Course Descriptions
POLI 1001 Introduction to Government and Politics I
CREDIT HOURS: 3
This course, together with
POLI 1002, is a general introduction to the study of politics. The two classes together fulfill the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences’ writing requirement. The two courses must be taken in sequence (that is,
POLI 1001, followed by
POLI 1002) and must be taken in the same academic year. In this introductory course, you will be exposed to the fundamental concepts of political life, including a range of key issues and approaches that animate contemporary politics. The course focuses on the fundamental themes and concepts that help us analyze politics, society, political values, and institutions. Topics will include: Fundamental concepts in political science; political philosophies and the bedrocks of various political ideologies; the nature and limits of democracy; and considerations of belonging within political communities. The scope of this course is broad, but maintains a significant focus on these issues as they relate to the study of Canadian politics.
NOTES: This course, together with
POLI 1002, is a general introduction to the study of politics. The two classes together fulfill the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences’ writing requirement. The two courses must be taken in sequence (that is,
POLI 1001, followed by
POLI 1002), and must be taken in the same academic year.
FORMAT: Lecture
LECTURE HOURS PER WEEK: 3
EXCLUSIONS:
POLI 1500.06, POLI 1060.03, POLI 1065.03
POLI 1002 Introduction to Government and Politics II
CREDIT HOURS: 3
This course, together with
POLI 1001, is a general introduction to the study of politics. The two classes together fulfill the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences’ writing requirement. The two courses must be taken in sequence (that is,
POLI 1001, followed by
POLI 1002) and must be taken in the same academic year. In this introductory course, you will utilize the knowledge gained on the fundamental concepts of political life in PO
LI 1001 and apply them to gain an understanding of political institutions and political processes. In so doing, you will explore a range of key issues and approaches that animate contemporary politics. Topics will include: The role of institutions in shaping political life; approaches to realizing individual and group representation; and the role of rhetoric and communication in politics. The scope of this course is broad, but maintains a significant focus on these issues as they relate to the study of Canadian politics.
FORMAT: Lecture
LECTURE HOURS PER WEEK: 3
RESTRICTIONS: This course must be taken following
POLI 1001.03, and in the same year as
POLI 1001.03.
EXCLUSIONS: POLI 1500.06, POLI 1060.03, POLI 1065.03
POLI 1060 Political Worlds: Themes and Concepts
CREDIT HOURS: 3
In this introductory course, you will be exposed to the diverse worlds of political life. You will be introduced to a range of key issues and approaches that animate both research and contemporary politics in various parts of the world. Topics addressed will include: fundamental concepts in political science; political philosophies and the bedrocks of various ideologies; the nature and limits of democracy; the Canadian regime and American regime (how their ‘governments' and institutions work in comparison); forms of political participation; culture and socialization; and the relationship between politics and the media.
FORMAT: Lecture
LECTURE HOURS PER WEEK: 3
EXCLUSIONS:
POLI 1001.03 and
POLI 1002.03, POLI 1010.03, POLI 1015.03, POLI 1020.03, POLI 1025.03, POLI 1030.03, POLI 1035.03, POLI 1050.03, POLI 1100X/Y.06, POLI 1103X/Y.06
POLI 1065 Political Worlds: The Global Domain
CREDIT HOURS: 3
This course, which builds on Political Science 1060, introduces you to key approaches, actors, and issues in the study of global politics. After discussing the role of theory and history in understanding contemporary global politics, it considers the role of national governments, international and regional organizations (like the United Nations, the European Union, or the African Union), Non-governmental organizations (like the Red Cross or Greenpeace), and Multinational Corporations. It then looks at the Politics of Global Security and Human Rights, and the Politics of Global welfare (including trade, poverty alleviation, and environmental stress). The objective is to increase your global political ‘literacy', to better understand contemporary global challenges and to prepare you for further study of international relations and comparative politics.
FORMAT:
EXCLUSIONS:
POLI 1001.03 and
POLI 1002.03
POLI 1500 GPS: Global Politics and Society
CREDIT HOURS: 6
Global politics and society have been remade by processes of globalization, referring to the multiple ways nations, communities, and people are connected and disconnected across traditional boundaries. The dynamics of the Covid-19 pandemic are but one example of these far-reaching processes. This course covers key concepts from political science, sociology and social anthropology with a view to examining how interactions of large scale global processes, politics, and policies resonate in communities, social institutions and people's everyday lives. We will focus upon the changing dynamics of global capitalism as these are manifest in the political, economic, and sociological conditions across and within regions, nations, and communities.
FORMAT:
CROSS-LISTING:
SOSA 1500.06
EXCLUSIONS: POLI 1001.03 and POLI 1002.03, SOSA 1000X/Y.06, SOSA 1050X/Y.06, SOSA 1100X/Y.06, SOSA 1200X/Y.06, SO
SA 1002.03, SO
SA 1003.03
POLI 2210 Unity and Diversity: The Federal Dynamics of Canadian Politics
CREDIT HOURS: 3
This course is an introduction to the social, economic, and participatory dynamics that drive Canadian politics. It covers political culture, regionalism, political economy, interest groups, social movements, and elections. Federalism is central to all these topics, as we study the role of Quebec nationalism in the federation's evolution, the relationship between the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and federalism, the place of emerging “orders of government” (including Aboriginal governments), and debates concerning the causes and consequences of centralization and decentralization in the Canadian federation.
FORMAT:
PREREQUISITES: 1000-level course in Political Science or Kings FYP recommended
EXCLUSIONS: POLI 2200X/Y.06
POLI 2215 Indigenous Pol in Canada
CREDIT HOURS: 3
This course explores the colonial relationship between Indigenous peoples in what we call Canada and the Canadian settler-state, or the Crown. Dominant themes include nationhood, identity, autonomy, colonialism, and the state. We discuss Indigenous ways of knowing and being in Canada and how the settler state attempts to subvert these ideas. We examine the key political and legal issues, cases, and events that shape the relationship between Indigenous peoples and Canada. Some key questions include how Indigenous peoples conceptualize self-determination; how the state is understood and experienced by Indigenous peoples; and how misogyny and the patriarchy have shaped colonialism and self-determination.
FORMAT: Lecture
POLI 2220 Political Power and Partisan Politics: The Structures of Canadian Parliamentary Government
CREDIT HOURS: 3
Canadian government is dominated by prime ministers and premiers. Why this concentration of power at both the federal and provincial levels of government? Are Members of Parliament who are not in the Cabinet really “nobodies” as one recent PM characterized them? Are Cabinets themselves becoming no more than “focus groups”? Do unelected partisan aides and public service advisors have more influence than the vast majority of elected representatives? Are political parties irrelevant as vehicles for citizen engagement? Are interest groups or social movements any more relevant? Do elections matter? Are the media merely the political instruments of the business elites? These are among the issues that are examined in this course in an attempt to understand the most critical factors that shape the structuring of power in contemporary Canadian government.
FORMAT:
PREREQUISITES: 1000-level course in Political Science or Kings FYP recommended
EXCLUSIONS: POLI 2200X/Y.06
POLI 2230 Municipal Law and City Politics in Canada
CREDIT HOURS: 3
Most Canadians live in cities, yet local government is the weakest unit in our federal system. What accounts for this? After all, local government has often been described as the foundation of democracy. In Canada, local governments have many unique characteristics, from their constitutional status to the council system and a tradition of non-partisan government. We will explore the character of local government and the issues related to local governance, including regional and metropolitan restructuring and citizen participation, municipal finance, provincial-local relations, and the role of the federal government.
FORMAT:
PREREQUISITES: 1000-level course in Political Science or King's FYP recommended.
EXCLUSIONS: POLI 3216.03 and
POLI 3232.03
POLI 2301 Comparative Politics I: Developed Democracies under Pressure
CREDIT HOURS: 3
The course surveys the methods and scope of Comparative Politics. It does so through an examination of what have been the two major prototypes of democratic systems in the contemporary world: liberal democracies (industrial, capitalist nations) featuring examples of presidential systems (USA) and parliamentary models (UK and Japan); and illiberal democracies as found in some post-communist (Russia) and emerging industrialized states (Mexico). After a general overview of the nature of these classifications, countries from each will be studied in depth. Concepts and theories which are useful for comparing political life in various countries will be discussed. In each case, contemporary trends which put democratic practices under pressure or threaten their continuity altogether will be introduced. It is paired with
POLI 2302 on Developing States to provide the core undergraduate requirement in Comparative Politics
FORMAT:
LECTURE HOURS PER WEEK: 3
PREREQUISITES: 1000-level Political Science course or King's FYP recommended.
EXCLUSIONS:
POLI 2300X/Y
POLI 2302 Comparative Politics II: the Developing World
CREDIT HOURS: 3
This course proceeds on the assumption that it is fascinating to study diverse political systems and processes in their own right; but further, that through comparison and generalization, we can gain a better understanding of the characteristics of politics everywhere, including our own country.
The course surveys the methods and scope of Comparative Politics. It does so through an examination of what have been the three major classifications of political systems in the post-World War II world, with particular focus on "Third World" countries (an increasingly problematic term encompassing "Newly Industrializing Countries" and "Less Developed Countries"). After a general overview of the nature of these classifications, countries from each will be studied in depth. Concepts and theories which are useful for comparing political life in various countries will be discussed.
FORMAT:
PREREQUISITES: 1000-level Political Science course or King's FYP recommended
EXCLUSIONS:
POLI 2300
POLI 2350 Governance and Globalization
CREDIT HOURS: 3
This seminar course provides students with an opportunity for critical evaluation of the reshaping of political processes and institutions that are occurring as the result of globalization. The course will explore the concept of governance in the context of changing dynamics related to the trans-nationalisation of production and increased capital mobility as well as the rise in numbers and influence of NGOs and new social movements. Hence, “new” forms of governance emerging out of decentralization and/or disinvestment of state authority and supra-national arrangements that are broadly captured within the concept of “global governance” will be explored along with traditional concepts of governance that centre on the actors, structures and environments of governmental policy-making. A range of issues will be examined – governance of economies, environment, communications, human rights, health, conflict and complex emergencies – within the context of debates involving the “internationalization” of the state; the role of identities – e.g. nationalist, ethnic, gender, cosmopolitan; the growing relevance of regions and the nature of and prospects for democracy and citizenship.
FORMAT: Seminar
PREREQUISITES: 1000-level course in Political Science or Kings FYP recommended
EXCLUSIONS: POLI 3350.03
POLI 2410 Crisis and Consent: Foundations of Political Thought: 1651-1778
CREDIT HOURS: 3
This course covers some of the most important early modern theorists (Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Smith, Rousseau, and Montesquieu). It looks at the development of natural rights, democracy, capitalism, and citizenship.
FORMAT:
PREREQUISITES: 1000-level course in Political Science or Philosophy or Kings FYP recommended
CROSS-LISTING:
PHIL 2210.03
EXCLUSIONS: POLI 2400X/Y.06
POLI 2420 Revolution and Rationality: Foundations of Political Thought, 1789-1900
CREDIT HOURS: 3
This course focuses upon late-eighteenth and nineteenth-century thought (theorists such as Burke, Paine, Tocqueville, Kant, Mill, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche), and investigates human rights, democracy, utilitarianism, individualism, socialism, and the roots of postmodern thought.
POLI 2410 is not a formal prerequisite for
POLI 2420, although students will find
POLI 2410 a very useful introduction to
POLI 2420.
FORMAT: Lecture
LECTURE HOURS PER WEEK: 3
PREREQUISITES: 1000-level course in Philosophy or Political Science or Kings FYP recommended
CROSS-LISTING:
PHIL 2220.03
EXCLUSIONS: POLI 2400X/Y.06
POLI 2450 Democracy, Difference and Citizenship: A Survey of Political Philosophy
CREDIT HOURS: 3
This is a survey course in Political Philosophy. This course will give participants a foundation for thinking critically about what these key political concepts mean and why people have long thought these ideals behind these concepts are important. This course aims to show students an analytic and normative survey of the topics; it is not intended either as a historical survey or as an intervention in political science (though it would certainly complement such things)
NOTES: Credit can only be given for this course if X and Y are completed in consecutive terms and partial credit cannot be given for a single term.
FORMAT: Lecture
PREREQUISITES: 1000-level course in Political Science or Philosophy or Kings FYP recommended
CROSS-LISTING:
PHIL 2450.03
POLI 2520 World Politics
CREDIT HOURS: 3
Why do states fight wars? Commit genocide? Sign treaties? Acquire and sell ballistic missile and nuclear technologies? Join economic and military alliances? Enforce and/or dismantle sanctions against states like Iraq, Iran or North Korea? Why can’t we enforce international law as effectively as we enforce domestic law? Can we identify (and enforce) an objective set of universal moral values to guide relations between states and peoples? Is the U.N. a useful institution or is it destined to fail? Should NATO have intervened in conflicts in Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda or Afghanistan? What were the factors that led to the US-UK invasion of Iraq in 2003, and what does this tell us about US foreign policy and the origins of major conflict? These are some of the questions the course is designed to answer.
FORMAT:
PREREQUISITES: 1000-level course in Political Science or Kings FYP recommended
EXCLUSIONS: POLI 2500X/Y.06
POLI 2530 Foreign Policy in Theory and Practice
CREDIT HOURS: 3
Foreign Policy is concerned with the way that individual states decide on their priorities and strategies in relation to the rest of the world. This course begins with a brief review of International Relations theories and their application to foreign policy. The main part of the course explores theories about what drives foreign policy decision-making: political systems, bureaucracy, culture, psychology, and leadership. The last part of the course looks at the instruments of foreign policy, with particular attention to the military, trade and investment, and foreign aid. All parts of the course feature a mix of abstract theory and specific, real-world examples.
FORMAT:
PREREQUISITES: 1000-level course in Political Science or Kings FYP recommended
EXCLUSIONS: POLI 2500X/Y.06
POLI 2540 Canadian-American Relations
CREDIT HOURS: 3
Canada’s relationship with the United States affects almost every aspect of our political, economic, social and cultural life. The U.S. outranks Canada on all the dimensions of power and influence by factors of 10 or 12 to one, and in some fields (e.g., military capacity) by considerably more. Well over 40% of Canada’s economic production goes into exports, and of that well over 80% goes to the United States. Canadians cannot go to the movies, watch television, listen to popular music, consume fast food, or do errands at the local shopping centre without exposing themselves to what a prominent American political scientist has described as his country’s ‘soft power’. This course will consider how Canadians are affected by these and other influences from south of the border, how they have debated them among themselves, and what public policies have been established in response to the concerns they have generated.
FORMAT:
PREREQUISITES: 1000-level course in Political Science or Kings FYP recommended
EXCLUSIONS: POLI 2510X/Y.06, 2512X/Y.06
POLI 2810 Special Topics in Political Science
CREDIT HOURS: 3
An examination of selected issues in Political Science. This course explores (e.g. when a visiting scholar is on campus) a special topic that is not a regular offering of the department. It is taught as a lecture or seminar course, not as an independent studies course. Since the topics covered in these courses differ from year to year, students should seek further information from the Political Science Department before registering.
NOTE: Course Details listed here also apply to
POLI 2820.
FORMAT:
PREREQUISITES: Permission of the instructor.
POLI 2820 Special Topics in Political Science
CREDIT HOURS: 3
See
POLI 2810.