Doctoral Program in Political and Social Thought

Supported by innovative and world-renowned scholars engaged in local, regional and international networks of research and praxis, the four-year Doctoral Program in Political and Social Thought is a Doctoral Program for people who think that the world can and should be different. 

Unique in Australia, the DPPST breaks new ground in the Australian academic context where PhDs are generally three-year exclusively research-based programs. Beginning with an intense year of coursework, our students participate in four distinct doctoral seminars, each of which combines serious theoretical and conceptual work with a strong commitment to making sense of, and engaging with, the enormous challenges of our era. The demanding year of coursework provides students with a deeper understanding of the great debates in political and social thought, and prepares them for the task of undertaking original investigations of their own. The coursework also provides close contact with academic staff and other students, out of which a strong self-sustaining intellectual community emerges, enabling all members of the DPPST to learn from and support one another from the beginning to the end of the PhD. 

Attracting students from all over the world (including, so far, Austria, Australia, Canada, Colombia, Germany, Netherlands, New Zealand, Turkey, UK, and USA) the DPPST has a distinct interdisciplinary orientation, which encourages students to be both critically analytical and imaginatively creative in responding to the complex ethical and political issues facing contemporary societies. Our students also come from diverse disciplinary backgrounds – e.g. philosophy, political science, anthropology, geography, and political economy – backgrounds that they bring to bear on practically oriented and theoretically sophisticated research projects, which aim at the creation of a more just, participatory and sustainable world.