Politics, Philosophy and Economics

Politics, philosophy, and economics is one of the most intellectually ambitious undergraduate combinations available, bringing together three disciplines that together offer powerful tools for understanding how societies are organised, how people reason about value and knowledge, and how resources and incentives shape behaviour. The combination is more than the sum of its parts: politics supplies the empirical study of power and institutions, philosophy supplies the analytical precision needed to interrogate assumptions, and economics supplies the formal models and evidence-based methods that explain how markets and collective decisions work.

At the University of Edinburgh, this four-year programme includes a year abroad, broadening your intellectual and cultural perspective considerably. You will study across all three disciplines, developing facility with formal economic reasoning, ethical and political philosophy, and the comparative study of political systems, ideologies, and institutions. Edinburgh's position in a capital city with active political institutions of its own gives the programme a particular vitality, and the year abroad offers the chance to study in a different national context, testing the frameworks you have built against a different set of institutions and debates.

Few degree combinations are more versatile at the graduate level. Graduates of PPE programmes are found in central and local government, the civil service, international organisations, think tanks, financial institutions, journalism, law, management consultancy, and academic research. The analytical breadth of the degree is valued wherever clear thinking, quantitative literacy, and ethical awareness are needed together.

Postgraduate study in economics, philosophy, political science, public policy, or law is a natural continuation for many students.