Course subject: Political Science (PSCI)

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.

This course examines recent trends in world politics, their origins, and their policy implications.

This course analyzes the extent and character of worldwide poverty today by adopting both a global and an historical perspective. The course examines the impact of industrialization and colonialism on poverty and the social and political economy of poverty in the contemporary world. The course examines the relationships between poverty and slums, poverty and underdevelopment, poverty and inequality, as well as poverty and hunger. The course considers various theories about causes of poverty and those public and private actions that seem most likely to reduce the extent of poverty.

This course stretches the definition of who are the actors that conduct the practice of diplomacy, where the sites of diplomacy are located, and what aims are privileged. Conventional diplomacy showcases state-centric activity with an emphasis on hierarchy, protocol, and closed negotiations. Unconventional diplomacy in contrast is open-ended with a focus on transparency, inclusiveness and the pursuit of global governance. The course begins with an overview of the pressures for change in diplomacy, and then moves to a detailed examination of specific areas where unconventional diplomacy has become prominent including think tank diplomacy, humanitarian diplomacy, 'pandemic' diplomacy, and celebrity diplomacy.

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.

Problems in classical and contemporary political theory.

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.

An examination of how different political theorists use and understand key political concepts - such as equality, liberty, democracry, identity, and rights - to develop the ability to assess theories of justice from a libertarian, liberal, communitarian, democratic and feminist perspective. We will examine works of contemporary political theorists, including Rawls, Nozick, Cohen, Gutmann, Dworkin, Sandel, Okin and Young.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A graduate level survey of theories of conflict resolution drawn from the international relations, comparative politics, and peace studies. Why do we have violent political conflict, and how can it be resolved? How and why do wars begin and end? This course focuses on political violence and conflict resolution between groups, including but not limited to states.

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.

Studies of post 1945 Canadian foreign policy in comparative perspective.

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.

A course on a specialized topic offered at different times as announced by the Department.

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.

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.

An examination of explanation of interstate war found in classic texts and current empirical studies. (Heldwith PSCI 481).

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".

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.