FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

Political Science

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Featured Research

Research Institutes & Centres

Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis

A world-class interdisciplinary health research centre that fosters excellence in acquiring, producing and communicating socially-relevant knowledge in the fields of health economics and health policy analysis to inform fair and sustainable health and social systems. 

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Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition

The Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition plays a crucial role in promoting research and teaching on global and international issues and themes.

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Spark: a centre for social research innovation

Spark connects researchers to the people, skills and tools needed to stand at the forefront of social research innovation. 

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Research Labs & Facilities

On the Table Laptop Showing World Data Flow: Team of Politicians, Corporate Business Leaders and Lawyers Sitting at the Negotiations Table in the Conference Room, Trying to Come to an Agreement.

Digital Society Lab

The Digital Society Lab at McMaster University aspires to serve as a world-class, interdisciplinary research facility dedicated to the study of the complex societal transformations that have accompanied the digital age.

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Interdisciplinary Networks

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Austerity Research Group

The Austerity Research Group, with members from seven social science disciplines, formed to investigate the theory, practice and results of austerity policies.

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Asian Research Working Group

The aim of the Asian Research Centre is to build and leverage the research strengths and networks of the growing number of scholars in McMaster who work on Asia.

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Multicultural hands raised in the air asking for freedom in a demonstration on street.Open palm of a black hand and white hands. Stop racism. Stop repression.

Ethnic Quota Project

This project builds new knowledge on variations of ethnic quotas designed to guarantee political representation of indigenous and ethnic minority groups in legislatures around the world.

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Globalization and Time

Exploring the relationship between globalization and time and the implications of this for humans and the environment.

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Research in Progress Seminar Series

Research in Progress Seminar Series (RIPS), hosted by the Department of Political Science, McMaster University

Fall 2023

Tuesday, October 17 at 11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m., KTH 709 (you may join via Zoom)

Connectivity, Colonialism, and Content Moderation: The International Politics of Internet Shutdowns in Africa

Presented by Jonathan Fisher, University of Birmingham

 

One in four Africans were impacted by internet shutdowns and restrictions in 2022. Scholarly analysis has generally analysed these developments through a domestic lens, understanding state-imposed internet disruptions in Africa as part of broader authoritarian regime maintenance strategies (Access Now 2023: 12). In this presentation, Jonathan Fisher nonetheless argues for a conceptual shift in how these, often highly-damaging, incidents are understood by scholars of International Relations. Drawing on research undertaken in Nigeria, Uganda, and Burkina Faso, together with interviews with former staff of Facebook/Meta and Twitter/X, he argues for a more international, and historically-centred understanding of digital disruption in Africa. Neo-/colonialism, political authority, and technological connectivity have, he underlines, been intertwined across modern African history, influencing, to a significant extent, how the contemporary flow and curation of digital content is viewed, experienced, and articulated by different actors and communities. In this context, social media platforms often manifest not as technological vectors of exchange, but as distant, Western, and (largely) unaccountable political authorities themselves.