Master"s Programme "Politics. Economics. Philosophy" at HSE University (original) (raw)

For many decades, the social sciences have rewarded narrow specializations in both topic and methodology, believing this to be the best way to achieve results. The established systems of higher education have also strongly supported this trend through the development of stand-alone departments. However, today, the task of addressing real-life economic, social, political and environmental issues and designing appropriate policy responses requires a combination of approaches and bodies of knowledge across different sciences and intellectual traditions. Real-world problems like climate change, environmental degradation, crime, disease, policy failures, technologies running amok, loss of trust in institutions, etc. recognize no state borders, so the tradition of insulating disciplines, methodologies and geographic areas of expertise is harmful because it allows disciplinary biases and blind spots to obscure needed solutions.

Faced with these challenges, academics, activists, and policymakers should build on a growing trend towards research and policymaking that promotes creativity and sustainability by explicitly working at the interdisciplinary crossroads of the social sciences and the humanities and within teams of open-minded individuals from diverse intellectual and cultural backgrounds.

The Master’s Programme ‘Politics, Economics, Philosophy’ encourages students to do research into the political, economic, and moral dimensions of real-life social problems of various origins and to integrate tools and insights from the core disciplines in the Programme’s name with an eye on changing the world for the better.

The Master’s Programme ‘Politics, Economics, Philosophy’ offers two tracks.

The first – PEP – track reproduces the spirit and purpose of the Oxford-style ‘Politics, Philosophy, and Economics’ (PPE) programmes and offers a combination of classes in Political Science, Economics, and Philosophy.

In 2021, the Programme launched its second track, ‘Russia in Comparative Perspective: Politics, Society, Cultures’. Previously, there was the ‘Russian Studies’ Master’s Programme at the Faculty of Social Sciences at HSE-University. This programme will go on as our second track. The transformation is part of a new Master’s education development strategy at HSE-University, which stimulates the assembly of previously autonomous small programmes into larger ‘federations’.

‘Russia in Comparative Perspective’ track inherits the basic structure of the ‘Russian Studies’ Master’s Programme and its curriculum. The original curriculum was designed by experienced Russian academics with an eye on the practical benefits of professional expertise in Russia coupled with a strong background in political science and other related scientific disciplines.

One may ask why a ‘Russian Studies’ track has been set within a PPE-style programme? The answer is that any meaningful understanding of contemporary Russian reality requires interdisciplinary approaches to research Russian history, society, politics, economy, culture, etc. In other words, this track is a reasonable and inevitable continuation and application of the PPE approach to a highly complex object of study – Russia.