Political Theory: Legitimacy and Justice (MSc)
About the programme
This political theory specialisation focuses on the concepts of legitimacy and justice—political philosophy’s core themes. These concepts lie at the heart of questions of politics and analyzing them conceptually and theoretically gives us tools to engage and assess political practice.
Student perspective
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Watch the video on the original website orBoth history of political thought and contemporary political theory
As a political theory specialisation, you will read and learn to carefully analyse texts from both the history of political thought and contemporary political theory. Most importantly, the specialisation encourages students to form their own views about political ethics and ideologies, and to defend those views systematically.
State-of-the-art in Political Science, academic and professional skills
Furthermore, you will work on your academic and professional skills, as well as acquaint yourself with the state-of-the-art in Political Science. The elective seminars cover almost all political science subdisciplines, so you can focus your education on the topics most relevant to you. Under certain conditions, doing an internship is an option. A research thesis, covering a topic of your choice, and written under personal supervision of our academic staff, completes the programme.
Modular programme
As a strongly modular programme, students with some background in political theory and political philosophy should feel attracted to this specialisation if they want to explore their own interests in political theory and political science. The specialisation is integrated in the larger MSc degree in political science, which allows students to complement more theoretical and philosophical courses with empirical political science courses, if they wish.
Small seminar groups
All the teaching in the specialisation Political Theory: Justice and Legitimacy is given in small seminar groups. This is the best environment for exploring the themes of justice and legitimacy through close reading and discussion of texts and the development of your own argumentation.
All Political Science master’s specialisations
› International Organisation
› International Politics
› Nationalism, Ethnic Conflict and Development
› Dutch Politics
› Democracy and Representation
› Political Theory: Political Legitimacy and Justice