MAGG COURSES

The list of courses below contains information about required courses, and recommended elective courses. Subject to approval by the Program Director, students may take global governance-related courses offered by other graduate programs at UW and Laurier.

Required Courses

Global Governance Core

GGOV 600 (UW) Global Governance and Globalization

This course provides an overview of current scholarly debates relating to the interdisciplinary study of global governance in the context of globalization. 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 MA program in Global Governance.
Instructor: Dr. Hongying Wang | Fall 2023

History Requirements

To fulfill the program’s History requirement, students must take one of the following courses, or a comparable graduate level History course.

HIST 605 Global Governance in Historical Perspective

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.
Instructor: Dr. Bruce Muirhead | Fall 2023

HIST 612 Indigenous Rights and Claims: A Global Perspective

This course examines the historical and political background of Indigenous rights in comparative and global perspective. It will consider the patterns of Indigenous-Newcomer relations, the nature and origins of treaties, and Indigenous protests against external incursions into traditional territories. The course will focus on developments around the world in the period after World War II, and will examine such themes as the emergence of Indigenous rights movements, the origins and status of legal claims, political accommodations and international efforts to address Indigenous aspirations. Particular attention will be paid to the development of international Indigenous organizations, coordinated protests and challenges to national governments, and the engagement of international organizations (i.e., through the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples).
Instructor: Dr. Susan Roy | Winter 2024 (Also a Global Justice and Human Rights elective)

Economics Requirements

To fulfill the program’s Economics requirement, students must take one of the following courses, or a comparable graduate-level Political Economy/Economics course.

GGOV 610 Governance of Global Economy

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.
Instructor: Dr. Eric Helleiner | Winter 2024

PSCI 690 Theories of Political Economy

An advanced examination of theoretical approaches to the study of political economy. The course explores both historical and contemporary approaches and how they inform political economy research.
Instructor: Dr. Heather Whiteside | Fall 2023

MA in Global Governance

Field Courses

Conflict and Security

SOC 785 Cities and Security

An examination of the urban aspects of security, surveillance, war and terrorism. Particular attention will be given to the contemporary embrace of resilience as a rationality of urban security. Additional themes include the militarization of policing, the role of 'big data' in the intensification of urban surveillance, and the relationship between security and urban environments.
Instructor: Dr. Philip Boyle | Winter 2024

Global Environmental Governance

GGOV 620 Global Environmental Governance

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.
Instructor: Dr. Andrea Collins | Fall 2023

GGOV 621 Governing Global Food and Agriculture Systems

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.
Instructor: Dr. Jennifer Clapp | Winter 2024

GGOV 628 Topics in Global Environmental Governance

Global Justice and Human Rights

GGOV 640 Human Rights in a Globalized World

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..
Instructor: Dr. Andrew Thompson | Fall 2023

GG 693D Political Geographies of Violence

This course explores political geographies of violence with a particular emphasis on the issue of human security. Political geography is, at its core, the relationship between politics and space. Political geographers have long studied conflicts between nation states over territory, borders, and resources. Within the field of geography and beyond, however, there is little agreement on what, exactly, constitutes violence; and even less so on how framings of human security can enhance our understanding of the causes and effects of violence. We will explore these very questions by asking what constitutes violence across a variety of scales and locations, from local to transnational, from embodied fears and small scale acts of violence to state based projects and conflicts. The course will be largely centered on close readings of the texts assigned. These are drawn from an interdisciplinary set of scholars. We will explore what insights geographical concepts such as scale and territory lend to understandings of violence and human security. We will draw on ideas in other disciplines to enhance our understanding of the relationships between violence, power, and spatial relationship.
Instructor: Dr. Alison Mountz | Winter 2024

Global Social Governance

GGOV 644 International Migration: Practice, Theory & Regulation

This course explores theoretical perspectives on migration and critically examines how states deter or facilitate migration flows, including irregular immigration, refugees and asylum seekers, and low and high-skilled labourers. A multidisciplinary approach allows students to investigate the ubiquitous rise of border controls as a state tool to control migration, and how their implementation intersects with gender, race, class and nationality.
Instructor: Dr. Suzan Ilcan | Winter 2024

GV 740 International Migration

This course explores the global governance and management of borders and border-crossings including human mobility and migration. Students learn about state and non-state cooperation and struggles over sovereignty, issues related to access to human rights associated with border governance and enforcement, cross-border governance arrangements, and social justice movements related to inclusion and exclusion at the border.
Instructor: Dr. Alison Mountz | Fall 2023

Multilateral Institutions and Diplomacy

*GGOV 650 International Organizations and Global Governance

This course serves as a survey of the international relations (IR) subfield of international organizations (IO) but focuses principally on formal, inter-governmental organizations (IGOs). We examine the growing literature on international organizations and discuss their impact on global governance, considering their formation, design, relevance, impact and agency. We apply this knowledge to the study of several highly institutionalized issue areas.
Instructor: Dr. Andrew Cooper | Winter 2024

GGOV 660 Public International Law

This survey course will provide students with a systematic introduction to the international legal system. Topics to be covered include: the origins and nature of the international legal system; the formation, sources and application of international law; the law of treaties; international legal personality; the institutional framework of international law; the relationship between international law and national law; the relationship between states and territory; the law of the sea; state jurisdiction; jurisdictional immunities of states; state responsibility; and a selection of substantive international legal topics including, as time permits, international trade, international investment, the use of force by states, and/or international humanitarian law.
Instructor: Dr. David Welch | Fall 2023

*denotes the core course for its field