Degree | Courses | Applications | Scholarships | Faculty

University of Waterloo – Wilfrid Laurier University Joint Program

A Unique Opportunity to Study Global Governance

The world faces increasingly complex problems that have taken on global significance - including conflict and peace-building, humanitarian crises and intervention, international economic inequality and instability, and global environmental change. How are these problems addressed at the global level? And are the mechanisms adopted to address them effective and just?

The study of Global Governance grapples with these important questions through an interdisciplinary examination of power and authority in the global arena. Governance is conceived in a broader way than in fields such as Public or Business Administration where the focus is on public management or organizational design issues. Global Governance examines the variety of actors, institutions, ideas, rules, and processes that contribute to the management of global society, exploring their origins, their evolving roles, as well as their political, economic, social, environmental, and ethical consequences. It is focused not just on international organizations and inter-state interactions. Also important are the various non-state actors, formal and informal networks, and broader transnational, supranational, and subnational realities of contemporary life that increasingly contribute to the establishment and functioning of global rules, norms and institutions. The study of Global Governance investigates whether the concepts, tools, and assumptions that have served scholars in the past require modification given contemporary challenges and, if so, what form should that modification take.

Interdisciplinary Focus

The PhD Program in Global Governance - jointly administered by Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Waterloo - goes beyond the rigidities and formalities of established academic boundaries by drawing on a variety of disciplines, including economics, politics, history, environmental studies, geography, global studies and business. It is the only PhD Program in Canada with a specific interdisciplinary focus on issues and problems of Global Governance.

Key themes in the program

• Global Political Economy
• Global Environment
• Conflict and Security
• Global Justice and Human Rights
• Multilateral Institutions and Diplomacy

Global Political Economy

This field is concerned with the governance of the global economy and the relationship between politics and economics in world affairs. Courses in this stream focus on the theoretical and public policy debates relating to the evolution of the world economy, the relationship between states and markets, and contemporary international economic relations. Topics covered include: global trade in goods and services; foreign direct investment and multinational corporations; international financial and monetary affairs; world development, poverty and inequality; global food and agriculture; shifting power in global economic governance; and governing the illicit global economy. 

Global Environment

This field is concerned with the global governance of environmental issues. Courses in this stream examine contemporary dilemmas relating to the ways in which environmental challenges are being addressed and managed by multiple agents through a range of transnational institutions and governance structures, both existing and proposed. Conceptual issues and debates, set within the context of a variety of internationally significant sustainability challenges, are investigated. Multilevel governance of these challenges at the international, regional, national and local levels are examied. Key topics covered include: global climate change, agriculture and food security, international water resource management and environmental aspects of the global economy.

Conflict and Security

This field is concerned with the referent objects of security and associated threats; the causes and management of conflict; and the global governance challenges of human, state, societal, national, international, ecospheric, and global security. Courses in this stream examine the theory and practice of security at all levels of analysis.

Global Justice and Human Rights

This field is concerned with the study of the relationship between global governance and issues of global justice and human rights. Courses in this stream explore themes such as: the practical and ethical challenges that international human rights and relief organizations encounter when operating in the global south; theoretical approaches to understanding global justice as a contemporary social justice issue, with a particular focus on the cultural constructs relating to conceptions of freedom, obligation, and community; and contemporary debates in the field of human rights, such as those related to cultural relativism and universal human rights, human rights and foreign policy, the place of economic rights, the relationship between gender and human rights, and human rights and retrospective justice.

Multilateral Institutions and Diplomacy

This field is concerned with the formal and informal practices, institutions and organizations which generate global governance. Courses in this stream focus primarily on the theory, practice and machinery of international organizations, public policy, and diplomacy. Topics covered include: organization theory, multilateral co-operation, foreign policy, diplomatic history, global social and public policy, representation and negotiation.