This is an advanced unit in the theoretical foundations of political economy which extends and deepens your knowledge gained from ECOP3911 and complements your studies in ECOP4012. You will interrogate the main schools of critical scholarship, and how they can be deployed in our research practice to illuminate and advance new understandings of contemporary issues in political economy. This will assist your choice of the theoretical framework for your Honours thesis, and inform your knowledge of appropriate application of methodologies as you construct the research project for this thesis.

This unit focuses on the development of research projects to apply the methodologies and analytical focus of different theoretical perspectives. You will be introduced to research design and methods, literature review, data collection and analysis, and research ethics. You will learn to design a robust research project to address a contemporary issue. You will study the application of different research methods and analytical techniques - such as document and secondary analyses, data mining and visualisation, surveys, interviews and focus groups - to a range of contemporary economic, social and political issues such as global warming, student debt, energy transitions and discrimination.

This unit is designed to support the development of a student research theses. The unit will include a number of thesis development workshops including an orientation to the honours year, writing a literature review and Research in Progress presentations to a departmental forum. These activities are designed to supplement the regular student-supervisor relationship and thesis writing undertaken in Semester 1.

This unit requires you to complete an original piece of largely self-directed original research in political economy which you will write up as a 20,000-word thesis. You will be provided with expert supervision by an academic member of the Department of Political Economy who will provide guidance about your research and the thesis writing process.