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About Connections in Political Economy The development of this website has been made possible by support from the The Economics Network of the (UK) Higher Education Academy for a Learning and Teaching Development Project for 2008/9 which was granted an extension for 2010/11. The aim of this project was to develop the initial framework and content of an interactive reference tool, and learning aid for students of political economy. This initial one-year project focused specifically on the particular subject matter of the second-year level Political Economy module at Nottingham Trent University (NTU). A significant component of assessment in that module requires students to deliver group presentations as the result of their student centred learning. Following the completion of the initial project (phase one), the resource has been developed and extended to include more topics in political economy which are not explicitly covered in the NTU module. The purpose of the project was therefore to provide the basis of what is an ongoing exercise involving collaboration with, and contributions from, other members of the academic community. Many of the important issues affecting our lives which have an economic or political economy content are interrelated. Our understanding of such issues often requires us to make connections between different topics or areas of analysis and the associated bodies of literature. Student of political economy will often explore the writings of major contributors to different theoretical perspectives (Smith, Ricardo, Malthus, Marx, Keynes, Hayek, Friedman, etc) in order to put these in the context of real-world issues of social concern (e.g. unemployment, financial crisis, globalisation, resource depletion, corporate power, international debt, free trade etc . The Connections in Political Economy website is based on the idea of the 'concept map', providing a visual depiction of the links that might be followed from one topic of research and area of literature to another and back again. It consists of a computer-based set of hyperlinked pages assigned to particular topics, issues and the analysis that has developed to in an attempt to understand those issues. Each page contains annotated 'reading lists' and links to a variety of sources of information. Information sources available today are varied. They include the traditional textual sources of articles in academic journals and books. With the advent of the Internet these are becoming increasingly accessible with electronic versions of conventional academic materials, including appropriate journal articles, book synopses and reviews (from publishers web sites and from online book suppliers) as well as sample chapters. Additionaly, students of political economy issues today have access to large amounts of audiovisual material (films, tv and radio interviews etc) covering interviews, debates, and topic based discussions.