POL36190 Political Networks

Academic Year 2024/2025

Politics is all about power and personal connections.

How do politicians use their social network to build a power base? How do dictators use informal networks to sustain their position? How can citizens use their political connections to get things done? How do international terrorism networks evolve? How do opposition leaders mobilize others?

This module looks at what social networks can tell us about how politics works, both in democracies and in authoritarian regimes. We will look at different kinds of political networks, learn about the fundamental components and features of networks, and discuss some key concepts related to political and social networks.

Examples will be from both democratic and non-democratic political regimes, with a focus on political elites rather than citizens. This will include patronage networks, lobbying networks, corporate elites, terrorism networks, international policy networks, and so forth.

You will also learn about some basic social network analysis tools relevant to the study of political networks, especially involving network visualisation. No prior technical skills are expected or required.

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Curricular information is subject to change

Learning Outcomes:

 Criticise the political world through the lens of networks.
 Evaluate how political actors are affected by their position in the social network.
 Understand the informal dimensions of politics, especially in non-democratic regimes.
 Develop familiarity with standard network measures (clustering, centrality, etc.).
 Critically evaluate some of the key social network concepts (brokerage, diffusion, learning, etc.).
 Implement rudimentary network analysis.

Student Effort Hours: 
Student Effort Type Hours
Lectures

24
Autonomous Student Learning

200
Total

224
Approaches to Teaching and Learning:
Class sessions will consist of short lectures and seminar discussion of the literature. Close engagement with the assigned readings will be essential. Extensive use will be made of small group discussions and tasks to make you more familiar with the concepts and tools relevant to the module. This will also include some lab exercise using open-source network analysis software on some provided political data sets.

Generative Artificial Intelligence (e.g. ChatGPT) provides helpful tools for brainstorming ideas, proofreading draft essays, helping to write computer code, and so forth. You are encouraged to make use of these tools to increase your productivity, but be warned that AI cannot be trusted as an information source and cannot write the data project for you. It is a writing and coding tool, not a replacement of the author. Information and example code cannot be trusted at face value.

During MCQ tests and the final exam, the use of equipment with AI functionality will not be allowed. 
Requirements, Exclusions and Recommendations

Not applicable to this module.


Module Requisites and Incompatibles
Not applicable to this module.
 
Assessment Strategy  
Description Timing Component Scale Must Pass Component % of Final Grade In Module Component Repeat Offered
Assignment(Including Essay): Data Project (essay) Week 8 Graded No

30

 No
Quizzes/Short Exercises: Pop-Quiz 1 (MCQ) Week 5 Graded No

10

 No
Quizzes/Short Exercises: Pop-Quiz 2 (MCQ) Week 10 Graded No

10

 No
Exam (In-person): End of term exam (mix of MCQ and short answers) End of trimester
Duration:
1 hr(s)
 Graded No

50

 No

Carry forward of passed components
No
 
Resit In Terminal Exam
Spring Yes - 1 Hour
Please see Student Jargon Buster for more information about remediation types and timing. 
Feedback Strategy/Strategies

• Feedback individually to students, post-assessment

How will my Feedback be Delivered?

The normal university policy of feedback on all components within 20 working days will be applied.