MAGG COURSES
The list of courses below contains information about required courses, and recommended elective courses. Subject to approval by the Program Director, students may take global governance-related courses offered by other graduate programs at UW and Laurier.
Required Courses
Global Governance Core
GGOV 600 (UW) Global Governance and Globalization
This course provides an overview of current scholarly debates relating to the interdisciplinary study of global governance in the context of globalization. It examines competing perspectives on globalization and global governance, and explores the sources and consequences of global power and authority, as well as the key actors, institutions, regimes, and norms of global governance. This course is open only to students in the MA program in Global Governance. | Fall 2026
History Requirements
To fulfill the program’s History requirement, students must take one of the following courses, or a comparable graduate level History course.
GGOV 605 Global Governance in Historical Perspective
This course examines the various ways global actors have identified and tried to solve global problems in the twentieth century. We will study the interactions between international organizations, state actors, non-governmental organizations, and informal interest groups as they have confronted global issues such as war, immigration, international trade, human rights, and environmental and health crises. | Fall 2026
HIST 660 Transnational and Global History: Old Problems and New Directions
This course examines transnational and global historical processes, focusing on temporal and geographic scales of analysis outside of traditional national histories, and promotes linking the local and the global. It looks at global forces influencing particular societies and encourages students to place themselves outside conventional local, regional, and national boundaries, and will critically consider a number of the metanarratives that have informed and continue to inform historiography, particularly idea such as modernity, progress, and the ongoing preoccupation with the 'rise of the west'. Given these questions, and the almost endless scope of a course that purports to take the world as its focal point, weekly seminars will begin with a discussion of the possibilities offered by as well as the limits to transnational/global/world history, the various interpretative frameworks in use and their proponents as well as the challenges that transnational/global/world history poses. We will then focus on particular case studies or themes so as to promote discussion that is as much historiographical as it is historical. Such themes/case studies may include: feminism and imperialism, famine and climate change, disease and ecology, military technology and governmentally, global trade and the rise of consumer society(s), colonial knowledge and shifting ideas of race. | Winter 2027
Economics/Political Economy Requirements
To fulfill the program’s Economics/Political Economy requirement, students must take one of the following courses, or a comparable graduate-level Political Economy/Economics course.
GGOV 610 Governance of Global Economy
A survey of the theoretical and public policy debates relating to regulation of the global economy, examined through case studies ranging from international banking an intellectual property rights, to labour and environmental standards and the control of illicit economic activity. | Fall 2026
IP622 Power and Policy in the Global Economy
This course covers the politics of international economic relations. It focuses on the ways in which power, interests, institutions and ideas shape policy-making in the global political economy, and on the various kinds of actors that take part in the process. Topics covered include trade, regional integration, money and finance, foreign direct investment, development aid, natural resources and energy, agriculture, and the illicit/criminal side of the global economy. | Winter 2027
Field Courses
Conflict and Security
GGOV 635 Cities and Security
An examination of the urban aspects of security, surveillance, war and terrorism. Particular attention will be given to the contemporary embrace of resilience as a rationality of urban security. Additional themes include the militarization of policing, the role of 'big data' in the intensification of urban surveillance, and the relationship between security and urban environments. | Fall 2026
GV 733 Security Ontology
This seminar explores current issues and trends in conflict and security (both traditional and non-traditional) and in the study of global and regional governance to prevent or manage conflict and enhance security. Students will have the opportunity to familiarize themselves with a variety of metatheoretical approaches to the subject. For Global Governance programs, the seminar will serve as the core course for the Conflict & Security stream. | Fall 2026
IP 632 The Politics of Human Security
This course explores the ethical, analytical, and policymaking challenges associated with the two dimensions of human security: "freedom from fear" and "freedom from want". The former refers to policies and activities developed to assist people in conflicts or under threat of violence, such as humanitarian intervention and the creation of international regimes to alleviate harm. The second dimension focuses on the social, political, and economic conditions that lead to or arise from both humanitarian emergencies and longer-term inequalities. | Winter 2027
Global Environmental Governance
GGOV 620 Global Environmental Governance
This course examines the ways in which environmental challenges are being addressed by means of 'global governance' - that is, international organizations and institutions intended to deal with these environmental challenges. Concepts are investigated both to help analyze the relative strengths and weaknesses of existing structures and to suggest ways in which alternative forms of global governance might advance sustainability. Specific organizations and other actors presently active in global environmental governance are given particular attention, as is the management of selected global environmental challenges. | Fall 2026
IP 612 Earth Governance: The Politics of Environmental Policy
This course delves into key issues and policy debates in global environmental governance and law, examining the roles of different actors, paradigms and mechanisms within a broader setting characterized by unequal political and economic power. In addition to exploring cross-cutting questions about the evolving shape of international law and earth governance, the course will probe the interaction between policy directions and human-environment relationships in the context of specific issue areas like water, forests, fisheries and biodiversity. | Winter 2027
Global Justice and Human Rights
GGOV 640 Human Rights in a Globalized World
The course is a study of international and local responses to human rights abuses in the contexts of economic globalization and proliferation of armed violence. It examines major debates on international human rights. It also deals with specific human rights situations in the developing/transitional countries. Topics include: universalism and cultural relativism, global economic justice, rights to food and health, women's and children's rights, the rights of displaced civilians, human rights and R2P, prospects for transitional justice. | Fall 2026
Global Social Governance
GGOV 674 The Politics of Inequity
This course studies the relationship between politics and socioeconomic inequality from a wide range of perspectives, such as inequality relating to income and debt, ethnicity, sex, consumers and producers, and regions. | Winter 2027
IP642 The Social Politics of Migration
The course examines the politics of migration ranging from international migration governance regimes to immigration and integration policy at national levels. Attention is given to mechanisms of migration governance, and levers for political change and for enhancing rights and social protection. Some course themes may include: citizenship, pluralism and governing diversity; social cohesion and public attitudes to immigration; politics of migrant rights and transnational social movements; securitization and enforcement; and policy responses to contemporary migration and population crises. | Winter 2027
Multilateral Institutions and Diplomacy
GV 734 International Organizations
This course serves as a survey of the international relations (IR) subfield of international organizations (IO) but focuses principally on formal, inter-governmental organizations (IGOs). We examine the growing literature on international organizations and discuss their impact on global governance, considering their formation, design, relevance, impact and agency. We apply this knowledge to the study of several highly institutionalized issue areas. | Fall 2026
GGOV 660 Public International Law
This survey course will provide students with a systematic introduction to the international legal system. Topics to be covered include: the origins and nature of the international legal system; the formation, sources and application of international law; the law of treaties; international legal personality; the institutional framework of international law; the relationship between international law and national law; the relationship between states and territory; the law of the sea; state jurisdiction; jurisdictional immunities of states; state responsibility; and a selection of substantive international legal topics including, as time permits, international trade, international investment, the use of force by states, and/or international humanitarian law. | Winter 2027
