GLOBAL GOVERNANCE 642/POLITICAL SCIENCE 639
GLOBAL SOCIAL GOVERNANCE
Winter 2010
General Information
SEMINARS:
Thursday 12:30-3:20
EV1 225
Office: HH 356
Phone: 888-4567 x.32900
Office Hours:
Thursday 9:00-11:30
or by
appointment
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Course Orientation:
Global social governance is the natural complement of global economic governance and global environmental governance.
While global economic governance primarily focuses on the governance of markets and
global environmental governance primarily focuses on the governance of eco-systems, global social
governance primarily focuses on issues relating to people, their families and their communities.
This course examines the prospects for the supranational governance of social issues with a particular focus
on the political and philosophical underpinnings of transnational cooperation in this area.
It examines the role and motivations of states in pursuing global social governance, the obstacles to a
deepening and broadening of transnational cooperation on social issues, as well as the political
dynamics that might give rise to further development in the direction of global social governance.
In doing so, the course provides an overview of developments in the supranational social governance of health, migration, labour, and education.
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DISTRIBUTION OF MARKS
Grading in the course is based on the principle of grading pluralism -- students are offered a wide
variety of assignment options (with some minimum parameters) from which they are expected to choose
how they intend to meet the course requirements. Students are strongly encouraged to carefully consider how
they intend to meet course requirements and to discuss their proposed grading package with the instructor. All students
must act as facilitator/rapporteurs on two occassions (10% of final grade) and the minimum
weight of class participation is 20%. Beyond this required 30%, students may determine from a mix of options
below how they would like to comprise the final 60% of the grade. For students who complete course requirements
totalling more than 100% according the schema below, the final grade will be automatically calculated using the
weighting which produces the highest grade so long as the two mandatory components still comprise a minimum
of 40% of the course grade.
Written Components
Facilitator/Rapporteur Reports[required]
Facilitator -- 5%
Rapporteur -- 5%
Additional Rapporteur Assignments (available upon request on a first come first served basis) -- 5%
Major Research Paper -- 50% (requires instructor consent)
Reaction Papers -- 10% each up to 6 reaction papers (60% of total grade)
Extended Book Review -- 30% each up to 2 (60% of total grade)
Class Participation Component
20%-30% -- Weekly Seminar Participation
This is a graduate level seminar. As such, it will rely heavily on class
discussion within a broad framework provided by the instructor.
Class participation will be graded. These marks are not for
attendance but for contributing to class discussion!! Students
who attend but do not contribute will not be awarded these marks.
Students are expected to demonstrate through their class contributions
that they have completed the assigned readings for the week and have
thought about them. The partipation grading scheme is based on two premises: Marks for participation must be
earned -- starting from zero -- just as with any other assignment,
and, secondly, when you are not in class you
obviously cannot be participating.
There are two basic criteria on which class participation
will be assessed (and which will be given relatively equal weight):
-quality of contribution -- whether students demonstrate that
they have done the required readings and are familiar with them (e.g.
more than just a passing acquaintance) and whether students demonstrate that
they have thought about the readings (each week the session facilitator for that week will
provide questions for the following week to facilitate with this), and,
-regularity of contributions to
the and the degree to which students are willing and
frequent contributors.
Grades will be posted regularly on ACE.
IT AIN'T ROCKET SCIENCE... (Tips to Success in GGOV 642)
1.) COME TO CLASS.
- Each class represents roughly 10%
of the entire course. Missing classes will make it extremely
difficult for you to keep up with the material as well as decrease your
participation mark. Missing classes will make it harder for you
to participate in subsequent classes as well as increase the challenges
you'll face in doing the reaction papers.
2.) DO THE READINGS FOR EACH CLASS BEFORE
THAT CLASS (i.e. take participation seriously.)
- This is a must if you want to get
good participation grades. Discussions will make much more sense to
you (and you will be able to participate) if you have done the assigned
reading which is intended to provide background for the seminars.
Do not try to piggyback on the reaction papers presented at the start of class
rather than doing the readings yourself!
3.) CHOOSE YOUR STRATEGY FOR COMPLETING
THE COURSE REQUIREMENTS CAREFULLY.
- The grading scheme for the course
is specifically designed to allow students considerable latitude to
tailor course requirements to their own strengths. Carefully choose
a strategy that takes advantage of your particular strengths as a student.
Do not have an unwanted marking scheme forced on you by default by
not paying attention to how the total package will add up. Do
not rely on your participation marks unless you are prepared to do the
preparation for each class required to get good participation marks!!!
4.) START DOING THE RESEARCH PAPER EARLY!
- If you elected to do the research paper, completing it
will require you to do some serious thinking and research.
Don't expect that you will be able to do a good job of this if you try
to do the assignment the week before the assignment is due. Give
yourself enough time to think things through. The quality of the
feedback you will receive from the instructor on your
research paper proposal will depend heavily on the quality of the
proposal itself -- the more effort you put into the proposal, the
better the feedback you can expect to receive.