Core Global Governance Courses

GGOV 700 (UW)/GV 710 (WLU) Global Governance (core Political Science requirement)

Instructor: Patricia Goff

This course provides an overview of current scholarly debates relating to the interdisciplinary study of global governance in the context of globalizaiton. It examines competing perspectives on globalization and global governance, and explores the sources and consequences of global power and authority, as well as the key actors, institutions, regimes, and norms of global governance. This course is open only to students in the PhD program in Global Governance.

GGOV 701 (UW)/GV (WLU) 701 Research Methods

Instructor: Gerard Boychuk

The course exposes students to various methodological approaches and debates among them in order to help students develop the ability to professionally assess academic work as well as to prepare their own dissertation research. The course examines such topics as statistical methods for the social sciences, issues in methods and methodology, case selection, critical assessment, and proposal writing.

GV 720 (WLU)/HIST 605 (UW) The History of Global Governance

Instructor: Daniel Gorman

This course examines the various ways global actors have identified and tried to solve global problems in the twentieth century. We will study the interactions between international organizations, state actors, non-governmental organizations, and informal interest groups as they have confronted global issues such as war, immigration, international trade, human rights, and environmental and health crises.

GV 730 (WLU)/ECON 637(UW) Economic Analysis and Global Governance (Economics Component)

Instructor: Horatio Rus

This is the core economics course for the graduate program in Global Governance. The class will cover the basic theories of international trade and international finance, as essential stepping stones for an informed analysis of global economic issues. After establishing these foundations, the class will move on to discuss international policy issues. The inefficiency of the lack of cooperation in international trade policy making and the need for multilateral negotiations have long been recognized. However, there is still a significant amount of debate with respect to the specific features of the multilateral trading architecture. The importance of coordination on monetary and financial issues is emphasized by the fragility of the current system. This is showcased by the frequency and rapid global contagion characterizing modern financial crises, and in view of the most recent episodes especially, is a topic of vivid contention. Chronic underdevelopment in many areas of the world is also recognized as a global issue requiring global solutions, while international environmental coordination is becoming increasingly regarded as a precondition for effectively addressing issues ranging from transboundary resource depletion to global warming. These will constitute the main policy areas explored in the second part of the course.
 

Global Political Economy

*GGOV 610/PSCI 688 (UW) Governance of the Global Economy

Instructor: Eric Helleiner

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.

GGOV 611/PSCI 689 (UW) Emerging Economies in Global Governance

Instructor: Kathryn Hochstetler

Large developing countries like Brazil, Russia, India, and China stand at the centre of much of current international political economy. Their national development efforts profoundly shape their international participation and vice versa. This course will cover theoretical and conceptual debates about the roles of these "middle range" or "emerging" powers, then examine their national economies, before turning to see how they individually and collectively (with the other emerging powers) fit into current global governance.

GGOV 612/PSCI 612 (UW) Theories of Globalization

Instructor: William Coleman

This course begins with examining discussions of the historical continuities and discontinuities in globalization, including the relationships between globalization, empires and imperialism. It then turns to focus on an interdisciplinary selection of theoretical writings on contemporary globalization.  The course concludes with preliminary investigations of some particular topics in globalization studies: identity and culture, structural adjustment and world economic institutions, global health, communal violence, and resistance to globalization.

GGOV 613/PSCI 688 (UW) The Politics of National Innovation Systems

Instructor: Carin Holroyd

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.

GGOV 614/PSCI 614 (UW) International Business and Development

Instructor: Fred Bird 

This course will examine the varied roles of international businesses in developing areas. The term international businesses is used to refer to a variety of firms including multinationals, contractual partners of these firms working in developing areas, as well as developing area firms as suppliers of other businesses in industrialized countries. The course will examine the impact of international businesses on the social-economy of developing areas, especially their impact on poverty and development. The course include studies of businesses in a number of countries (including Nigeria, India, China, Pakistan, Colombia, Brazil, and South Africa), the role of free and fair trade networks, as well as the impact of questionable financial transactions.

GGOV/PSCI 615 (UW) Global Poverty

Instructor: Fred Bird

This course analyzes the extent and character of world-wide 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 under-development, 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.

Global Environmental Governance

*GGOV 620/ERS/PSCI 604 (UW) Global Environmental Governance

Instructor: Kathryn Hochstetler

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.

GGOV 621/ERS/PSCI 606 (UW) Governing Global Food and Agriculture

Instructor: Jennifer Clapp

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.

Conflict and Security

*GGOV 630/PSCI 678 (UW) Security Ontology

Instructor: David Welch

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.

*GGOV 631/PSCI 679 (UW) Security Ontology - Issues and Institutions

Instructor: Thomas Homer-Dixon

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. 

GGOV 632/PSCI 654 (UW) Post-War Reconstruction & State Building

Instructor: Mark Sedra 

Rebuilding states in the aftermath of conflict and state failure represents one of the foremost challenges facing the international community. The post-Cold War era has shown that weak states represent as great a threat to international security and stability as strong ones. The transition from war to peace and state failure to stability in these states can be conceptualized as encompassing three separate but interrelated transitions, in the economic, political and security spheres. The course will deconstruct and analyze this triple transition, examining both its theoretical roots and practical application with reference to a number of recent case studies.

GGOV 638 (UW) Special Topics in Conflict and Security - Managing Nuclear Risk

Instructors: James Blight and janet Lang

This seminar will begin with an examination of history's closest call to a major nuclear war: the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962. Research on the crisis over the past twenty-five years on the U.S., Russian and Cuban perspectives on the crisis (much of it conducted by the instructors) suggests that the crisis was not anticipated by leaders in Washington, Moscow or Havana; that the crisis spiraled into unprecedented danger primarily due to each side's ignorance of the motives, capabilities and perspectives of the others; that the crisis came within a hair's breadth of exploding into catastrophic war; and that this limiting case of nuclear danger holds important lessons for leaders trying to manage nuclear risks in today's world. Students will have online access to the treasure trove of declassified documents, oral testimony and scholarly analysis of the crisis from all over the world. The seminar will then shift gears to an in-depth consideration of the degree to which the lessons of the missile crisis illuminate the evolving Iranian nuclear crisis-the standoff between Iran and the West regarding Iran's apparent pursuit of a nuclear weapons' capability. Each student will work with the instructors throughout the semester to identify a suitable topic for an original research paper which may be primarily historical, or policy-oriented, or a hybrid of the two. The seminar is open to any student with a strong interest in these topics, regardless of departmental affiliation.

PSCI 659 (UW) Conflict and Conflict Resolution

Instructor: Veronica Kitchen

Dangerous political conflicts are sometimes resolved, sometimes escalate to violence, and sometimes fester. We examine the causes, the course and the consequences of dangerous political conflicts within and between states.

Global Justice and Human Rights

*GGOV 640/PSCI 658 (UW) Human Rights in a Globalized World

Instructor: tbd 

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.

*GV 760 (WLU)/GGOV 641 (UW) International Human Rights

Instructor: Rhoda Howard-Hassmann

This course focuses on the international human rights regime as a component of international law and global governance. Topics include: the international human rights regime; the debate on cultural relativism of human rights; the history of human rights; human rights and globalization; the role of non-state actors in the human rights regime; transitional justice; international legal reform; and human rights and foreign policy.

PO 654 (WLU) Comparative Truth Commission

Instructor: Jorge Heine

One of the effects of the "third wave" of democratization that took place in the late twentieth century has been to confront newly democratizing countries with the need to come to terms with their "evil past", i.e. the human rights violations committed under authoritarian rule. Truth commissions have been, in many (though by no means all) cases the instrument of choice to do so. This course examines the emergence, main features and evolution of truth commissions, within the broader context of transitional justice, one of the fastest and most exciting areas within the study of democratization. Special attention will be paid to the Chilean and South African Truth and Reconciliation Commissions.

PO 671 (WLU) Issues in Third World Politics

Instructor: Andrea Brown

An in-depth exploration of selected issues of current interest in Third World politics, this course will study significant new publications in the field as well as several case studies from nations or regions undergoing political challenges and transformations, such as transitions to democracy, civil war, economic collapse and restructuring, ethnic unrest, the AIDS crisis, grassroots initiatives, and famine.

Multilateral Institutions and Diplomacy

*GGOV 650/PSCI 657 (UW) International Organizations and Global Governance

Instructor: tbd

This course will examine the growing literature on international organizations and discuss their impact on global governance. The relevance, impact, and agency of international organizations will be considered. With the growing interdependence among states, international organizations are places where global governance decisions are made.

GGOV 651/PSCI 617 (UW) Unconventional Diplomacy and Global Governance

Instructor: Andrew Cooper

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.

GGOV 652/PSCI 618 (UW) Non-State Actors in Global Governance

Instructor: Kathryn Hochstetler

Non-state actors (NGOs, corporations, networks, etc) play increasingly important roles in global governance.  This course examines different theoretical arguments about their roles.  Overarching questions include the extent to which they support or undermine states' purposes in global governance, what and how much they can contribute to global problem solving, and possible limits or critiques of their participation.  It will draw on studies of non-state actors in many issue areas, venues, and parts of the world in an effort to understand what these have in common with each other, as well as possible lines of differentiation among them.

 
GV 753 (WLU)/GGOV 658 (UW) Special Topics in Multilateral Institutions and Diplomacy -- International Organizations and Public Policy

Instructor: Rianne Mahon

Students of public policy are increasingly aware that the transnational flow of policy ideas, in which international organisations play an important part, cannot be ignored. This is a true for OECD countries as for the countries of transition and the Global South. In international relations, both rational choice realists and social constructivists recognise that international organisations are not simply instruments of nation states.

At the macro level, this course explores international organisations' contributions to transnational or "multilevel" governance and the instruments (both hard and soft) that they can wield. At the micro or meso-levels, it  assesses their role in transnational policy diffusion. It does so by focusing first on major international organisations such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the OECD and then turns to examine key policy areas such as the environment, food and development. The latter angle makes it possible to trace the relations of competition and cooperation they enter into with each other and with other actors, national and transnational.
     

Global Social Governance

GGOV 642/PSCI 639 (UW) Global Social Governance

Instructor: Gerard Boychuk

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.

GGOV 643/PSCI 616 (UW) Global Health Governance

Instructor: William Coleman

Health policy-making is changing to reflect  a need for more coordination among nation-states and a rising number of international non-governmental organizations, leading to a more polycentric form of global governance.  It begins with a review of theoretical texts on globalization and global public policy that assist in understanding changes in scale for policy-making and for policy co-ordination.  It then looks at the historical development of global institutions, including the World Health Organization.  Finally, it examines case studies of global health policy making, noting how these actions interface with nation-states' sovereignty and autonomy, and with other sites of global authority.