The course is organized around a set of discrete debates and illustrative case studies whose unifying theme is the examination of the political implications of Big Data. The course scope is purposely broad to enable the particular selection of debates and cases to evolve over time and to reflect our rapidly-expanding understanding of how Big Data are shaping the political realm. The debates may be normative, evaluative, or empirical in nature and thus aim to take advantage of the broad exposure to the study of politics that third year Government students at the LSE will have acquired.