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Understanding Expectations: International Graduate Students’ Perspectives of an Internationalized Curriculum in Canadian Universities
Get PDFPolicing the Perils of Online Dating: Harassment, Scams, Dark Patterns, Monopoly, and Perverse Incentives
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DIPL 6715/2125 Sierra Leone Seminar: Exploring Post-War Reconstruction and Development
Get PDFThe course will explore the theory and practice of rebuilding institutions to strengthen societies that have undergone conflict and assess strengths and shortcomings of varied interventions with a focus on Sierra Leone. Our study tour explores how over twenty years since a brutal civil war, Sierra Leone has become a model for successful post-war recovery and development using liberal peacebuilding approaches. We will interrogate the role of international actors in rebuilding and supporting institutions of postconflict governance including security and justice sector reform, the education sector, the media, and civil society. At the same time, the course will raise questions around these externally driven approaches, as we also examine the role of domestic actors in navigating 21st-century challenges, including contested elections in 2023, increasing ethno-regional polarization, pandemic disease (the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak and more recently, Covid-19), and efforts to promote economic development.
During the study tour, we will hear from State and non-State actors including members of parliament, government ministers, diplomats, prominent international and national non-governmental organization personnel and leading local civil society activists among others, about the work they are doing in promoting democracy and development. Students will also meet with and exchange ideas with their peers as they attend development and diplomacy classes at Fourah Bay College, the first western-style university in sub-Saharan Africa. In addition. through excursions. students will deepen their understanding of Sierra Leone culture. This includes visiting Banana Island, a former slave outpost, traveling into rural communities to experience community-driven development efforts as well as opportunities to visit Sierra Leone\u27s famed beaches and learn about the impact of climate change in maritime communities.
Course discussion and reading material cover topics like gender equity, decolonization, democratization and development, among other topics. There will also be a service learning component: students will work with a local civil society organization (CSO) and co-create an intervention with the organization. supporting them in an identified need as part of course assignments. We will focus on gender in particular, given that this is one area in which Sierra Leone has made considerable progress. We will assess the various steps taken to understand how the various initiatives are yielding fruit in the country.
Through our travel in Sierra Leone, we examine the integral role that institutions in Sierra Leone play in ensuring the day-to-day stability of a post-conflict society, with an aim to understanding not only how a contentious past impacts how post-conflict societies function but also to look into various social practices and initiatives of counteracting the negative effects of conflict through justice, economic development, good governance and education.
This is a three-credit hour course. We will have five meetings before the trip to discuss the readings and logistical arrangements. In our first meeting, we will focus on mutual introductions. You will be expected to explore the syllabus, the Canvas online platform and course requirements. You are also expected to purchase/access your books and to begin reading in preparation for our subsequent discussions. During our subsequent meetings, students will present on chapters from our main text. Final logistical preparations will be discussed at our fifth meeting
DIPL 6310 Research Methods for International Policy
Get PDFThis course has two major objectives: (1) to help students develop the ability to understand and critique research and policy reports relevant to international issues, and (2) to enable students develop competency to initiate, design, and conduct empirical scientific research relevant to international issues. To this end, the course deals with (a) substantive problem development, (b) research question and hypothesis formulation, (c) concept/variable definition and operationalization/measurement, (d) data collection and analysis techniques, and (e) result interpretation. Ethical issues in empirical research endeavors dealing with human subjects will also be discussed briefly.
Empirical research may be broadly divided into quantitative and qualitative methods. The former, perhaps some consider as more scientific, deals with statistical comparisons of the characteristics of the cases that are being studied, while the latter is based on the researcher\u27s informed understanding of the characteristics of the cases. The choice of whether to apply the quantitative or qualitative approach depends on the research question(s) asked and on the nature of the data available. Be it as it may, this course will interrogate the similarities and differences between the two, and the conditions under which a researcher may choose one over the other. Also, as part of the requirements for the quantitative part of the course, computerized data analysis techniques using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) will be briefly introduced.
It is hoped that this survey of the most important concepts and principles of empirical scientific research will lay a strong foundation for a more in-depth research endeavor in your DIPL 6311. An important component of this course is, therefore, the development of a well-grounded research proposal
DIPL 6005 WB Public International Law
Get PDFThis course explores the history and nature of international law and how international law and courts address selected issues currently challenging the global community. The course will focus on the creation and implementation of international law; global governance; relations between and among states; and relations between states and non-state actors, including individuals and international organizations.
The course introduces and examines the traditional sources of international law and the actors of international law through history and today. Students will be encouraged to examine issues where new international law and policy is being made in response to global challenges -- sustainable development, refugees and migration, access to scarce water resources, individual international criminal responsibility. Students will read cases and materials and engage in online class discussions of how rules developed and are observed between and among states and through courts and international organizations like the United Nations. A look at the evolution of laws of war and humanitarian law governing international armed conflicts will prepare students to consider the applicability of historical norms and rules to current crises worldwide and the use of new technological forms of warfare. The last part of the course considers how international law claims are addressed in national and in international courts and tribunals, examining specific cases at the International Court of Justice, arbitrations and national court decisions based on international law
