The Political Economies of Fossil Fuel Phase Out
2026-03-16 12:00 - 13:30 (America/Toronto) | Room 1-42, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 6C2, Canada
How can the world wean itself off climate changing fossil fuels? This is among the greatest and most difficult challenges the world currently faces. Peter Newell shares some emerging findings from a research project exploring the political economy of supply-side policies which seek to leave fossil fuels in the ground through bans, moratoria, restrictions on finance and the like. He will discuss national and global attempts to advance these policies and where we might go next in advancing this critical agenda.
About the Speaker
Peter Newell is Professor of International Relations at the University of Sussex, sustainability theme lead at the Sussex School for Progressive Futures and co-founder of the Rapid Transition Alliance. He has previously worked at the universities of Oxford, Warwick, East Anglia in the UK and FLACSO Argentina. His research focuses on the global political economy of energy transitions, especially with regard to the phase out of fossil fuels which is the focus on an ERC/UKRI grant. His most recent books include Power Shift: The Global Political Economy of the Energy Transition, Changing Our Ways: Behaviour Change and the Climate Crisis, Global Green Politics and States of Transition: From Governing the Environment to Transforming Society. In 2025 he was awarded the BISA prize for his distinguished contribution to the discipline of International Relations.
Discussant
Angela Carter is the Canada Research Chair in Equitable Energy Governance and Public Policy and Professor in the Department of Political Science at Memorial University. She focuses her research on climate and energy politics in Canada and on international supply side climate policy. Carter is a settler researcher from Newfoundland / Ktaqmkuk, the ancestral homeland of the Beothuk and Mi’kmaq.

Responsible Military AI: Holding Back the Tide?
2026-03-18 12:00 - 13:30 | Hybrid – Zoom and room 142, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 6C2, Canada
The governance of artificial intelligence (AI) is a hot topic these days, and nowhere is the importance and urgency of managing the rapid development of AI, and its downside risks, more evident than in the field of military technology. From nightmare scenarios involving ‘killer robots’ to the real-world transformation of battlefield spaces by AI-assisted drones in Ukraine, advances in military AI are accelerating at a moment when the institutions of global governance that might be expected to place guardrails around their unrestrained use are themselves under increasingly strain. In the context of ongoing multilateral discussions around how military AI should be governed, and whether it can be, this workshop brings together a distinguished panel of experts to take stock of current developments in the military AI field, assess both the prospects for and obstacles to meaningful ‘governance’ in this area, and reflect on current practice as it is evolving in Ukraine and elsewhere.
About the Panelists
Alexander Blanchard is a Senior Researcher in the Governance of Artificial Intelligence Programme at SIPRI. His work focuses on issues related to the development, use and control of military applications of artificial intelligence (AI). His current work focuses on the control of autonomy in weapon systems as well as organizational practices for the governance of AI. Before joining SIPRI, Alexander was the Dstl Digital Ethics Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute in London. Alexander was also previously Assistant Lecturer in Science and Technology Studies at the University of Copenhagen.
Branka Marijan leads the research on the military and security implications of emerging technologies. Her work examines ethical concerns regarding the development of autonomous weapons systems and the impact of artificial intelligence and robotics on security provision and trends in warfare. She holds a PhD from the Balsillie School of International Affairs with a specialization in conflict and security. She has conducted research on post-conflict societies and published academic articles and reports on the impacts of conflict on civilians and diverse issues of security governance, including security sector reform.
Elke Schwarz holds a PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), an MA in Conflict Studies from the War Studies Department at King’s College London (KCL) and a Bachelor in Business Studies from Belmont University (USA). Prior to coming to QMUL, she held academic positions at UCL, Anglia Ruskin University and Leicester University. Her work focuses on the nexus of ethics, technology and politics / warfare with a specific emphasis on new and emerging military technologies, including military Artificial Intelligence (AI), autonomous weapon systems, drones and robots.

2026 Prospective Student Open House
2026-03-20 12:00 - 14:00 | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
By Invitation Only
The Balsillie School welcomes prospective students to meet virtually with the School’s Director, Program Directors and Officers, current students and graduates to learn about all the unique opportunities on offer at the School.
AGENDA
12:00 pm – Welcome and introductions, Ann Fitz-Gerald, Director, Balsillie School of International Affairs
12:10 pm – Research Clusters and experiential learning opportunities, Ann Fitz-Gerald, Director, Balsillie School of International Affairs
12:20 pm – Graduates Fellows Program, Andrew Thompson, Global Governance Programs and Partnership Manager
12:45 pm – MAGG, MDP, and MIPP breakout sessions
1:55 pm – Closing remarks
The link to attend the virtual open house will be sent to all registrants on March 19th.

Bringing a Rule book to a Bulldozer Fight: Why Canada Must Stop Playing for Applause and Start Playing to Win
2026-03-24 11:00 - 12:00 | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
On the morning of February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel launched Operation Epic Fury—a coordinated military assault on Iran targeting its nuclear programme, military infrastructure, and senior leadership, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. By the end of the weekend, Iran’s supreme leader was dead, the Strait of Hormuz was effectively shut, oil prices were surging, and retaliatory Iranian missiles had struck targets across six Gulf states.
Barely two months earlier, the same administration had launched Operation Absolute Resolve against Venezuela—capturing President Maduro in what was characterized as a “law enforcement action” that deployed overwhelming military force. Two sovereign states subjected to military operations in eight weeks. One justified as policing, the other as pre-emption. Both accompanied by explicit demands for regime change and resource control.
Canadians need to understand that the country wielding cruise missiles in Tehran on Saturday morning is the same country wielding tariff weapons against Ottawa on Monday morning. The toolbox is the same. Only the instruments change.
This is the geostrategic environment in which Canada must now negotiate the future of its most critical economic relationship. The July 2026 CUSMA review approaches against a backdrop not of rules-based order but of interest-based power.4 And Canada—still clutching its moral rulebook, still preaching to the congregation at Davos, still holding consultations when it should be deploying countermeasures—is bringing a rulebook to a bulldozer fight.
About the Speaker
Barry Appleton, FCIArb, is one of North America’s leading legal architects of sovereign economic policy, trade law, and investment treaty arbitration. As Managing Partner of Appleton & Associates International Lawyers LP in Toronto and Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Center for International Law at New York Law School, he advises governments and strategic sectors on how to navigate and shape the evolving legal terrain of international commerce, digital sovereignty, and geopolitical risk.

Child’s Play: Making Social Meaning in Kids’ Zones and War Zones
2026-03-25 12:00 - 13:30 | Hybrid – Zoom and room 142, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 6C2, Canada
What should we make of a warplane as a playground feature or war museums hosting children’s birthday parties? Intuitively, we might expect that weapons of war would be difficult to reconcile with the dominant social imaginary of childhood as a time of innocence and with the usual view of children as cherished objects of protection. And yet, the repurposing of war matériel for play, the billing of military performances as child-friendly leisure activities, and other mundane encounters with militarized material and performative cultures are recurrent in the lives of children far from zones of conflict – instances of what a growing community of scholarship in International Relations and adjacent specialties investigates as the militarization of childhood. Building from this work, I reverse the analytical standpoint, inquiring into the ‘childing’ of militarism: a meaning-making process through which the encoded social meaning of childhood contributes to normalizing and naturalizing war and militarism. Beginning from the puzzle of an M113 armoured personnel carrier, seemingly out of place as an object of children’s leisure, the article develops conceptual insights into childing as a key modality in the governance of social worlds in which martial practices and our present global political rendition more broadly are intelligible.
About the Speaker
J. Marshall Beier is Professor of Political Science at McMaster University. His research considers issues of children’s rights and political subjecthood, visual and affective economies of children in abject circumstances, and imagined childhood as a technology of governance. His publications include Children, Childhoods, and Global Politics, ed. with Helen Berents (Bristol University Press, 2023); Childhoods in Peace and Conflict, ed. with Jana Tabak (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021); and, Discovering Childhood in International Relations, ed. (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). His work has appeared in journals including Childhood, Children’s Geographies, Civil Wars, Contemporary Security Policy, Cooperation and Conflict, Critical Military Studies, Critical Studies on Security, Global Governance, Global Responsibility to Protect, International Political Sociology, International Politics, International Studies Review, Journal of Human Rights, Security Dialogue, and Third World Quarterly.

On Existential Politics: Why Global Climate Institutions are Failing and How to Fix Them
2026-03-26 12:00 - 13:30 | Hybrid – Zoom and room 142, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 6C2, Canada
Join us for a conversation on climate governance, political power, and the institutional transformations required for an energy transition.

In Existential Politics: Why Global Climate Institutions Are Failing and How to Fix Them, Jessica F. Green argues that the shortcomings of global climate governance are not surprising—but stem from a fundamental misdiagnosis of the problem itself. For three decades, governments have focused on managing emissions through measurement, reporting, carbon pricing, offsets, and net-zero commitments. This technical approach, she contends, treats climate change as a problem of “managing tons,” while overlooking the deeper political conflicts embedded in the transition away from fossil fuels. Green reframes climate change as an existential political struggle over asset revaluation. Decarbonization creates winners and losers: fossil asset owners stand to lose trillions and are therefore incentivized to slow the transition, while green asset owners remain comparatively weak. The book proposes rethinking the role of international tax, finance, and trade institutions to build the political power necessary for meaningful decarbonization.
About the Speaker
Jessica F. Green is a political scientist working at the intersection of politics, policy and law. Her research focuses on global governance, the politics of decarbonization, carbon pricing, and non-state actors. Her research examines how non-state actors – including firms and NGOs – and institutions outside the multilateral system can solve global environmental problems. Her recent work examines why the Paris Agreement is failing, and how reforming international trade and finance institutions presents a more promising avenue for meaningful progress on decarbonization.
She holds a PhD from Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs, an MPA from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, and a BA in Public Policy from Brown University. Currently, she is a Professor of Political Science, with appointments at the School of Environment and the Munk School.
Her work has been published in a variety of journals including Nature, Nature Climate Change, Global Environmental Politics, International Organization and International Studies Quarterly, among others.

How the Light Gets in: Breaking Through the Shadows of an Orwellian World
2026-03-31 19:00 - 20:00 | CIGI Auditorium, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 6C2, Canada
The Honourable Bob Rae brings over five decades of leadership at the highest levels of international diplomacy, national politics, and public policy. As Canada’s former Ambassador to the United Nations, Premier of Ontario, and interim Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, he offers audiences rare insight into navigating complex global challenges, building consensus across divides, and leading through transformation. His keynotes draw on firsthand experience with humanitarian crises, negotiations with world leaders, and critical issues — delivered with the wisdom of a statesman and the accessibility of a natural storyteller.
Rae served as the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Canada to the United Nations in New York from 2020 to 2025, joining the likes of Lester Pearson and George Davidson as Canadians elected in their personal capacity to preside over UN Charter bodies. During his tenure, Rae became the President of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) for 2024-25, the second Canadian to assume the role, and also chaired the Advisory Committee on Haiti and led discussions on financing for development, children in armed conflict, and counterterrorism.
Prior to his diplomatic service, Rae served as Premier of Ontario from 1990-1995 and interim Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada from 2011 to 2013. He was elected to federal and provincial parliaments 11 times between 1978 and 2013 and has been honoured by the alumni of both bodies for his distinguished service. His return to Parliament representing Toronto Centre in 2008 led to his appointment as Foreign Affairs spokesman and ultimately to his role as interim Leader.
Rae also served as Canada’s Special Envoy to Myanmar in 2017, where he engaged in diplomatic efforts to address the crisis in Rakhine State and authored the influential report “Tell Them We’re Human”. In March 2020, he was named Canada’s Special Envoy on Humanitarian and Refugee Issues by Prime Minister Trudeau, leading to his report “A Global Pandemic Requires a Global Response.” He also served as Chief Negotiator for the nine First Nations of the Matawa Tribal Council in Northern Ontario from 2013 to 2018 and was appointed to the Security and Intelligence Review Committee by Prime Minister Chrétien.
Rae has practiced law with three distinguished firms and led high-profile assignments including the restructuring of the Canadian Red Cross and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. He chaired the board of the Royal Conservatory of Music and authored “Lessons to be Learned” on the Air India bombing and “Ontario a Leader in Learning,” a comprehensive study of the Ontario higher education system.
Between 1996-99 and 2013-2020, Rae taught law, politics, and public policy at the University of Toronto, serving as the Wilson Professor of Public Policy at Victoria University from 2016 to 2020. He is a Fellow of the Forum of Federations (an organization he co-founded in the 1990s), Massey College, and the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights.
Rae is a Rhodes Scholar with an M.Phil in Politics from Balliol College, Oxford University, and a law degree from the University of Toronto. He is a Privy Councillor, a Companion of the Order of Canada, and a member of the Order of Ontario. Rae is also the author of five books: From Protest to Power: Reflections on a Life in Politics, The Three Questions, Exporting Democracy, Canada in the Balance, and What’s Happened to Politics.

Resilient Social Networks and Mobility Strategies among Migrants in Cape Town
2026-04-08 12:00 - 13:30 | Virtual, Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, Canada
Built on the “mobility turn,” Tamuka Chekero’s book, Resilient Social Networks and Mobility Strategies among Migrants in Cape Town, examines how African migrants navigate precarity through dense, diverse social networks that extend beyond state-imposed classifications of nationality or legal status. He argues that labels such as Zimbabwean migrant, Congolese migrant, Nigerian migrant obscure the richness of relationships migrants cultivate to sustain livelihoods, negotiate belonging, and respond to structural exclusion in Cape Town’s postcolonial urban landscape. Drawing on ethnographic research, he traces migrant mobility across neighbourhoods, workplaces, transport routes, and convivial spaces, showing how social networks function as tools of survival and strategic (in)visibility. His analysis is augmented by African concepts, including hushamwari (friendship) and kuhanyisana (helping each other to live), which illuminate mutual support, solidarity, and cooperative action within migrant communities. He combines these with ubuntu, conviviality, incompleteness, and nimble-footedness to theorise everyday strategies of resilience, gendered mobilities, and crisis adaptation, such as during the COVID-19 pandemic. His work contributes by reconceptualising migrant agency beyond nationality, integrating Southern African epistemologies into migration studies, and offering evidence for policy approaches that prioritise inclusion over enforcement. By centring migrant sociality, he shows how mobility, resilience, and urban belonging are co-constructed and sustained across Cape Town’s complex social and spatial landscapes.
About the Speaker
Tamuka Chekero is an anthropologist and policy researcher who studies migration, governance, and social change in African cities. His work challenges the use of nationality as the primary lens for understanding migrants, showing how this colonial framing obscures the density, diversity, and resilience of networks that migrants cultivate to survive. His work focuses on how mobility, grassroots entrepreneurship, and social relations shape inclusive governance and everyday life. Tamuka’s research is informed by ethnographic methods and enriched by African concepts and practices such as hushamwari and kuhanyisana, which illuminate the ways migrants support one another and navigate complex urban environments. He is currently a Consultant at the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation and a Research Associate at the Gordon Institute of Business Science (University of Pretoria), conducting interdisciplinary research that bridges lived experience and policy analysis. He holds a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Cape Town. He has held research positions with the World Bank Group as an Africa Research Fellow in Washington, DC, and with regional initiatives across Southern Africa. Tamuka has published extensively in academic journals and authored a monograph on migrant social networks in Cape Town.

PhD Dissertation Defence: "Higher Education Sustainability Governance: The Bidirectional Flow of Ideas, Influence, and Power in University Sustainability Efforts"
2026-04-13 10:00 - 13:00 | Hybrid – Zoom and room 123, 67 Erb Street West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 6C2, Canada
Brandon Dickson‘s dissertation defence.
Given our present sustainability crisis, there is a need for actors across levels to become actively involved in sustainability action if meaningful changes are to be made. Past work has noted that universities recognize their important societal role as sustainability actors and research has also begun to emerge which investigates the role and impact of universities in sustainability. While the literature is evolving in this area, research on the role of universities and the international organizations which govern them in the broader context of global sustainability governance remains a relatively unexplored area of study.
As such, this dissertation explores the two-way exchange of global sustainability governance agendas between international groups and universities. It asks: Across various levels of governance, how and why do universities engage with global sustainability agendas and regimes and what are the implications for universities’ priorities and actions in sustainability?
This dissertation adopts a multiple manuscript approach which includes three empirical articles, each of which answers a piece of the above question. Both individually and taken together, these chapters make a substantial contribution to the field of higher education sustainability governance. The first manuscript combines a thematic policy analysis with executive interviews to investigate the sustainability priorities and drivers of these priorities in universities across Canada. The second manuscript offers a quantitative evaluation of the submission patterns of 1,960 universities to the largest global higher education ranking organization, the Times Higher Education Impact ranking. The third combines a discourse analysis of sustainability reports and surveys to investigate discursive transfer between universities and the largest global university sustainability rating program the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education’s (AASHE) Sustainability Tracking Assessment and Rating System (STARS). Together the findings from these manuscripts point to two major contributions to the higher education sustainability governance literature: 1) International organizations and directives have an impact on universities’ sustainability action through soft governance; and 2) Global higher education sustainability governance is not solely determined by one organization, and priority areas and action in sustainability are not just top down, but also reflect universities’ input, interpretation and responses to the global sustainability regime complex.
This dissertation provides important context to the way that global governance is carried out in the higher education sustainability regime and also explores the unique two-way and contested flow of norms and rules between actors and the global sustainability regime. This work will be of interest to scholars of global governance, higher education and sustainability, as well as practitioners and policy makers in the higher education and sustainability spaces.
Supervisor: Dr. Dan Gorman
Internal: Dr. Ian Rowlands and Dr. Jennifer Clapp
Internal/External: Dr. Dan Henstra
External: Dr. Steven Bernstein, University of Toronto
If you are interested in attending virtually, please email events@balsillieschool.ca. Please note that virtual spaces are limited. Confirmation will be sent to selected attendees prior to the defence date.
