The department is a lively community that is recognised internationally as one of the top centres for research and teaching in development studies.

Our courses offer excellent training for a career in international development or for advanced study, and attract students of the highest calibre from across the world.
“I had waited for 10 years before my dream to study in Oxford became a reality and the experience was truly beyond expectation”
Our students are taught to develop as critical and independent thinkers and when they leave us they are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to bring about real change.
“My time at Oxford strengthened my critical analysis and provided me with a unique interdisciplinary grounding in history, politics and economics that has equipped me well in dealing with public policy issues and program development strategy.”
Our courses offer excellent training for a career in international development or for advanced study, and attract students of the highest calibre from across the world.
“I had waited for 10 years before my dream to study in Oxford became a reality and the experience was truly beyond expectation”
Our courses offer excellent training for a career in international development or for advanced study, and attract students of the highest calibre from across the world.
“I had waited for 10 years before my dream to study in Oxford became a reality and the experience was truly beyond expectation”
Our students are taught to develop as critical and independent thinkers and when they leave us they are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to bring about real change.
“My time at Oxford strengthened my critical analysis and provided me with a unique interdisciplinary grounding in history, politics and economics that has equipped me well in dealing with public policy issues and program development strategy.”
Our students are taught to develop as critical and independent thinkers and when they leave us they are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to bring about real change.
“My time at Oxford strengthened my critical analysis and provided me with a unique interdisciplinary grounding in history, politics and economics that has equipped me well in dealing with public policy issues and program development strategy.”
In this project, Jörg Friedrichs and a small team of researchers apply machine learning and sentiment analysis to social media and other data to investigate the political usages of fear and anger. An article about fear-anger contests in the context of the 2016 Brexit referendum and the 2016 presidential election of Donald Trump has appeared, showing that established and populist actors outbid one another in expressing fear and anger. Populists express more anger, whereas establishment or governmental actors express more fear. Thus, Brexit was a contest between “project fear” (Remain) and “project anger” (Leave). In the 2016 presidential campaign, the Democrats led on both fear and anger but this did not win them the election. Findings are based on machine learning and time series analysis of Twitter data. Following up on this first publication, Jörg and his team are working on another article about the political usages of fear and anger in the context of COVID-19.