Political Science

An introduction to crucial political issues of the day (e.g. globalization, migration, political violence, corruption, democracy, global justice, climate change, human rights, revolution, terrorism) and key concepts in Political Science. Students will develop techniques of critical reading and analytic essay writing. Topics will vary by semester and professor.

This course examines the institutional foundations and principles of Canadian government, and the social, cultural, and historical factors that shape its politics. Topics covered are the Canadian constitution, the executive, parliament, the public service, the federal system, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the courts, political parties, the electoral system, interest groups, social movements, Quebec nationalism, and aboriginal self-determination.
Area of Focus: Canadian Government and Politics

This course examines different approaches to international relations, the characteristics of the international system, and the factors that motivate foreign policies.
Area of Focus: International Relations

This course examines the historical and current impact of the international order on the development prospects and politics of less developed countries. Topics include colonial conquest, multi-national investment, the debt crisis and globalization. The course focuses on the effects of these international factors on domestic power structures, the urban and rural poor, and the environment.
Area of Focus: Comparative Politics

This course explores the origins of modern political institutions in Europe through an examination of revolutions, democracy, and authoritarianism in Europe since 1789. Specific case studies include the French Revolution, democratization in Britain and Spain, the Russian Revolution and the rise of the Nazis in Germany.
Area of Focus: Comparative Politics

In this course, students learn to apply data analysis techniques to examples drawn from political science and public policy. Students will learn to complete original analyses using quantitative techniques commonly employed by political scientists to study public opinion and government policies. Rather than stressing mathematical concepts, the emphasis of the course will be on the application and interpretation of the data as students learn to communicate their results through papers and/or presentations.

Why do some citizens vote when others do not? What motivates voters? This course reviews theories of voting behaviour, the social and psychological bases of such behaviour, and how candidate and party campaigns influence the vote. By applying quantitative methods introduced in STAB23H3 or other courses on statistical methods, students will complete assignments examining voter behaviour in recent Canadian and/or foreign elections using survey data and election returns.
Areas of Focus: Canadian Government and Politics; Comparative Politics

This course explores the structure, role and key issues associated with the Canadian judicial system. The first section provides the key context and history associated with Canada’s court system. The second section discusses the role the courts have played in the evolution of the Canadian constitution and politics – with a particular focus on the Supreme Court of Canada. The final section analyzes some of the key debates and issues related to the courts in Canada, including their democratic nature, function in establishing public policy and protection of civil liberties.
Area of Focus: Canadian Government and Politics

This course examines theoretical debates about the extent of moral and political obligations to non-citizens. Topics include human rights, immigration, global poverty, development, terrorism, and just war.
Area of Focus: Political Theory

This course explores some of the key aspects and issues of public law in modern, democratic systems of government from a comparative perspective. It does this by reviewing and applying theory and empirical analysis to a number of cases to explore five key issues: the institutional separation of power, the structure of the judiciary, the mechanisms (or lack thereof) to distribute power and resources between groups/territories, the mechanisms (or lack thereof) to protect individual and group rights, and how/if the constitutional order can be changed/amended. Cases considered will include: Canada, UK, Spain, Germany, Australia, America, India and South Africa.
Area of Focus: Comparative Politics

Topics will vary depending on the regional interests and expertise of the Instructor.
Area of Focus: Comparative Politics

This course examines relations between provincial and federal governments in Canada, and how they have been shaped by the nature of Canada's society and economy, judicial review, constitutional amendment, and regionalisation and globalization. The legitimacy and performance of the federal system are appraised. Lecture-seminar format.
Areas of Focus: Canadian Government and Politics; Public Policy

This course examines intergovernmental relations in various areas of public policy and their effects on policy outcomes. It evaluates how federalism affects the capacity of Canadians to secure desirable social, economic, environmental and trade policies. Lecture-seminar format.
Areas of Focus: Canadian Government and Politics; Public Policy

Who are we as a people today? What role have consecutive vice regals played in more than 400 years of shaping our nation and its institutions? This course examines how the vice regal position in general, and how selected representatives in particular, have shaped Canada’s political system
Areas of Focus: Canadian Government and Politics

This course will investigate the development of Canadian constitutional law under the Constitution Act of 1982 and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Specific topics include criminal rights, freedom of expression, freedom of religion, equality rights, and aboriginal rights.
Areas of Focus: Canadian Government and Politics; Public Policy

This course introduces students to central concepts in political theory, such as justice, rights, and the state. Readings will include classical and medieval texts, such as Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Politics.
Area of Focus: Political Theory

The course investigates the concept of political liberty in various traditions of political thought, especially liberalism, republicanism, and Marxism.  The course will investigate key studies by such theorists as Berlin, Taylor, Skinner, Pettit, and Cohen, as well as historical texts by Cicero, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Hegel, Constant, Marx, and Mill.
Area of Focus: Political Theory

This course is a study of the major political philosophers of the twentieth century. The theorists covered will vary from year to year.
Area of Focus: Political Theory

This course examines the challenges and contributions of feminist political thought to the core concepts of political theory, such as rights, citizenship, democracy, and social movements. It analyzes the history of feminist political thought, and the varieties of contemporary feminist thought, including: liberal, socialist, radical, intersectional, and postcolonial.
Area of Focus: Political Theory

This course examines the foreign policy of the United States by analyzing its context and application to a specific region, regions or contemporary problems in the world.
Areas of Focus: International Relations; Public Policy; Comparative Politics

Traditional International Relations Theory has concentrated on relations between states, either failing to discuss, or missing the complexities of important issues such as terrorism, the role of women, proliferation, globalization of the world economy, and many others. This course serves as an introduction to these issues - and how international relations theory is adapting in order to cover them.
Area of Focus: International Relations

This course explores the origins of Latin America's cycles of brutal dictatorship and democratic rule. It examines critically the assumption that Latin American countries have made the transition to democratic government.
Area of Focus: Comparative Politics

This course focuses on selected policy issues in the United States.
Areas of Focus: Comparative Politics; Public Policy

This course examines the origins of, and political dynamics within, states in the contemporary Middle East. The first part of the course analyses states and state formation in historical perspective - examining the legacies of the late Ottoman and, in particular, the colonial period, the rise of monarchical states, the emergence of various forms of "ethnic" and/or "quasi" democracies, the onset of "revolutions from above", and the consolidation of populist authoritarian states. The second part of the course examines the resilience of the predominantly authoritarian state system in the wake of socio-economic and political reform processes.
Area of Focus: Comparative Politics

The course explains why financial markets exist, and their evolution, by looking at the agents, actors and institutions which generate demand for them. We also consider the consequences of increasingly integrated markets, the causes of systemic financial crises, as well as the implications and feasibility of regulation.
Area of Focus: International Relations

This course provides an opportunity to design and carry out individual or small-group research on a political topic. After class readings on the topic under study, research methods and design, and research ethics, students enter "the field" in Toronto. The seminar provides a series of opportunities to present and discuss their unfolding research.

This course explores the internationalization of ethnic conflict and the international drivers of civil war. It covers diaspora politics, contagion and demonstration effects, regional security complexes, separatism and irredentism, and the use of sanctions and international interventions. The class involves discussions, problem-solving exercises, and teamwork.
Area of Focus: International Relations

Topics and Area of Focus will vary depending on the instructor.

Some of the most powerful political texts employ literary techniques such as narrative, character, and setting. This class will examine political themes in texts drawn from a range of literary genres (memoire, literary non-fiction, science fiction). Students will learn about the conventions of these genres, and they will also have the opportunity to write an original piece of political writing in one of the genres. This course combines the academic analysis of political writing with the workshop method employed in creative writing courses.

This course studies the theory of constitutionalism through a detailed study of its major idioms such as the rule of law, the separation of powers, sovereignty, rights, and limited government.
Area of Focus: Political Theory

This seminar course explores selected issues of Canadian politics from a comparative perspective. The topics in this course vary depending on the instructor.
Areas of Focus: Canadian Government and Politics; Comparative Politics

Why do Canadians disagree in their opinions about abortion, same-sex marriage, crime and punishment, welfare, taxes, immigration, the environment, religion, and many other subjects?  This course examines the major social scientific theories of political disagreement and applies these theories to an analysis of political disagreement in Canada.
Area of Focus: Canadian Government and Politics

An in-depth analysis of the place and rights of disabled persons in contemporary society. Course topics include historic, contemporary, and religious perspectives on persons with disabilities; the political organization of persons with disabilities; media presentation of persons with disabilities; and the role of legislatures and courts in the provision of rights of labour force equality and social service accessibility for persons with disabilities.
Area of Focus: Canadian Government and Politics

This seminar explores the ways in which political theory can deepen our understanding of contemporary political issues. Topics may include the following: cities and citizenship; multiculturalism and religious pluralism; the legacies of colonialism; global justice; democratic theory; the nature of power.
Area of Focus: Political Theory

This course is an introduction to rational choice theories with applications to the international realm. A main goal is to introduce analytical constructs frequently used in the political science and political economy literature to understand strategic interaction among states.
Area of Focus: International Relations

While domestic and international political factors have discouraged pro human development public policies in much of the global south, there have been some important success stories. This course examines the economic and social policies most successful in contributing to human development and explores the reasons behind these rare cases of relatively successful human development.
Areas of Focus: Comparative Politics; Public Policy

This course will provide an introduction to theories of why some dictatorships survive while others do not. We will explore theories rooted in regime type, resources, state capacity, parties, popular protest, and leadership.  We will then examine the utility of these approaches through in-depth examinations of regime crises in Ethiopia, Iran, China, the USSR, and South Africa.
Area of Focus: Comparative Politics

A research project under the supervision of a member of faculty that will result in the completion of a substantial report or paper acceptable as an undergraduate senior thesis. Students wishing to undertake a supervised research project in the Winter Session must register in POLD95H3 during the Fall Session. It is the student's responsibility to find a faculty member who is willing to supervise the project, and the student must obtain consent from the supervising instructor before registering for this course. During the Fall Session the student must prepare a short research proposal, and both the supervising faculty member and the Supervisor of Studies must approve the research proposal prior to the first day of classes for the Winter Session.