiar with the evolution of the command economy in the pre-war USSR (War Communism, New Economic Policy, Stalinist central planning) and in the post-war period in the USSR, Eastern Europe and China. But emphasis is placed on knowledge of the features and policies of the main variants of the command system (e.g. central planning, performance of state enterprises, fiscal and monetary policies, foreign trade), rather than of the details of economic history or experiences of countries. The second area includes the 1965 reform and perestroika in the USSR, the New Economic Mechanism in Hungary, self-management in Yugoslavia, and post-1978 reforms in China. The third area comprises the theory of the transition from command to market s stems, as well as policies and economic developments in the major countries after 1989. Although most questions will deal with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, at least two will relate fully or partially to the economy of China.
310. Economics of Developing Countries Theories of growth and development. Poverty and income distribution. Human resources. Labour markets and employment. Industrialisation and technology. Agriculture and rural development. Monetary and fiscal issues; inflation. Foreign trade and payments. Foreign and domestic capital; economic aid. The role of government in development; the operation of markets. Where appropriate, candidates will be expected to illustrate their answers with knowledge of actual situations. 311. British Economic History since 1870 Trends and cycles in national income, factor supplies, and productivity; changes in the structure of output, employment, and capital; management and entrepreneurship; the location of industries, industrial concentration, and the growth of large firms: prices, interest rates, money, and public finance; wages, unemployment, trade unions, and the working of the labour market; the distribution of incomes, poverty, and living standards; foreign trade, tariffs, international capital movements, and sterling; Government economic policy in peace and war. Questions concerned exclusively with the periods before 1900 or after 1973 will not be set. 312. Classical Economic Thought: Smith, Ricardo, and Marx The theories of value, distribution, money, international trade and growth of Smith, Ricardo, and Marx. The principal works to be studied are: (a) Smith, The Wealth of Nations Books I-IV. (b) Ricardo (ed. Sraffa): Vol. 1 (Principles of Political Economy); Vol. II (Notes on Malthus, ch. 7, pp. 300-452); Vol. IV(Pamphlets, Proposals for an Economical and Secure Currency, pp. 43-141; Absolute Value and Exchangeable Value, pp. 357-412). (c) Marx (ed. Lawrence and Wishart): Vol. 1, chs. 1-9, 12, 15-19, 23-5; Vol. II, chs. 20-1; Vol. III, chs. 8, 9, 13, 14, 15.
75
313. [Until 1 October 2004 Statistical Methods in Social Science*] [From 1 October 2004 Statistical Methods in Econpomics] Candidates will be required to answer four questions. Each candidate must offer at least one question from Part A and at least one question from Part B [Until 1 October 2004 (if offering it as an Economics option) or Part C (if offering it as a Politics option).] Candidates will be expected to show knowledge of the following topics: [Until 1 October 2004 * May be offered alternatively as a subject in Politics as 226.] Part A (Statistical Theory). Probability (concepts of probability, probability laws, Bayes' theorem); random variables (moments, sums and differences of random variables, frequency and cumulative distributions, joint random variables, conditional and marginal distributions); distribution theory (standard distributions including the binomial, Poisson, and normal distributions); measures of association (correlation, rank correlation, and multiple correlation); hypothesis testing (concepts of hypothesis testing, size and power, use of normal, t, 2 and F distributions); sampling theory (including properties of estimators); linear models (including regression, analysis of variance, logistic and loglinear models). Part B (Economic Statistics) (questions may be asked which involve simple calculations). Applications of the theory defined by Part A to economic topics which may be drawn from areas related to the scope of the Microeconomics and Macroeconomics papers; the preparation and presentation of economic statistics (histograms, seasonal adjustment, issues relating to data quality); index numbers (including Paasche, Laspeyres and Divisia indices); size distributions (including measures of concentration, inequality and poverty). [Until 1 October 2004 Part C (Politics and Sociology). Application of the theory defined in Part A to social and political research, with reference to the problem of collection, analysis, and interpretation of data arising in the fields of electoral behaviour, social stratification, and comparative social policy.] 314. Econometrics Candidates will be required to answer four questions. I Regression and correlation; interpretation, estimation, and prediction in single equation two- and three-variable linear models, including tests of significance and goodness of fit, problems of bias, multi-collinearity, and autocorrelation. Simultaneous equations problems: reduced form, identification. II Application of econometric methods including the estimation of consumption functions, demand analysis, production functions, macroeconomic policy models. Candidates will be required to show knowledge on both parts of the paper. 315. Comparative Demographic Systems* Candidates will be expected to show knowledge of controversies in demographic theory (Malthus and his critics, Easterlin, Caldwell, the New Home Economics school and others) and to illustrate their answers with varied and specific examples. The paper will contain essay questions and questions involving computation. Candidates will be required to answer three questions, two of the former and one of the latter. I Demographic analysis and techniques: data sources. adequacy and remedies. Statistical analysis of fertility, mortality, and other demographic phenomena. The life table, stable population, and other models of population structure and growth. Population dynamics, projections and simulations. II Limits to fertility and the lifespan. Contrasts between stable and transitional population systems in historical European and current non-European societies: the decline of mortality, fertility patterns in relation to systems of household formation, kin organization and risk environments, marital fertility decline and the current status of transition theory. Social, economic, and political consequences of rapid population growth at the national level and the local level. Demographic systems in post -transitional societies (modern Europe and other industrial areas): low fertility, trends in health and survival, and age structure change; their economic and social causes and consequences. New patterns of marriage and family, women in the workforce, labour migration and the demography of ethnic minorities, population policies, * May be offered alternatively as a subject in Politics as 225. 316. Economics of OECD Countries Main phases of development since 1945. Institutional framework of policy formation; conduct of demand management policies; the welfare state and public expenditure; experience of policies and strategies. The behaviour of major macroeconomic aggregates; the labour
76
market and industrial relations. Development of external trade and financial relations; competitiveness and exchange rates; economic integration and the international co-ordination of economic policies. Questions will be set requiring knowledge of one or more of the following countries: France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK, and US. Candidates will be expected to answer at least one question (out of three) from Part A. Part A. Comparative analysis of the OECD countries Part B. The Major Areas Section 1: Western Europe Section 2: the United States Section 3: Japan. 399. Thesis (a) Subject The subject of every thesis should fall within the scope of the honour school. The subject may but need not overlap any subject on which the candidate offers papers. Candidates are warned that they should avoid repetition in papers of material used in their theses and that substantial repetition may be penalized. Every candidate shall submit through his or her college for approval to the head of the Department of Politics and International Relations, or the head of the Department of Economics, the title he or she proposes together with (i) an indication as to the branch of the school in which the subject falls, e.g. Economics; (ii) an explanation of the subject in about 100 words; (iii) a letter of approval from his or her tutor; not earlier than the first day of the Trinity Full Term of the year before that in which he or she is to be examined and not later than the date prescribed for entry to the examination. The relevant chair or head of department shall decide as so on as possible whether or not to approve the title and shall advise the candidate immediately. No decision shall be deferred beyond the end of the fifth week of Michaelmas Full Term. Proposals to change the title of the thesis may be made through the college and will be considered by the Chair of the relevant sub-faculty until the first day of the Hilary Full Term of the year in which the student is to be examined, and by the Chair of the examiners thereafter. (b) Authorship and origin Every thesis shall be the candidate's own work. His or her tutor may, however, discuss with him or her the field of study, the sources available and the method of presentation; the tutor may also read and comment on a first draft. The amount of assistance that may be given is equivalent to the teaching of a normal paper. Theses previously submitted for the Honour School of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics may be resubmitted. No thesis will be accepted if it has already been submitted, wholly or substantially, for another Honour School or degree of this University or for a degree of any other institution. Every candidate shall sign a certificate to the effect that the thesis is his or her own work and that it has not already been submitted, wholly or substantially, for another Honour School or degree of this University, or for a degree of any other institution and his or her tutor shall countersign the certificate confirming that, to the best of his or her knowledge and belief, these statements are true. This certificate shall be presented together with the thesis. No thesis shall, however, be ineligible because it has been or is being submitted for any prize of this University. (c) Length and format No thesis shall exceed 15,000 words, the limit to include all notes and appendices, but not bibliographies; no person or body shall have authority to permit any excess. There shall be a select bibliography or a list of sources. All theses must be typed in double spacing on one side of quarto or A4 paper. Any notes and references may be placed either at the bottom of the relevant pages or all together at the end of the thesis, but in the latter case two loose copies of the notes and references must be supplied. The thesis must be bound or held firmly in a stiff cover. Two copies shall be submitted to the examiners; they shall be returned to the candidate's college after the examination. (d) Notice to Registrar and submission of thesis Every candidate who wishes to submit a thesis shall give notice of his or her intention to do so to the Registrar on his or her examination entry form (in addition to seeking approval of the subject from the relevant Chair of the sub-faculty or head of department under ( a) above); and shall submit his or her thesis not later than noon on Friday of the week before the Trinity Full Term of the examination to the Chair of the Examiners, Honour School of Philosophy. Politics, and Economics, Examination Schools, Oxford. Every candidate who wishes to have his or her thesis returned is required to enclose with the thesis, in an envelope bearing only his or her candidate number, a self-addressed sticky label.
77
PASS SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY, POLITICS, AND ECONOMICS A Pass School of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (Ch. VI, Sect. 1. C, 3) B
The subjects of the Pass School of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics shall be the study of modern philosophy, and of the political and economic principles and structures of modern society. Candidates must offer Philosophy, Politics, and Economics or such combination of these subjects as may be determined jointly by the Social Sciences Board and the Humanities Board. Candidates must offer five papers in all, selected from those offered for the Honour School of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, including two core subjects in each branch of the school offered, unless offering three branches of the school, when two core papers must be offered in two branches, and one in the third. Candidates who are not offering three branches of the school may offer a thesis instead of one non-core subject. The regulations for the thesis shall be as prescribed for the Honour School of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics.
78 APPENDIX C: KEY CONTACTS

Philosophy
Chair of the Faculty Board: Professor J. Broome (Corpus Christi) Chair of the Faculty: Mr D. Bostock (Merton) Lecture Secretary: Dr S.G. Williams (Worcester) Director of Graduate Studies: Professor T. Williamson (New) Director of Undergraduate Studies: Mrs L. Brown (Somerville) Curator of the Philosophy Centre: Dr T.W. Child (University) Honorary Librarian: Dr R. Crisp (St. Annes) Administrator and Faculty Board Secretary: Ms K. Heald (Philosophy Centre) Politics a nd International Relations Head of Department (Chair of PPE Committee): Dr M.F.E. Philp (Oriel) Chair of the Sub -faculty: Dr L. McNay (Somerville) Director of Undergraduate Studies: Dr N.J. Owen (Queens) Director of Graduate Studies in Politics: Professor D. King (Nuffield) Director of Graduate Studies in IRProfessor Sir A. Roberts (Balliol) Academic Administrator: Dr B.J. Taylor Courses Manager: Mr David Smith Undergraduate Studies Secretary: Politics Graduate Studies Secretary: Mr Andrew Melling International Relations Secretary: Mrs Marga Lyall Email: undergraduatestudies@politics.ox.ac.uk Economics Head of Department: Professor D.F. Hendry (Nuffield) Deputy Head of Department: Dr D. L. Bevan (St. Johns) Director of Undergraduate Studies: Mr A. Glyn (Corpus Christi) Director of Graduate Studies: Dr. A. Beggs (Wadham) Administrator: Miss G. Coates (Economics Department) Undergraduate Administrator: Mrs. H. Rennie Sociology Head of Department: Professor A.F. Heath (Nuffield) Director of Graduate Studies (Sociology and Social Policy): Mr M.W.J. Noble Administrator: Ms Bhee Bellew
76731 76323 78350 71983 70636 76668 74819 76928
88560 70651 79175 78537 78715 88566 88564 88564 78727 78705
78587 77376 81448 71068 71088 71098
86172 70328 86170

Social Policy and Social Work Head of Department: Mr M.W.J. Noble (Department) Director of Graduate Studies (Applied Social Studies): Mr James Sandham Acting administrators: Mrs K. Walker, Ms H.R. Wills Libraries Politics, International Relations and Sociology Library, Department of Politics and International Relations Economics Library, Manor Road Building Social Policy and Social Work Library, Barnett House Social Sciences Division Head of the Division: Mr D.A. Hay (34 St Giles) Secretary to the Division: Ms M.A. Robertson (34 St Giles)
79
70328 70346 70338, 70325
78710 71093 70322
70556 70763

2003 Philosophy, Politics and Economics

Încărcat de

Informații document

Descriere originală:

Drepturi de autor

Formate disponibile

Partajați acest document

Partajați sau inserați document

Opțiuni de partajare

Vi se pare util acest document?

Este necorespunzător acest conținut?

Drepturi de autor:

Formate disponibile

2003 Philosophy, Politics and Economics

Încărcat de

Drepturi de autor:

Formate disponibile

PHILOSOPHY, POLITICS AND ECONOMICS

PPE HANDBOOK 2003-04

PART A - THE COURSE

Libraries Computing IT Skills Data Protection

PART B - STUDENT ISSUES

Taking your degree Proceeding to Further Study Careers

Appendix A: Appendix B: Appendix C:

PPE HANDBOOK 2003-2004

PART A - THE COURSE

The Structure of the Course

PPE HANDBOOK 2003-2004

PPE HANDBOOK 2003-2004

PPE HANDBOOK 2003-2004

Supervised Dissertations in Politics

PPE HANDBOOK 2003-2004

Changing your course

Teaching and Learning

PPE HANDBOOK 2003-2004

Tutorials, Classes and Collections

PPE HANDBOOK 2003-2004

PPE HANDBOOK 2003-2004

PPE HANDBOOK 2003-2004

PPE HANDBOOK 2003-2004

PPE HANDBOOK 2003-2004 PPE Finals

PPE HANDBOOK 2003-2004

Preparing for examinations

PPE HANDBOOK 2003-2004

The Philosophy Centre

Department of Politics and International Relations

PPE HANDBOOK 2003-2004

Department of Social Policy and Social Work

PPE HANDBOOK 2003-2004

LIBRARIES AND COMPUTING

PPE HANDBOOK 2003-2004

Term opening hours Mon to Fri Saturday 9:00 - 13:00

9:00 22:00 9:00 22:00

9:00 - 13:00 9:00 - 12:30

History Philosophy International Development Centre Library (QEH)

9:00 - 12:30 9:30 - 12:00 Closed

9:00 22:00 9:00 19:00 9:15 16:45

09:00 - 13:00 11.00 - 17.00 Closed

(some lunchtime closure)

Politics, IR and Sociology

Politics, International Relations and Sociology American Politics

Rothermere American Institute

Photocopying facilities and copyright law:

PPE HANDBOOK 2003-2004

Price per copy

7p self-service 7p self-service 7p self-service 5p 5p 6p 5p (Cashkard) 10p (cash) 7p A4, 10p A3 5p 5p 5p 7p

Rothermere American Institute

PPE HANDBOOK 2003-2004

2, 7 or same day YES

2, 7 or same day YES

Bodleian (inc PPE, Camera, Rhodes House)

PPE HANDBOOK 2003-2004

PPE HANDBOOK 2003-2004

Email and use of the Internet

Netscape or Internet Explorer

Database and filing systems

PPE HANDBOOK 2003-2004

PPE HANDBOOK 2003-2004

PPE HANDBOOK 2003-2004

PPE HANDBOOK 2003-2004