Research by cluster

We study of the use of deadly force in the international system. How do we understand the darker side of human behaviour? Why can we understand the use of violence to achieve policy objectives? How do we understand the effort to prevent and counteract terrorism, genocide, war?

We are political scientists with strengths in the area of Canadian political institutions. We focus on political institutions at all levels of government in Canada (federal, provincial, municipal) with particular strengths in the areas of the Canadian executive, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, federalism and intergovernmental relations, electoral institutions, and institutional change.

We focus on electoral institutions, outcomes, and behaviour, with particular expertise in Canadian federal, provincial, and municipal elections. Current areas of research include gender and electoral behaviour, historical election results and analysis, and comparative elections research.

A focus on environmental problems confronting both the Global North and South. Inspired by notions such as Indigenous relationality to the land, feminist visions of social/global/environmental justice and/or green proposals for sustainability, we examine how political practices like ecological citizenship, stewardship, accountability, and sustainable land management might contribute to the resolution of issues like extractivism, climate change, and the loss of ecological and cultural diversity.

We focus on a diverse set of questions, issues, and approaches on gender and women and politics. Our research crosses most major subfields in political science, including the study of feminism, comparative politics, political theory, political behaviour, indigenous politics, environmental politics, Canadian politics, political parties, and public policy.

We focus on international and comparative political dynamics. What factors lead to human rights violations, how do they change over time, what can be done to prevent them? Violations arise from large-scale processes and crimes, such as genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, with implications for national, regional, and global systems. Efforts within these systems to prevent, limit and punish such violations have given hope to human rights advocates and victims of abuse.

We use a wide range of theoretical, methodological and conceptual approaches to the study of Latin America’s political development. Our substantive interests include: party politics and regime dynamics; descriptive and substantive representation of women and Indigenous peoples; governance and (in)security; social movements; gender, politics, and policy; and Indigenous politics. Our countries of focus include: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.

We focus on law and politics across legal regimes and institutions, jurisdictions, personnel, and issue areas. We examine conceptions of the law, evolution of legal regimes, legal pluralism and the interaction of legal regimes. We study the interplay between courts, political institutions and the public, the role of law in norm generation and internalization, and as a mechanism of change, control, and legitimation in Canada, other democracies, authoritarian and hybrid regimes, and internationally.

What are people thinking? What policies do they support/oppose? Why do some segments of society hold particular views? Public opinion research seeks to understand and explain policy attitudes and political behaviour. Our research spans a broad range of issues, including topics in Canadian politics, comparative politics and international relations.

We explore a range of philosophic or theoretical issues around questions of human flourishing, including community, order, freedom, selfhood, governance, belonging, autonomy, and the good life. These are based on traditions that reside partially or wholly outside of the liberal order. We draw on or work within Indigenous traditions, the European Continental traditions, Critical Theory, Ancient Western traditions, early human political traditions, Feminist and Ecological traditions.