Government and Politics

Course summary

In studying Politics, we ask many questions about Britain and the world. What will be the impact of Brexit? Will the United Kingdom be able to stay together? Just how much power does the Prime Minister have? Is the rise of the Brexit party significant or do you think they are just a fringe party that will fade away quickly? Why did Donald Trump get elected President of the USA? Why have there been so few female politicians and is this now changing? Collyer’s Politics classes have lively debates and discussions about a huge range of issues that are important, both for your own intellectual development and for understanding the way our country and others are run. The first year of the course focuses on the British system of government and politics – how democracy works in our country. Towards the end of the year, we change our focus to the United States and compare the American system to our own, looking at the powers of the President, Congress and the Supreme Court. Is the US system better than ours? In the second year, as well as continuing our study of the US, we look at political ideologies and philosophies from conservatism through communism to feminism. After taking politics at Collyer’s you’ll know how politics really works, what the political parties are really about, and the reality behind the headlines. You’ll have explored the ideas and activites of important individuals such as Theresa May, Barack Obama, Tony Blair, Margaret Thatcher, Betty Friedan, Karl Marx and Donald Trump. As well as the main ideologies of conservatism, liberalism and socialism you’ll understand why Marxism dominated half the world in the twentieth century, but seems to have few believers in the twenty-first.