▲ PhD Class of 2018
Joint University Program with an Interdisciplinary Focus
The world faces increasingly complex problems that have taken on global significance – including conflict and peace-building, humanitarian crises and intervention, international economic inequality and instability, and global environmental change. How are these problems addressed at the global level? And are the mechanisms adopted to address them effective and just?
The PhD in Global Governance, offered jointly by Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Waterloo, is a unique opportunity for interdisciplinary examination of power and authority in the global arena. Graduate students in the program examine the variety of actors, institutions, ideas, rules, and processes that contribute to the management of global society. In addition to international organizations and inter-state relations, the study of global governance examines the various non-state actors as well as the realities of contemporary life that contribute to the establishment and functioning of global rules, norms and institutions. The Global Governance PhD program interrogates the concepts, tools, and assumptions that have served scholars in the past and assesses new approaches for addressing contemporary and future challenges.
The Global Governance PhD program is committed to providing students with training for a wide range of careers in the field of global governance. In addition to the academic curriculum, we offer supplementary “professionalization” programming, and are normally able to offer funds to support field research and travel to academic conferences. We also provide students with opportunities to gain relevant international work experience, whether as a visiting scholar at a top-ranked university, a fellow at a leading think tank, or an intern with an internationally recognized non-governmental organization or in the UN system. See what some of our graduates are up to.
“As an international student from Brazil, I have benefitted tremendously from being involved in academic and policy debates with northern counterparts, while receiving unremitting support on my research on South America. ”
—J. Ricardo Tranjan, PhD Graduate (2012)
PhD in Global Governance
Specializations
Students must choose to specialize in one of the six fields of the program. To prepare for the comprehensive exam in that field, they must select at least two courses from their chosen field. Of these two, at least one course must be a course identified as “core” for that field.
Conflict and Security
This field is concerned with the referent objects of security and associated threats; the causes and management of conflict; and the global governance challenges of human, state, societal, national, international, ecospheric, and global security. Courses in this stream examine the theory and practice of security at all levels of analysis.
Global Environment
This field is concerned with the global governance of environmental issues. Courses in this stream examine contemporary dilemmas relating to the ways in which environmental challenges are being addressed and managed by multiple agents through a range of transnational institutions and governance structures, both existing and proposed. Conceptual issues and debates, set within the context of a variety of internationally significant sustainability challenges, are investigated. Multilevel governance of these challenges at the international, regional, national and local levels are examined. Key topics covered include: global climate change, agriculture and food security, international water resource management and environmental aspects of the global economy.
Global Justice and Human Rights
This field is concerned with the study of the relationship between global governance and issues of global justice and human rights. Courses in this stream explore themes such as: the practical and ethical challenges that international human rights and relief organizations encounter when operating in the global south; theoretical approaches to understanding global justice as a contemporary social justice issue, with a particular focus on the cultural constructs relating to conceptions of freedom, obligation, and community; and contemporary debates in the field of human rights, such as those related to cultural relativism and universal human rights, human rights and foreign policy, the place of economic rights, the relationship between gender and human rights, and human rights and retrospective justice.
Global Political Economy
This field is concerned with the governance of the global economy and contemporary issues in international economic relations. Courses in this stream focus on the theoretical and public policy debates relating to governance of the global economy, as well as the evolution of international trade policy. Topics covered include: international finance and intellectual property rights; labour and environmental standards; the control of illicit economic activity; the removal of tariffs on goods and services; and current efforts to integrate services, investment, and intellectual property into the trading regime through the increasing overlap of trade policy with monetary, competition, cultural, environmental and labour policies.
Global Social Governance
This field examines the prospects for the supranational governance of social issues with a particular focus on the political and philosophical underpinnings of transnational social policy cooperation. Topics covered include: the implicit and explicit prescriptions for and impact upon national social policy of intergovernmental organisations (such as the UN and Bretton Woods Institutions), international non-governmental organisations and international private actors (such as TNCs and consultancy companies); the contribution of supranational organisations, international NGOs and other global actors to the global discourse on social policy; the role of private actors and global public-private partnerships in global health policy; the development of systems of transnational social redistribution, social regulation and social provision and empowerment; and the methods and concepts used by development agencies to assess the social policy of countries and shape their interventions.
Multilateral Institutions and Diplomacy
This field is concerned with the formal and informal practices, institutions and organizations which generate global governance. Courses in this stream focus primarily on the theory, practice and machinery of international organization, public policy, and diplomacy. Topics covered include organization theory, multilateral co-operation, foreign policy, diplomatic history, global social and public policy, representation and negotiation.
Course Requirements
All students must complete six courses, including the following four mandatory courses: the global governance core course, an economics component, the history component, and Research Methods. Students are required to maintain an overall average of 80% in the course phase. See full list of courses
Core Course component (must be completed in the first term of registration in the program)
- GGOV 700 Globalization and Global Governance (UW registration) / GV 710 Globalization and Global Governance (Laurier registration)
Economics Component
- GV 730 Economic Analysis and Global Governance (Laurier registration) / Econ 637 Economic Analysis and Global Governance (UW registration)
- or equivalent (students who have higher than second year macro/micro economics are required to take an economics course other than GV 730/Econ 637)
History Component
- HIST 605 Global Governance in Historical Perspective (UW registration) / GV720 The History of Global Governance (Laurier registration)
Research Methods
- GGOV 701 Research Methods (UW registration) / GV 701 Research Methods (Laurier registration)
PhD Program Handbook and Forms
- Graduate Handbook: Joint Laurier-UW Global Governance PhD Program
- Annual Progress Report Form (Laurier)
- Annual Progress Report Form (UW)
- Annual Progress Report and Dissertation Proposal Form (UW)
- Dissertation Proposal Form (UW)
- Petition for Extension Form (UW)
- BSIA Graduate Student Research/Travel Support Application Form
- BSIA Conference Travel Support Application Form
- Laurier Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (FGPS) Travel Award Application
- UW Graduate Studies Research Travel Assistantship Application
