48 graduate courses in the Spring 2024 Graduate Calendar.
This team-taught course examines different approaches to the study of political science, with units focusing on quantitative methods, qualitative methods, and an exploration of the epistemology of social science.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
This course examines the ways in which environmental challenges are being addressed by means of 'global governance' - that is, international organizations and institutions intended to deal with these environmental challenges. Concepts are investigated both to help analyze the relative strengths and weaknesses of existing structures and to suggest ways in which alternative forms of global governance might advance sustainability. Specific organizations and other actors presently active in global environmental governance are given particular attention, as is the management of selected global environmental challenges.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
This course examines the international rules and organizations that have emerged to govern the increasingly global system of food and agriculture. Specific themes to be covered include governance issues related to the rise of global food corporations, agricultural trade liberalization and the WTO, food aid distribution, international agricultural assistance, the global agro-chemical industry, and agricultural biotechnology.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
This survey course will provide students with a systematic introduction to the international legal system. Topics to be covered include: the origins and nature of the international legal system; the formation, sources and application of international law; the law of treaties; international legal personality; the institutional framework of international law; the relationship between international law and municipal law; the relationship between states and territory; law of the sea; state jurisdiction; jurisdictional immunities of states; state responsibility; and a selection of substantive international legal topics including, as time permits, international trade, international investment, the use of force by states, and/or international humanitarian law.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
This course examines the major theories of International Relations (IR) and the current state of the field. It addresses the major IR theories, how they inform advanced research, and how they relate to the conduct of world politics.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
This course examines recent trends in world politics, their origins, and their policy implications.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
This course examines the impact of international business on development in the context of economic globalization. It explores contending perspectives on how international business, particularly multinational corporations, has affected the economic, social and political development in the host countries, the home countries, as well as the world in general.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
This course examines the evolution of Chinese involvement in global governance across different issue areas. We discuss Chinese perspectives on the existing governance mechanisms, and China's role in preserving or changing these mechanisms. We will also explore how China's involvement in global governance has shaped its domestic institutions.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
Does looking at the world through the lens of gender change how we see the state, sovereignty, diplomacy, security, trade, migration, globalization, governance, and other foundational concepts in global politics? We review feminist theories of politics, with a particular focus on international relations and global governance; examine how gender shapes the roles and experiences of women and men in global politics; and discuss how to do feminist research.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
An examination of normative understandings of freedom and equality and the ways different theorists measure them. An analysis of the impact that different framings of major concepts have on structures of justice and their implications for institutional design.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
An examination of the justification and limitations of democratic government, as well as more practical applications of democratic theory to the workplace, judicial review, legal obligations, etc. The focus will be on problems of democratic theory and practice.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
Theories of justice are concerned with the distribution of the basic goods of society - money, power, status, leisure, and so on. One would expect that they would be of particular interest to feminist theory, which is also concerned with the distribution of these goods. This course will consider how the gender system fares from the standpoint of liberal justice, and to what extent the promises of liberal justice can be used to overturn the unequal treatment of women. The issues of equality and difference will also be explored.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
Consult the schedule of classes for specific topics being offered.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
An in-depth analysis of selected theories of public administration and public policy (e.g.) organization, behaviour, motivation, responsibility, policy making and implementation.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
An analytical and comparative study of the growth of government intervention in the economic process, and of the development of the welfare state in selected western liberal-democratic societies.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
An examination of various public policies designed to promote the exploitation and export of Canada's natural resources with an emphasis on the economic, political, social and environmental implications of these developmental strategies.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
In this course, we examine some of the conceptual frameworks that have been used by policy analysts in the past, in order to assess the possibilities as well as the limitations of such frameworks. We then develop our own approaches to examining some recent policy developments in Canada, using the insights of the authors we have examined. We will examine federal economic policy, provincial health policy, and municipal zoning policies, in order to assess (among other factors) the relative significance of policy focus, the situation of the policy-makers in the political system and ideological preferences.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
A comparative survey of public administration in both developed and developing areas. The focus is on the rise of the administrative state in a variety of cultural and political contexts, and on the study of general concepts which can then be applied in a variety of settings. Among the topics to be discussed are: comparison in the study of public administration; bureaucracy as a focus for comparison; the concept of the administrative state; the evolution of national administrative systems; the politics-administration interface and the senior civil service; bureaucracy and democracy; representative bureaucracy; bureaucratic ethics and morality; and the ombudsman and government secrecy.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
Consult the schedule of classes for specific topics being offered.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
This course is an introduction to machine learning and other complex statistical methods that can be used to analyze a wide array of policy issues based on the use of open data. Learners must have knowledge of multivariate regression methods and be trained in the basic use of python or R to take this course.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
This course examines the prospects for the supranational governance of social issues including the political and philosophical underpinnings of transnational social policy cooperation as well as examining specific issue areas such as global health policy and cross-national migration.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
Consult the schedule of classes for specific topics being offered.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
The objective of this course is to study how the design and nature of political institutions in a country affect various aspects of its society, such as the cost of living, gender and race relationships, economic growth, people's access to education, and the nature of rural life. The course will compare the social impact of various political institutional features, such as regime types, polarization, government partisanship, and the rules of electoral competition.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
This course focuses on some of the methodological and theoretical problems involved in the conduct of comparative political inquiry.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
Consult the schedule of classes for specific topics being offered.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
This course examines the causes of ethnic conflict but focuses in particular on the strategies which states use to manage or resolve such conflicts. The review of state strategies is comprehensive in nature, and includes approaches which are morally unacceptable as well as approaches which many consider morally desirable.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
This course studies the relationship between politics and socioeconomic inequality from a wide range of perspectives, such as inequality relating to income and debt, ethnicity, sex, consumers and producers, and regions
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
This course serves as a survey of the international relations (IR) subfield of international organizations (IO) but focuses principally on formal, inter-governmental organizations (IGOs). We examine the growing literature on international organizations and discuss their impact on global governance, considering their formation, design, relevance, impact and agency. We apply this knowledge to the study of several highly institutionalized issue areas.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
The course is a study of international and local responses to human rights abuses in the contexts of economic globalization and proliferation of armed violence. It examines major debates on international human rights. It also deals with specific human rights situations in the developing/transitional countries. Topics include: universalism and cultural relativism, global economic justice, rights to food and health, women's and children's rights, the rights of displaced civilians, human rights and R2P, prospects for transitional justice.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
This course examines the structure and operation of central institutions in government, including dominant theories and approaches to their study. Topics may include the constitution, Parliament, the executive, courts, federalism and intergovernmental relations, political parties, provincial and municipal governance, and the bureaucracy.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
This course examines the political process and societal cleavages in Canada, with a focus on new directions and debates in research. Topics may include elections and voting behaviour, social policy, gender, regionalism and nationalism, Indigenous politics, political culture, interest groups and social movements, and rights.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
Consult the schedule of classes for specific topics being offered.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
An exploration of the role that rights and rights discourse plays in public policy development and policy change. Examines Canadian public policy in relation to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and human rights legislation, as well as cases in comparative context.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
This course examines the global effort to develop new economies built around the commercialization of science and technology. This class, while covering Canadian developments in some detail, examines the broad international, theoretical and conceptual questions surrounding national innovation strategies and implementations and considers the role of national cultures and political environments in promoting new economies.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
Public policy in a variety of areas significant for women (including sport, employment equity, violence) sometimes fails to take into account women's experiences and needs. In this course, we will review policy developments, and reflect on the significance of feminist perspectives for policy analysis. The course will focus on Canadian examples, with comparative material included where useful.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
A course on a specialized topic offered at different times as announced by the Department.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
This is a seminar in the ontology of security. Security is a contested concept, and in this course we ask what it is and how best to pursue it. What do we mean by security? What are we trying to protect? From what? Why? How do we do it? We begin by considering the concept of security in the abstract, and we then proceed to explore various specific conceptions. Along the way we encounter both traditional and non-traditional approaches to security.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
In this course we examine a range of "security" issues on the global agenda - both traditional and non-traditional - and examine recent and possible future institutional and policy responses. Issues examined include nuclear proliferation, terrorism, intrastate conflict, resource and territorial disputes, climate change, drugs, disease, and migration. Students will have an opportunity to research in depth a specific security issue of their choice.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
This course reviews critical analytical models for the study of security and covers a range of non-traditional issues including environmental security, public safety, cyber security, and counter-terrorism.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
Contemporary perspectives and issues in international political economy, with particular attention to advanced industrial countries. Topics include political/economic cooperation, the politics of trade, and the politics of adjustment.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
Diplomacy and foreign policy are usually discussed as though they are synonymous. From a more nuanced perspective, diplomacy is about the set of instruments used in international affairs via techniques of representation, information, communication and negotiation. This course highlights the work of diplomats and the machinery of diplomacy.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
Consult the schedule of classes for specific topics being offered.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
An examination of explanation of interstate war found in classic texts and current empirical studies. (Heldwith PSCI 481).
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
A survey of the theoretical and public policy debates relating to regulation of the global economy, examined through case studies ranging from international banking an intellectual property rights, to labour and environmental standards and the control of illicit economic activity.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
Topics in international political economy-such as trade, finance, corporations, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, regionalism (EU, NAFTA/FTAA, and APEC)-with a focus on resistance and accommodation to the forces of "globalization".
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
An advanced examination of theoretical approaches to the study of political economy. The course explores both historical and contemporary approaches and how they inform political economy research.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
A survey of recent developments in the field of political economy that combines local, national, comparative, and international perspectives on states and markets, politics and business, wealth and power.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines
This course examines major current issues and debates in the field of political economy as it relates to the environment. The focus is on Canadian cases with comparative insights drawn from international cases.
Archived calendar entryRequirements, Spring 2024Course outlines