GLOBAL GOVERNANCE 642/POLITICAL SCIENCE 639
GLOBAL SOCIAL GOVERNANCE

Winter 2010



 

Dr. Gerry Boychuk

 
 

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. 2.) DO THE READINGS FOR EACH CLASS BEFORE THAT CLASS (i.e. take participation seriously.) 3.) CHOOSE YOUR STRATEGY FOR COMPLETING THE COURSE REQUIREMENTS CAREFULLY. 4.) START DOING THE RESEARCH PAPER EARLY!