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Concept
Philosophy, politics and economics
Summary
Philosophy, politics and economics, or politics, philosophy and economics (PPE), is an interdisciplinary undergraduate or postgraduate degree which combines study from three disciplines. The first institution to offer degrees in PPE was the University of Oxford in the 1920s.
This particular course has produced a significant number of notable graduates such as Aung San Suu Kyi, Burmese politician and State Counsellor of Myanmar, Nobel Peace Prize winner; Princess Haya bint Hussein, daughter of the late King Hussein of Jordan; Christopher Hitchens, the British–American author and journalist; Will Self, British author and journalist; Oscar-winning writer and director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck; Philippa Foot and Michael Dummett, philosophers; Harold Wilson, Edward Heath, David Cameron, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom; Hugh Gaitskell, Michael Foot, William Hague and Ed Miliband, former Leaders of the Opposition; former Prime Ministers of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto and Imran Khan; and Malcolm Fraser, Bob Hawke and Tony Abbott, former Prime Ministers of Australia. The course received fresh attention in 2017, when Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai earned a place.
In the 1980s, the University of York went on to establish its own PPE degree based upon the Oxford model; King's College London, the University of Warwick, the University of Manchester, and other British universities later followed. According to the BBC, the Oxford PPE "dominate[s] public life" (in the UK). It is now offered at several other leading colleges and universities around the world. More recently Warwick University and King’s College added a new degree under the name of PPL (Politics, Philosophy and Law) with the aim to bring an alternative to the more classical PPE degrees.
In the United States, it is offered by over 50 colleges and universities, including three Ivy League schools and a large number of public universities. Harvard University began offering a similar degree in Social Studies in 1960, which combines politics, philosophy, and economics with history and sociology.
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