MAInternational Relations
Source: https://www.exeter.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/courses/securitystudies/intrelma/ Parent: https://www.exeter.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/courses/
MA International Relations
MA International Relations
| UCAS code | 1234 |
| Duration | 1 year full time 2 years part time |
| Entry year | 2026 |
| Campus | Streatham Campus |
| Typical offer View full entry requirements | We will consider applicants with a 2:2 Honours degree or above (or equivalent). |
| Contextual offers |
Why study MA International Relations at Exeter?
- This programme offers a cutting-edge educational experience to explore, understand, analyse, and contextualise some of the big challenges facing humanity today
- With a particular focus on security, international relations theory, and foreign policy, it combines academic insight with experiential learning, placing you at the heart of the dynamic currents that shape contemporary global politics
- You will engage with the latest think tank reports, policy texts, alongside the core texts that have shaped the discipline
- Interactive teaching encourages debate and reflection on the ideas, processes, and policies that shaping the work around us
- Tailor your degree to your interests and career ambitions with our wide range of optional modules exploring everything from key ideas to new challenges, the legacies of the past to the challenges of the future, as well as region-specific options covering key areas of global politics today
- The programme also equips you with skills crucial for employment in the twenty-first century, using forward-looking assessments to foster the informed global leaders of tomorrow
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Fast Track (current Exeter students)
Contact
Programme Director: Henry Jarrett
Web: Enquire online
Phone: +44 (0)1392 72 72 72
Top 15 in the UK for Politics
14th in The Complete University Guide 2026
Top 100 in the world for Politics
QS World University Subject Rankings 2025
Flexibility to follow your interests with a world-leading cluster of researchers
Top 100 in the world for Political Sciences
Global Ranking of Academic Subjects (GRAS) or Shanghai Rankings 2025
Entry requirements
We will consider applicants with a 2:2 Honours degree or above (or equivalent). We welcome students from any academic background.
Please also see our guidance on essential documentation required for an initial decision on taught programme applications.
Entry requirements for international students
English language requirements
International students need to show they have the required level of English language to study this course.
The required IELTS test scores for this course fall under Profile B1.
Please visit our English language requirements page to view the required test scores and equivalencies from your country.
Course content
We will equip you with the theoretical and empirical research tools needed to understand the forces that shape global politics.
Our teaching is research-led and delivered by world-leading researchers at the cutting-edge of their fields. Learning on the programme involves debating and collaborating with peers in both classroom and multi-media environments, engaging with external speakers, and putting your skills to the test in role-plays and simulations set in the exciting world of global politics.
Extra-curricular events, such as stand-alone talks given by policy makers,activists, and scholars provide alternative, real-world perspectives of world politics. Recent contributors have included:
- Aid workers from conflict and post conflict zones
- Serving and former military and intelligence leaders
- Leading policy-makers from across the world, either at national government level or in transnational organisations
- Journalists and content-providers from key global organisations such as the BBC and Meta
The modules below provide examples of what you can expect to learn on this degree course based on recent academic teaching. The precise modules available to you in future years may vary depending on staff availability and research interests, new topics of study, timetabling and student demand.
Modules
Please note that the module information displayed here is from a previous year and is subject to change.
*Students must take 3 compulsory modules: POLM502 (30 credits), POLM341 Omnishambles! Global Politics Simulation (30 credits) and POLM886 (60 credits). The remaining 60 credits come from optional modules listed below.
Up to 30 credits of modules may be taken from another discipline in the university, with approval from the programme director (or equivalent) of the relevant discipline.*
Compulsory modules
| Code | Module | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| POLM502 | International Relations: Power and Institutions | 30 |
| POLM886 | Dissertation | 60 |
| POLM341 | Omnishambles - Global Politics Simulation | 30 |
Optional modules
60 credits of option modules\ \ Please note that modules are subject to change and not all modules are available across all programmes, this is due to timetable, module size constraints and availability
| Code | Module | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| MA International Relations option modules 2025-6 | ||
| POLM082 | International Relations of the Middle East | 30 |
| POLM088 | State-building after Civil War | 30 |
| POLM144 | The West, Civilisations and World Order | 30 |
| POLM217 | Conflict, Security and Development in Eurasia | 30 |
| POLM239 | International Organisation | 30 |
| POLM084 | Conflict, Security and Development in World Politics | 30 |
| POLM168 | From Oppression to Resistance: Exploring the Intersections of Race, Class and Gender | 30 |
| POLM173 | Theories of International Development | 30 |
| POLM174 | Tools, Policy and Practice of International Development | 30 |
| POLM503 | Foreign Policy Decision-Making | 30 |
| POLM651 | State and Society in the Middle East | 30 |
| POLM803 | Sources in Modernity and Post-Modernity | 30 |
| POLM897 | Surveys and Experiments: Design, Implementation and Analysis | 15 |
| SPAM002 | Security, Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technologies | 30 |
| SSIM912 | Introduction to Social Network Analysis | 15 |
| POLM343 | Gender, War and Militarism | 30 |
| POLM063 | Qualitative Methods in Social Research | 15 |
| POLM140 | Qualitative Methods in Social Research | 30 |
| POLM809 | Applied Quantitative Data Analysis | 15 |
| POLM222M | The Politics, Policy and Practice of Sustainable Development | 30 |
| POLM228M | Leadership, Equality and Diversity | 30 |
| POLM237M | Collaborative and Participatory Governance | 30 |
| POLM342M | Public Accountability and Governance | 30 |
| POLM148 | Brexit: Causes, Interpretation and Implications | 30 |
| POLM156 | The Transformation of Politics in the Global Age | 30 |
| POLM158 | Digital Politics and Policy | 30 |
| POLM307 | International Politics of the Body | 30 |
| POLM887 | Public Policy Process | 30 |
| POLM231 | State Crime | 30 |
| POLM110 | Theories of Diplomacy and Foreign Policy | 30 |
| POLM242 | Strategy | 30 |
| POLM241 | How to Make a Decision | 30 |
| POLM240 | Security Futures | 30 |
| POLM245 | Ethnopolitical Conflicts in International Law and Politics | 30 |
| POLM246 | The Politics of the Future | 30 |
| SOCM021 | Food Systems, Alternative Food Networks and Ethical Consumption | 30 |
| SOCM054 | Food Systems, Alternative Food Networks and Ethical Consumption | 15 |
| SOCM045 | Food and Sustainability: Economy, Society and Environment | 30 |
| SOCM044 | Food and Sustainability: Economy, Society and Environment | 15 |
| SPAM007 | Which Policies Work? Causal Methods for Policy Evaluation | 15 |
| POLM344 | Empire and Hierarchy in Russia and Eurasia | 30 |
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Fees
2026/27 entry
UK fees per year:
*£12,650 full-time; £6,325 part-time*
International fees per year:
£25,550 full-time; £12,775 part-time
Scholarships
The University of Exeter offers a wide range of scholarships to support your education, with £7 million available for international students applying to study with us in the 2026/27 academic year, including our prestigious Exeter Excellence Scholarships *. We also provide awards for sport, music and other achievements, as well as regional and partner scholarships with organisations such as Chevening, The Beacon Trust and the British Council. For more information on scholarships and other financial support, please visit our scholarships and bursaries page.
University of Exeter Alumni Scholarship
We are pleased to offer University of Exeter alumni beginning a standalone postgraduate programme in 2026/27 with us a scholarship towards the cost of your tuition fees. Full details can be found here.
*Terms and conditions, including deadlines, apply. See our website for details..
Find out more about tuition fees and funding »
Teaching and research
Teaching staff
Members of staff teaching on the MA International Relations have a wide range of research interests including world order, great power politics, humanitarianism, peace building, security, theory and ideas, climate politics, activism, and gender. Our permanent staff provide consultancy, comment, and expert advice to organisations such as the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office and Ministry of Defence, BBC, Chatham House, Open Democracy, Freedom House, and the Foreign Policy Centre. Visiting scholars include colleagues from Harvard and Brown Universities, and the Australian National University.
Learning and Teaching
Exeter educators employ advanced pedagogies in and around the classroom, supporting learning with a vibrant multi-media electronic learning ecosystem. Students are presented with a variety of exercises and challenges, designed to foster the skills necessary for the global leaders of tomorrow. Activities include:
- Group projects and policy briefs
- Critical analysis of policy positions
- Vibrant, expert-led seminar discussions
- Presentations
- Structured debates
- Role-plays and simulations
- Interactive mind-mapping
- Graduate-level conferences
Seminar tutors direct and facilitate class debate and discussions. You will fine-tune your critical reading skills, learn to present in front of an audience, to ask and field incisive questions, and work with your peers to develop consensus views and challenge those of others. A range of media will be used in teaching, from video and audio, newspaper articles and academic journal articles. Fictional works and documentaries also provide insight on how societies interpret and portray international politics.
Assessment
Assessment varies between modules, combining more traditional researched-based analysis with forward-looking tasks that prepare students for the twenty-first century world. Tasks may include essays, workshop contributions, presentations, policy briefs, blog posts, and post-simulation ‘after action reports’. Every student also completes a dissertation on a subject that has captured their imagination, working with an expert supervisor to produce a unique study. The University of Exeter provides dedicated research training to help you structure both the research and writing of your dissertation. Developing the ability to express complex ideas succinctly and in depth, is a core skill that will stand you in good stead, no matter what your chosen career may be.
Library services
Our main library is open 24/7 throughout the academic year. With a book stock in excess of 1.2 million, we have one of the highest UK academic library ratios of books to students. The main library offers self-service machines, state-of-the-art multimedia facilities, and an extended Wi-Fi network. The library provides world-class study facilities to all students. It has extensive holdings of works on political science, international relations and the various sub-disciplines.
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Dr Henry Jarrett
Lecturer in International Relations
Dr Brieg Powell
Co‑Director, Exeter Centre of Advanced International Studies
Dr Owen David Thomas
Associate Professor of International Relations
Dr Catarina Thomson
Associate Professor of Political Science and International Relations
Dr Henry Jarrett
Lecturer in International Relations
Dr Henry Jarrett is a Lecturer in International Relations with research interests are ethnic conflict, nationalism and identity politics, and he teaches modules across the IR discipline and on politics in deeply divided societies.
Dr Henry Jarrett
Lecturer in International Relations
Dr Henry Jarrett is a Lecturer in International Relations with research interests are ethnic conflict, nationalism and identity politics, and he teaches modules across the IR discipline and on politics in deeply divided societies.
Dr Brieg Powell
Co‑Director, Exeter Centre of Advanced International Studies
Dr Brieg Powell's work reframes states, societies, infrastructures, and information environments as dynamic, relational configurations and shows how adversaries exploit ties across political, social, technological, and economic scales to destabilise polities. He identify vulnerabilities at sub‑state and societal levels and outline the conceptual and institutional reforms needed to strengthen democratic resilience. His research sits at the intersection of security, strategy, and global politics.
Dr Owen David Thomas
Associate Professor of International Relations
Owen David Thomas is Associate Professor of International Relations, specialising in Critical Security Studies (CSS) and Secrecy Studies. His research focuses on political accountability and the production of knowledge, examining how societies make sense of, learn from, and seek justice after scandals, crises, and controversies. A unifying theme across his research is a concern with identifying and addressing the systemic sources of disorder and injustice.
Dr Catarina Thomson
Associate Professor of Political Science and International Relations
Dr. Thomson is Associate Professor of Political Science and International Relations. Her background is in psychology and international relations, and she draws on both to understand the political behaviours and preferences of the mass public and political elites. Using a mix of quantitative, experimental, and qualitative methods she compares the commonalities and differences between these groups, as well as their policy implications for security and defence sectors in the UK, Europe and the United States.
I decided to come to Exeter after meeting the faculty here who genuinely care about their students and how we use our time here to prepare for what comes after we graduate.
Exeter also has a great employability program that focusses on preparing students for the job market. Whatever stage you are at in the process, the career consultants in the Career Zone are always sure to be able to help point you to the resources you need or provide career counseling if you are stuck.
Read more from Serafin
Serafin
MA International Relations
Careers
Career paths
Many of our students are working professionals in governments around in the world, NGOs and aid agencies and chose to take the MA International Relations to provide them with a broader perspective and develop their careers.
Our students go on to work in a wide range of employers and occupations, demonstrating the crucial importance of the knowledge and skill sets our students develop whilst studying with us. Employers include:
- Aid agencies
- Media
- NGOs in the UK and overseas
- Government bodies such as the Ministry of Defence and Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
- The diplomatic services of various states
- International organisations, including EU institutions and the United Nations
- ·Big (and not so big!) business
- Think tanks
Some of our students decide to continue their studies via MPhil/PhD programmes, or Masters by Research, all of which set them up for research-based career paths in academia and beyond.
Employer-valued skills
Apart from specialist knowledge and skills relating to a range of careers in government, diplomacy, journalism and the third sector, you will also develop transferrable skills that are highly desirable in a range of careers. These include:
- High-level research and writing skills
- Analysis, evaluation and presentation skills
- Excellent communication skills and experience, both written and oral
- Strong IT skills which may include the handling of statistical data
- Independent work skills of time-planning and motivation
Careers support
Our careers advisory service provides expert guidance to all students to enable them to plan their futures through psychometric testing, employer presentations, skills events, practice job interviews and CV preparation.
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