Over the last forty years countries around the world have become increasingly inter-connected. Traditionally, nation states have been responsible for developing and applying policies to tackle social and public challenges, like unemployment, low productivity, a growing bill for pensions and welfare, poverty and inequality. Today countries are more connected, through the ties of globalisation, migration, and cross-national challenges, like climate change. This module focuses on how countries mitigate these national and cross-national challenges, thorough the use of social and public policy, and how these efforts can be assessed systematically.    

The aims of this module are: 

• to provide students with an understanding of different approaches to social and public policy internationally;  

• for students to develop an appreciation of the ways in which policy differences can be understood and compared, and the determinants of social and public policy change; 

• to demonstrate how social and public policies have developed and are developing in the Global North and Global South.  

The module will explore selected policy challenges, such as those associated with Europeanisation and globalisation, and new challenges for international social and public policy.  

• Understand key differences between nations’ social and public policies, and the theories which seek to explain social and public policy development and change in both rich and poor countries (LO1). 

• An awareness of important debates, positions and arguments in international and comparative social and public policy, and how these relate to empirical research (LO2) 

• Critically evaluate the arguments and evidence presented in empirical research (LO3) 

• Be able to interpret, critically assess, present and write about studies which analyse determinants of social and public policy change and apply theories to selected case-studies by interpreting and using policy data with respect to social and economic outcomes. (LO4) 

1. Lectures x 20 (2 per week) 

2. Seminars x 4, to be held fortnightly – student-led sessions, emphasis on exploring and applying taught concerns and considering-student selected topics in more depth. Students will be expected to do independent study, familiarising themselves with recommended online-resources (e.g. outcome and policy databases, UN websites, best practice examples of data presentation for policy audiences) discussed in lectures and seminars.  

Academic Skills 

• Finding, reading, summarising, and synthesising information from multiple sources [LO2] 

• Thinking critically about academic research and social policy [LO3, LO4] 

• Writing cogently and coherently on a specific topic [LO4] 

Module Specific Skills 

• Understanding a range of theoretical positions and their relevance to comparative research on social and public policy [LO1, LO4] 

• Applying analytic skills to research questions and problems [LO2, LO4] 

• Awareness of the values that inform social science research and their implications for the way research is done [LO1, LO4] 

• Application of theory and policy to real world examples in low, middle and high income countries [LO1];  

• Sourcing, evaluating, collating and using statistical data on policy and outcomes [LO4].   

Employability/Transferable Skills. 

• Participate and communicate effectively in small group settings [LO3] 

• Oral and written presentation of complex information [LO3, LO4] 

Long Essay (summative) 45% Choice of six questions related to material covered in lectures 1-10. 1,500 words. End of term.

Short Essays (summative) 45% Two questions related to material covered in lectures 11-20. 1,500 words in total (2x750 words). End of Exam Period.  

Group presentation (summative) 10% -Student group presentation (15 min) in Seminar 4 on topic identified in Seminar 1 - 15 minutes - End of term 

Short Essay (formative) Short think piece on the value and principles of conducting international and comparative analysis of social and public policies. 750 words. Mid-term.

THE OPPORTUNITY FOR REASSESSMENT IN THIS MODULE: 

Where a student fails to pass a module, then the Exam Board will discuss the opportunity to retake any units of assessment that they did not pass at the first attempt. In these cases, the module mark will be capped.  Further details of resit and repeat rules can be found in Senate Regulations for Taught Programmes. 

Where repeat assessments are awarded, either as a first attempt or for a capped module, mark the following principles will be adopted.  

• For individual assessments, the resit assessment will take the same form as the initial task, with written tasks being re-assessed by written tasks, exams by exams and presentations by presentations. For all coursework assessments (essays, presentations reports etc), students who are re-taking the assessment for a capped mark will be asked to supply a short statement explain how they have responded to feedback on the initial assessment in preparing their revised work. 

• For group assessments, where the group fails the initial assessment and an individual group member needs to retake the assessment in order to pass the module, the resit assessment will take the same form as the initial task but the task itself will be modified to suit the new context. Group reports will be re-assessed by individual coursework tasks, group presentations by individual presentations, and so on. In each case, the individual task will be designed to address the same learning outcomes as the group task and, where appropriate, students will be asked to provide a short statement explaining how they have responded to feedback on the initial assessment in preparing their new work. 

Exceptions to these principles due to extenuating circumstances or protected characteristics will be agreed on a case-by-case basis by the extenuating circumstances committee in consultation with the module convenor. 

The course typically begins with sessions that introduce what comparative social and public policy is, how is has been done by scholars, and how it has been used in the decades following the Second World War. These sessions will cover key conceptual and theoretical aspects, presenting cases studies and examples from north America, Europe, and the Global South. The course then moves to consider how the performance of national welfare states can be assessed, using data on policy inputs and outputs. Challenges to welfare provision, from new (and old) social risks are covered, through the examination of the impacts of globalisation for developed and developing countries, and cases studies of key issues, such as global child poverty. 

The second half of the course takes a more applied look at comparative social policy, with focused lectures from experts on a range of topics which could include international and sustainable development, national anti-poverty strategies and policy analysis. These lectures expose students to the research-led work of staff in SocSi, providing real world examples of applied comparative social and public policy.