Glasgow's distinguished history of teaching politics began in the 1760s, when Adam Smith gave a series of lectures on justice, police, revenue and arms at the University.

Today we are a leading centre for teaching and researching Politics and International Relations in the UK. We comprise more than 40 teaching and research staff and are distinctive for our concentrations of expertise in:

  • Comparative Politics – the quality of democracy, authoritarianism, immigration and refugees.
  • International Relations – emotions, war and the European Union’s external relations.
  • Area Studies – the politics of China, Russia, Southern Europe and Latin America, in some of which we work closely with colleagues in Central and East European Studies.
  • Political Theory - the Scottish Enlightenment, distributive justice, the philosophy of governance, philosophy of social science.
     
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REF2021 Results

Politics and International Studies (P&IS) at Glasgow comprises researchers from Politics and International Relations, Central and East European Studies and the School of Interdisciplinary Studies. Our mission is to conduct innovative, high-quality research that has academic and real-world impact locally, nationally and internationally. We are delighted that in REF2021 90% of our research has been evaluated overall as ‘world-leading’ or ‘internationally excellent’.

 

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Research Projects

Find out more about our funded research

Postgraduate research

Information for prospective postgraduate research students

Research Clusters

Peer-to-peer forums for our staff and research students

Events

Lectures, seminars and other events in politics

Publications

A list of articles published by Politics & IR staff

Public Engagement and Impact

Public Engagement and Impact Stories