This course provides a critical overview of public policy, the policy process and policy analysis techniques. It places special emphasis on societal challenges at the intersection of technology and policy, including infrastructure, transportation, climate change, water and energy security, public health, and information and communications technology. Engineers and public policy specialists in the course will draw from public policy and governance literature, examine problem scenarios, and complete policy analysis exercises to bridge theory and practice and learn from different disciplinary expertise and perspectives.

Instructor: Greig Mordue

This course undertakes an in-depth examination of Marxist political theory. It will cover both Marx’s own writings and a selection of Marxist political philosophies following in his wake. We will closely and comprehensively read Marx’s own political writings, the secondary literature addressing it, and various strands of 19th and 20th century Marxist political thought. As a graduate seminar, students will be expected to undertake independently-directed research projects, to lead (or co-lead) seminars, and to participate in weekly class discussions.

Instructor: Inder Marwah

Explores the inter-relationship between the individual, the plurality of groups, state institutions and policies. Examines theoretical approaches, policy responses and challenges primarily through the lenses of gender, race, ethnicity and Indigeneity, as well as intersecting identity vectors. Considers similarities and differences in the analytical role of different identity types in relation to select substantive political outcomes and examines factors that relate to successes and failures of institutional arrangements in varied empirical locations.

The course draws upon debates and literature across sub-fields in political science and related disciplines.

Instructor: Karen Bird

An exploration of the foundations and functioning of democracy in Canada through an examination of the institutions and institutional practices governing the Canadian state, with a particular emphasis on historic and current reform proposals and initiatives.

It will familiarize students with some of the scholarly literature and debates surrounding the core institutions of the Canadian state as well as examining neo-institutional, rational choice and critical theoretical explanations for the practice of politics in Canada.

Instructor: Greg Flynn

An investigation into the main currents in the growing range of theoretical approaches that characterize the contemporary field of International Relations.

Part of what fashions the concerns of this course is the way in which particular epistemological, methodological, and traditional norms inform expectations within International Relations about what sorts of questions it is appropriate to ask, how we ought to go about answering those questions, and whose voices speak with authority in theory and practice.

The overall objective, however, is to give students a broad grounding in the wide (and widening) theoretical terrain of the field.

Instructor: Marshall Beier

Following an analysis of the globalization process discussions will focus on some of the most pertinent processes associated with global governance, such as colonialism, modernization, and neoliberalism. Some of the substantive issues studied in the course will include: the structure of global economy, shifting scales in governance (such as the transition from statism to polycentrism), political processes related to the governing of mobility and citizenship in an age of globalization, emerging approaches to war and conflict, the rise of the principle of humanitarian intervention, as well as the politics of environmental challenges, and transnational networks of activism.

Instructor: Tony Porter

This course surveys a range of theoretical approaches to comparative public policy. It seeks to impart a basic understanding of approaches used in comparative public policy in terms of their basic concepts and the sorts of explanation they seek to provide.

It also encourages course participants to situate the different approaches in relation to one another along a number of axes (e.g., assumptions, levels of analysis, ability to explain different phenomena). At the end of the course, participants should be capable of critically discussing the merits of the different approaches, and of situating their own research within this field of competing theories.

Most weeks’ readings include both s combination of purely theoretical pieces and applications of the theories to various policy fields. 783 is designed to prepare students for the MA and PhD comprehensive exams in comparative public policy, and should be taken by all students intending to write this exam.

Instructor: Katherine Boothe

This seminar introduces graduate students to basic issues in epistemology, research design and methodological choices we face in political science. The main objective is to heighten attention to the need for methodological rigour, and for reflection about the kinds of choices involved in doing research.

More specifically, the course asks students to reflect on what goes into a successful dissertation length study, and to begin working on the design of own future research projects. It also allows students gain to some familiarity with various qualitative methods that you might apply in carrying out that research.

Instructor: Nathan Andrews

An introduction to the main theoretical and conceptual issues in the field of Comparative Politics. It offers students a broad view of the selected themes, concepts and approaches that characterize the field, as well as an appreciation of how the field has evolved over time.

The scope of the material will range from comparative paradigms, dominant methodologies, theoretical approaches, key issues and debates in the understanding of politics and government in Western and non-Western, developed and developing areas.

Instructor: Netina Tan

This course is organized around key themes of political communities, including:

• Founding: Who are “the people,”? How is a polity founded? Can the political community be broken and/or re-constituted?
• Membership: Who is a citizen? How do you become a citizen? Can citizenship be reconstituted?
• Solidarity: What keeps the political project together? How should difference be managed? What political virtues are required?

It will also consider the ways that globalisation and diversity re-shapes these elements of political life.

Instructor: Catherine Frost

This course provides a survey of the literature analyzing the trends in the social, economic and cultural life of Canada, and their relationship to political processes and outcomes. Politics has the capacity to reproduce or reinforce social processes, culture, and communities; it also has the potential to transform. This course explores the ways in which social, political and economic divisions are reproduced, reified, or undermined through processes and policies in Canadian politics.

Instructor: Adrienne Davidson

This course provides students with an opportunity to investigate the global political economy of climate change. Through a careful reading and discussion of key books and recent news articles or websites the course initiates a multidisciplinary exploration of the problem of climate change.

The topic will be pursued by considering contributions from climate science, economics, fiction, philosophy, political economy, political science and international relations.

Instructor: Thomas Marois

This course provides students with a graduate level introduction to global political economy. It examines approaches to the study of global political economy, the evolution of the global political economy, its economic structures and political institutions.

The course focuses upon several key issue areas: trade, production, the international monetary system, finance, the environment, gender and labour in the global political economy.

Instructor: Robert O’Brien

An exploration of recent developments in the theory and practice of international security from a critical perspective. The aim is to develop an understanding of what is at stake, politically, with some of the main concepts, theories, methodological approaches, and empirical objects within this field of study. The substantive content of the seminar changes from year to year.

Instructor: Peter Nyers

An introduction to quantitative methods of political and policy analysis. The focus is on inferential statistical methods from basic comparisons between groups through multivariate linear and logistic regression.

The emphasis is on successful application of statistical methods and understanding the uses of such methods for public policy and political science.

Instructor: Michelle Dion

Traditional approaches to public administration have been challenged and overwhelmed as new developments led to major transformations particularly in view of new needs, demands and arrangements for producing and delivering public services.

This course aims to trace the foundations and evolution of public administration actors and institutions to raise questions and develop a comprehensive understanding of the organization and processes that have emerged in the twenty-first century for contributing to the promotion of democratic governance and sustainability in modern states.

Instructor: A. Shafiqul Huque