Research at SGIA

Research within the School is structured around the four sub-disciplines of Political Science: Political Theory, Comparative Politics, International Relations and Security, and.

• Political theory is concerned with the normative and historical study of political concepts such as freedom, justice, and equality
• Comparative Politics seeks to understand and explain political behaviours and outcomes across and within countries around the world, combining theory with innovative empirical analysis.
• Conflict and post-conflict dynamics, International Political Theory, International Political Sociology, and critical approaches to the study of world politics characterise International Relations and Security.
• IPE is concerned with the impacts of capitalist dynamics on contemporary national and global-level governance.

Our institutes and centres cut across these four sub disciplines, supporting collaborative research and external-facing engagement and impact. Our research engages with other disciplines, including History, Geography, Anthropology, Philosophy, Theology and Economics, with active involvement in Research Institutes across the University, including the Institute for Advanced Study and the Institute for Hazard, Risk and Resilience.

Connecting area-specific knowledge, including extensive field-based research, to core disciplinary theoretical and methodological approaches is a hallmark of our research strategy.

Our research emphasises methodological diversity, with work contributing to innovation in quantitative, qualitative, philosophical and historiographical methods.