The Political Science Department at UVic is exceptionally strong in Contemporary Political Theory and the history of political thought. There are four senior theorists who teach our theory curriculum regularly: Arthur Kroker, Canada Research Chair in Culture, Technology and Theory, editor of CTheory and CTheory Multimedia, former editor of the Canadian Journal of Social and Political Theory, founding Director of the new Pacific Centre for Technology and Culture and a leading futurist with an interest in a wide range of issues related to the ethics and politics of information technology and biotechnology; Warren Magnusson, one of the few political theorists with an abiding interest in local government and a leading Canadian analyst of the urban and the local as political phenomena; James Tully, one of the four Trudeau Foundation Fellows, a leading historian of seventeenth and eighteenth century political thought, a former advisor to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, and a world-renowned political philosopher; R.B.J. (Rob) Walker, long-time editor of Alternatives: Global, Local, Political and one of the world's best known critical theorists of international relations and world politics.

Among the other faculty in the Department, Avigail Eisenberg has expertise in theories of political pluralism, social diversity, minority rights, and other issues related to contemporary constitutionalism and A. Claire Cutler has emerged as a major theorist of the international system through her studies of private international law. Other faculty members, like Oliver Schmidtke and adjunct Radhika Desai have made significant theoretical contributions to the understanding of contemporary political movements of the right and left, and Matt James has been working on a range of important theoretical issues related to recognition, redistribution, and reparations. Colin Bennett's work on surveillance also intersects with some of the themes in contemporary political theory, as well as with the research interests of the new Pacific Centre for Technology and Culture. In fact, there is a strong theoretical dimension to the work of all the faculty in UVic's Political Science Department. Magnusson and Walker were responsible for developing UVic's theory program in the '80s and '90s, and took the lead in establishing the interdisciplinary MA program in Contemporary Social and Political Thought (now called Cultural Social and Political Thought).

Outside the Department per se are figures like Jeremy Webber, Canada Research Chair in Law and Society and a leading constitutional theorist, R. Michael M'Gonigle, Eco-Research Chair in Law and Public Policy and an innovative theorist of ecological governance and constitutionalism, and Gerald (Taiaiake) Alfred, Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Studies and Canada's leading indigenous theorist of politics and government. Among the Department's Adjunct Professors are Reg Whitaker, a leading theorist of Canadian democracy, and Jeremy Rayner, an historian of political thought and philosopher of social science. There are two excellent political philosophers in the Department of Philosophy (Colin Macleod and Cynthia Holder) and an innovative political theorist (Karena Shaw) in the School of Environmental Studies. In addition, there is the larger network of the Interdisciplinary Program in Cultural, Social and Political Thought (CSPT) which assures students access to professorial support for many forms of theoretical investigation.

Students concentrating in this area will be required to take the candidacy examination in Political Theory for which the required seminar is POLI 609. Possible secondary examinations may be taken in International Relations, Comparative Politics, Indigenous Governance and CSPT.

The Political Science Department has great strength in the area of Transnational issues, International Political Economy, International Relations, Global Studies and Regional Integration (Europe and Asia in particular). The Department has developed courses and research that lie at the intersection of national and transnational politics. Research and teaching has moved beyond the traditional state-boundaries, whilst still realizing the crucial role of the nation-state. Expertise in the Department focuses on international political economy in its various guises: law, politics, state-market relations, international organizations and regional integration. Various internationally well-known academics form the core of our specialists in this field: Claire Cutler works in the intersection of International Law and International Relations and focuses on the role of law in the global political economy, critical globalization studies, and private, non-state authority in international relations; Oliver Schmidtke, Jean Monnet Chair in European History and Politics, specializes in international migration, and transnational citizenship issues; Amy Verdun, Jean Monnet Chair in European Integration Studies focuses on various dimensions of European integration and comparative political economy; Michael Webb specialises in international political economy, international taxation issues, North-South relations, and Canadian foreign policy; RBJ (Rob) Walker writes about the political theory of global politics and security; Scott Watson focuses on international security and has a particular interest in transnational migration issues; Guoguang Wu, CAPI China chair, works on East Asian politics and regional international relations; and, Feng Xu researches issues in gender, identity, migration, (post)colonialism and discourses of modernity, with particular focus on China and East Asia.

In addition, Colin Bennett a scholar of comparative public policy has examined the global politics of information and communications technologies and the implications for civil liberties and state sovereignty; Warren Magnusson works on issues related to the global city and transnational urban politics; Michelle Bonner specializes in human rights issues in Latin America; James Tully examines several global issues (democracy, participation, constitutionalisation) from a theoretical perspective; and Jeremy Wilson continues to work on issues of international environmental and national resource policy. The Department of Political Science is also currently recruiting one new junior faculty member in East Asian politics, and we are involved in the search for a Chair in Chinese Politics, jointly with the Centre for Asian-Pacific Initiatives (CAPI) and the Department of History. Besides these scholars most other faculty members in the Department have research projects that in one way or another touch on global issues.

This area also intersects with many of the research programs currently pursued under the umbrella of the Center for Global Studies, whose Director, Dr Gordon Smith (former Canadian Ambassador to the European Union) specializes in foreign and defence policies, and is an Adjunct Professor within the Department. The mission of CFGS is to "advance understanding and action on major global issues by civil society, the private sector, governments, and international institutions." Through its diverse research and international development activities, the Centre tries to promote collaborative policy solutions to the human and environmental challenges posed by globalization. It is hoped that members of the CFGS can serve on supervisory committees of Ph.D students, who in turn may be involved in some of their ongoing projects. Political Science faculty members also participate in the Program on Dispute resolution.

The Department also hosts the UVic European Studies Program, which is an interdisciplinary program that focuses on European Integration in the widest sense of the word. Oliver Schmidtke is its Director. The program draws on the Social Sciences, Humanities, and Fine Arts, and collaborates with the three professional schools (Business, Law, and Public Administration). It has taken off in recent years as an independent program but is still housed in the Political Science Department and contributes importantly to the Department's Undergraduate and MA Programs.

Students concentrating in this area will be required to take the candidacy examinations in either International Relations (for which the required field seminar will be POLI 640), or Comparative Politics (required seminar POLI 608). Most students are likely to take both. Some will choose to combine with Political Theory or CSPT.

Democratic Constitutionalism is a third field of specialization in which the Political Science department is especially well placed to offer a rigorous and unique program of study for doctoral students. Within that field, Avigail Eisenberg writes on minorities in political theory and in Canadian constitutional law and politics. She is also one of the three organizers of "The Victoria Colloquium on Political, Social and Legal Theory". The colloquium is an interdisciplinary project of the Faculty of Law and Departments of Political Science and Philosophy. It is a focal point for the intellectual activity of faculty and graduate students working on democratic constitutionalism at UVIC. Dennis Pilon is an international expert on democratic reform and electoral systems, covering both Canadian and comparative perspectives. Matt James brings to the Department an expertise in social movements and moreover one that is specifically focused on the role that social movements have historically played in Canadian constitutional politics. His recent scholarship focuses on the related topic of citizenship and reparation movements in Canada. James Tully is, internationally, a leading expert on Canadian constitutionalism and multi-nationalism. His books Strange Multiplicity: Politics in the Age of Diversity and (co-editor) Multinational Democracies are required reading in most graduate seminars on constitutional relations.

In relation to Europe, Oliver Schmidtke and Amy Verdun both focus on the political and legal relations between European states in a manner that clearly implicates questions of constitutionalism. Claire Cutler's expertise in international law has strong connections to the subject area as does Warren Magnusson's work on local self-government. Among our adjunct faculty, Peter Meekison and Reg Whitaker are particularly valuable resources for students working in the field.

Outside of the Department, the expertise in democratic constitutionalism is similarly impressive. Jeremy Webber, a Canada Research Fellow in the Faculty of Law, and Colin Macleod, who is cross-appointed to Philosophy and Law (and an adjunct in Political Science), focus, in both their teaching and research, on questions directly related to constitutional theory and Canadian constitutionalism. They are the two other organizers of the Victoria Colloquium. Other major figures in this field include, in the Faculty of Law, R. Michael M'Gonigle and John Borrows; in the Indigenous Governance program, Taiaike Alfred and Jeff Corntassel, both of whom are political scientists; and in Philosophy, Cindy Holder, who works on self-determination and like the other faculty mentioned above, is engaged in questions that are directly relevant to democratic constitutionalism.

The Political Science Department can provide significant support to students within and outside the Department who wish to do work on various aspects of democratic constitutionalism, including work that focuses on national, international, or more local understandings of the subject matter. The relevant research cuts across the boundaries of all four main fields of political science and involves other disciplines as well, especially law and philosophy.

Students concentrating in this area will typically take candidacy examinations in Political Theory (POLI 609) and Canadian Politics (POLI 616). There may be some interested in comparative questions in which case, the candidacy exam in Comparative Politics (Poli 608) might be chosen.

Comparative Public Policy and Governance is a subject that encompasses much work in the Department of Political Science, the School of Public Administration, and other elements in the Faculty of Human and Social Development. Outside the Department of Political Science, Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly, James McDavid, John Langford and Evert Lindquist of the School of Public Administration, together with Michael Prince and Katherine Teghtsoonian of the Program in Policy and Practice, form a strong cadre of political-science-trained public policy specialists. Within the Department of Political Science, Colin Bennett, Amy Verdun, Michael Webb, Jamie Lawson, and Jeremy Wilson are also policy specialists, as is Cosmo Howard (cross-listed wit the School of Public Administration). Adjunct faculty like David Flaherty, Jeremy Rayner and Gordon Smith, add to the Department's policy studies capacity.

These faculty members can support advanced research in many different policy sectors: taxation policy, environmental policy, social policy, information and communications policy, immigration policy, urban policy and others. We would hope, therefore, to attract students interested in researching the dynamics of policy development and implementation, and in explaining differences and similarities in policy outputs and outcomes in comparative and international contexts. These students might be generally interested in the ways in which the forces of "globalization" affect the ways in which national and local governments respond to common policy challenges. Their research might be comparative in a cross-national sense, it might be comparative of jurisdictions within Canada, or it might be comparative of local jurisdictions across national boundaries.

The collaborative relationship between the School of Public Administration (SPA) and the Department of Political Science is the key to effective graduate programming in this field. The School has the responsibility for professional training in the field of public administration, but it also supports advanced research in the field. Working collaboratively, the School and the Department can support both professionally-oriented and academically-oriented research students. The Department's particular contribution is to bring strong theoretical and comparative perspectives to bear on the work at hand. This cooperation will of course be strengthened if we could secure a joint appointment of a junior faculty member between the School and the Department (see below).

Students concentrating in this field will be expected to take a two-course seminar sequence. The first is offered by the Political Science Department entitled Comparative Public Policy and Governance (POLI 607); this course reviews the conceptual and theoretical literature on policy development and implementation in comparative perspective. A second course is offered by the School of Public Administration Theories of Public Management (ADMN 604). Both courses are cross-listed and co-developed with faculty from both units. In addition, some political science students might be required to take one or two courses on methodology, offered by the School. Some SPA students might also take other policy-related seminars in the Department. There is plenty of opportunity to pool our resources and to offer a mutually supportive doctoral training in this field.

Candidacy examinations will be developed jointly by Faculty within the Department and the School, based on the reading lists in the two required courses. A natural complement to a candidacy examination in comparative public policy and governance would be one in Canadian Politics, but international relations and political theory are also possibilities.

The Cultural, Social and Political Thought (formerly Contemporary Social and Political Thought) (CSPT) Interdisciplinary MA Program is one of the leading interdisciplinary MA programs in this area in Canada. Since 1989 it has been graduating MA students in cooperation with Political Science, Sociology, and, more recently, English and History. Two Political Science faculty members and former Chairs, Warren Magnusson and R.B.J. Walker, were involved in its foundation, and James Tully and Arthur Kroker (CSPT Program Director effective July 1^st, 2008) are more recent members from Political Science. It retains very strong connections with Political Science and the majority of its MA students enter through Political Science. The Political Science and CSPT graduate partnership is one of the most exciting features of the current graduate program, attracting many of our best students, and sending them on to the leading PhD programs in North America and the United Kingdom. In addition, CSPT faculty members now include leading theorists in the main participating departments. Theorists from other units have also been attracted to the program and this is likely to be a continuing trend. Non-Political Science CSPT faculty currently include William Carroll, Aaron Devor, Steve Garlick, Sean Hier, Martha McMahon, and Peyman Vahabzadeh (Sociology), Luke Carson, Evelyn Cobley, Stephen Ross, Nicole Shukin, and Cheryl Suzack, (English), Greg Blue and Elizabeth Vibert (History), Emile Fromet de Rosnay (French), Karena Shaw (Environmental Studies), and Michael Asch (Anthropology). Over fourteen years Political Science and CSPT have worked out an effective set of co-requirements for graduate students at the MA level. We will build on, and continue to refine this basic model at the PhD level.

A student who wishes to take CSPT as one of her or his two fields will apply to do so through the Department and will also have to be approved by the CSPT Admissions Committee. In practice it is anticipated that students will take roughly half their required courses in interdisciplinary CSPT studies, though the precise proportion will depend on the mix of disciplinary and interdisciplinary offerings in any given year, and, where appropriate, the recommendation of the CSPT Director. CSPT will set the candidacy exam in this field and the CSPT Planning Committee has been charged with shaping a broad understanding of what this will look like while keeping in mind that the field also seeks to respond to emerging interdisciplinary interests in other departments. At least one member of the student's supervisory committee will be a CSPT faculty member who is also a member of Political Science. Students might combine a candidacy examination in CSPT with any one of the four exams offered by the Department, but it is anticipated that the most likely combinations will be with Political Theory or with International Relations.

In addition to this connection between Political Science and CSPT on the Supervisory Committee, several of the CSPT faculty have the experience of supervising By Special Arrangement and Interdisciplinary PhD students, and thus the knowledge and experience to construct a consistent and compatible set of requirements. It will be a demanding option but it will educate PhD students for the task of teaching and researching the pressing contemporary cultural political problems that increasingly require an interdisciplinary approach for their understanding and resolution.

Detailed information is available here.