Social and Political Sciences, School of
Established in 2001, the School brings together core social scientific disciplines to promote the critical understanding of social and political processes and the development of effective policy and practice through a wide range of teaching and research programmes. The School was formed from the departments (now subject groups) of Politics, Social Anthropology, Social Policy and Sociology; the Graduate School of Social and Political Studies; the Centres of African, Canadian and South Asian Studies; the Science Studies Unit, the Research Centre in Social Sciences and the Institute of Governance. It has recently been joined by Social Work, and now forms part of the College of Humanities and Social Science.
This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. In most cases, these works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder.
Sub-Communities within this Community
Recent Submissions
-
Politics of economic collapse: a comparative historical sociology of the 2008 crisis
(The University of Edinburgh, 2023-09-12)The 2008 financial crisis was the second major financial crisis in modern history. Like the 1930s Great Depression, the 2008 Great Recession shook political and social arenas. From socio-economic policy reforms to popular ... -
Personality and US presidential choices: a study of the protracted Afghanistan war
(The University of Edinburgh, 2023-08-28)The 20-year-long US war in Afghanistan, which started in 2001 and ended in 2021, resulted in significant civilian casualties, US military deaths and financial costs. This protracted war raised the question of why the war ... -
Where ‘green’ parenting meets climate activism: understanding the affective, political, generative, but challenging ‘space in-between’ of radical eco-parenting
(The University of Edinburgh, 2023-08-16)The failure of governments to tackle the climate and ecological crisis challenges normative responsibilities of parents to protect and provide for their children’s future. Recently emerged parent-led climate action groups ... -
Reproduction of ignorance in normative political theory: an intersectional methodological critique
(The University of Edinburgh, 2023-06-29)Social ignorance is widely recognised in scholarly literatures as a substantive epistemic practice, stemming from dominant socioepistemic standpoints that cultivate systematic insensitivities to historical structures of ... -
Consensus and fragmentation: how variation in heterodox religious ideas affected mobilisation and outcomes in the rebellions of China’s Qing era
(The University of Edinburgh, 2023-06-27)This thesis explores the ideational patterns characterising two types of premodern Chinese rebellions in the Qing dynasty: the Taiping rebellion (1851-1864) and the rebellions of the middle Qing era (1728-1840). Both types ... -
Youth and the Camp: a time and place of waiting. Young people’s perspectives of Dzaleka refugee camp, Malawi
(The University of Edinburgh, 2023-06-27)This thesis explores encampment through a lens of ‘youth in waiting’ in Dzaleka refugee camp, Malawi. Examining the thoughts and experiences of 40, Congolese, Burundian and Rwandan young people, aged 17 to 29, living in ... -
Biosocial fragiities: life with chronic Lyme disease in Scotland
(The University of Edinburgh, 2023-06-22)This thesis explores patient experiences in the controversy of chronic Lyme disease in Scotland, and the importance of social relationships between patients, doctors, advocates, and researchers as these groups navigate the ... -
Speaking up for the dead in Bukit Brown Cemetery? An anthropological enquiry on contemporary civil society in Singapore
(The University of Edinburgh, 2023-06-21)My research examines contemporary civil society in Singapore using the empirical example of a community interest group called ‘all things Bukit Brown’ (atBB for short) which has been advocating for the preservation of Bukit ... -
Speculative leadership: using a radical Hegel to reinterpret practice in local government
(The University of Edinburgh, 2023-06-21)This thesis begins by reviewing the author’s published work, which sought to describe and account for the nature of leadership in local government, based on long-term engagement with socio-professional networks of UK Chief ... -
Interdisciplinarity as a political instrument of governance and its consequences for doctoral training
(The University of Edinburgh, 2023-06-21)UK educational policies exploit interdisciplinarity as a marketing tool in a competitive educational world by building images of prosperous futures for society, the economy, and universities. Following this narrative, ... -
Participation for health equity: a comparison of citizens’ juries and health impact assessment
(The University of Edinburgh, 2023-06-16)Despite research demonstrating that the social determinants of health are the primary cause of health inequities, policy efforts in high-income countries have largely failed to produce more equitable health outcomes. Recent ... -
Seeing affect: knowledge infrastructures in facial expression recognition systems
(The University of Edinburgh, 2023-06-16)Efforts to process and simulate human affect have come to occupy a prominent role in Human-Computer Interaction as well as developments in machine learning systems. Affective computing applications promise to decode ... -
Envisaging dataist modernity: the construction of Edinburgh’s innovation apparatus
(The University of Edinburgh, 2023-06-13)This dissertation investigates the process by which urban planning agents imagine futures and the sociotechnical conditions which help establish the credibility of their expectations. Aiming to shed light on the practice ... -
Mitigating modification: understanding the UK human germline genome-editing debate
(The University of Edinburgh, 2023-06-12)This mixed-method qualitative study examines debates surrounding the socio-ethical implications of human germline genome-editing (hGGE) technologies, focusing on how hybrid elite stakeholders’ discursive and argumentative ... -
Wage supplements in mature welfare states: accounting for in-work benefit reforms in France and the United Kingdom, 1995-2020
(The University of Edinburgh, 2023-05-19)In-work benefits (IWBs) are policies through which the state directly supplements market wages through cash or tax transfers. Such policies are often targeted at low wage earners and are associated with the goals of ... -
Politics of budget decision-making in South Africa
(The University of Edinburgh, 2023-05-18)This thesis examines the deep structure of South Africa’s legislative budget decision-making process, in an attempt to understand how political and budgeting institutions coexist to shape the behaviour of actors and influence ... -
Orchestration spaces in inter-organizational developments of information infrastructures: early orchestration of a large-scale regional interoperability infrastructure in NHS England
(The University of Edinburgh, 2023-05-17)This study addresses the phenomenon of orchestration, defined as the long-term mobilization, convergence, and arrangement of actors in the development of an inter-organizational information system for integrating and sharing ... -
Drug policing in China: drug laws, police culture, and police professionalisation
(The University of Edinburgh, 2023-05-17)The Chinese government has made efforts to professionalise the police and make legal reforms concerning the treatment of drug users. However, when legal changes were evaluated by some scholars (Chu, 2015; Yao, 2016), there ... -
Alcohol, clan councils and colloquial understandings of the state in rural Uganda
(The University of Edinburgh, 2023-05-16)In Uganda, as in many African countries, traditional authorities are important institutions that contribute to the provision of welfare services and settle disputes in rural communities. At times their voices take precedence ... -
Markets, morals and medicalised maternity: navigating a shifting health service terrain in Bangladesh
(The University of Edinburgh, 2023-04-25)This thesis lies at the nexus of recent transitions towards medicalised childbirth, marketisation of maternal health services and moralities of care, examining how women, their families and health actors navigate ...
