Associate Director, Balsillie School of International Affairs

Department of Political Science, (WLU)
 

Contact Information

Office Location: Room 4-112, Dr. Alvin Woods Building
Phone Number: 519.884.0710 ext 2937
Email: yshamsie @ wlu.ca

Education

PHD, York University, 2003
MA University of Toronto
Bachelor in Journalism, Carleton U. (1Yr Program)
BA Honours, University of Toronto

Areas of Specialization

Democracy promotion/transnationalization of Democracy
Peacebuilding
Post-conflict reconstruction
Central America and Haiti
Canadian foreign policy towards Haiti

Short Bio

Yasmine Shamsie is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Wilfrid Laurier University. Her research has focused on the peacebuilding efforts of bilateral and multilateral actors in Haiti and Central America, with particular attention to democratic development programs. She is currently working with Dr. Lisa Kowalchuk at Guelph University on a SSHRC funded three-year research project that is examining how doctors' and nurses' unions in El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala have responded to their governments' efforts to restructure healthcare.

She is a Fellow at the Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean (CERLAC) at York University and a non-resident Fellow at the Foundation for the Americas. She is the co-editor of Haiti: Hope for a Fragile State (Waterloo: CIGI & Wilfrid Laurier University, 2006) and of Whose Canada? Continental Integration, Fortress North America and the Corporate Agenda (Montreal, Kingston, McGill-Queen's University Press, 2007). Her research has appeared in Comparative Politics journals such as Third World Quarterly and the Journal of Haitian Studies as well International Relations journals such as Global Governance, Civil Wars, and the Review of International Political Economy. Prior to completing her graduate work and joining Wilfrid Laurier University, she was a researcher at the Regional Centre for Economic and Social Research (CRIES), in Nicaragua, and a policy analyst with the Jesuit Centre for Social Faith and Justice, in Toronto.

Most recent scholarly publications

2009 "Export Processing Zones: The Purported Glimmer in Haiti's Development Murk," Review of International Political Economy, forthcoming

2009 "Haiti: Economic Development on the margins of the global periphery".
Eds. Andrew Cooper and Jorge Heine, Which Way for Latin America? Hemispheric Politics Meets Globalization, United Nations University Press, in press

2008 "Canadian Efforts to Build Democracy in Haiti: Some Reflections for the Coming Years" Canadian Foreign Policy, Vol. 14, Issue 3, Fall

2008 "Haiti: Appraising Two Rounds of Peacebuilding Using a Poverty Reduction Lens" Civil Wars, Vol. 10, No. 4, pp. 415-432

2008 "Economic Perspectives for Haiti in the Medium Term" Commissioned by the Conflict Prevention and Peace Forum, New York for the United Nations Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH)

Courses taught

IP632 Contemporary Issues in Human Security
IP634 Interdisciplinary Seminary on Human Security