Not all courses described in the Course and Program Catalogue are offered each year. For a list of course offerings in 2024-2025, please consult the class search website.
The following conventions are used for course numbering:
- 010-099 represent non-degree level courses
- 100-699 represent undergraduate degree level courses
- 700-999 represent graduate degree level courses
Course search
14 Results
POLS 403.3: Advanced Topics in Public Law and Public Policy
Students will be introduced to theories of law, politics and justice in modern Canadian society. In addition to examining judicial decision-making, the course will also question how law influences administrative actors with regards to such policy fields as labour, immigration, health, multiculturalism, the environment and Indigenous rights.
Weekly hours:
3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 54 credit units at the university level, including 18 credit units POLS and/or IS.
POLS 404.3: Canadian Federalism and Intergovernmental Relations
An examination of Canadian federalism that deals with enduring and contemporary issues such as the constitutional division of powers, intergovernmental relations, fiscal federalism, the federal spending power, regionalism, the role of Quebec in the federal system, and constitutional change.
Weekly hours:
3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 54 credit units at the university level, including 18 credit units POLS and/or IS.
POLS 405.3: Canadian Elections and Political Parties
Elections and political parties are crucial components of Canadian democracy. This course explores the ideology and organization of Canadian political parties as well as how these parties interact with the media and the role they play in our parliamentary institutions. The course will also examine various aspects of Canadian elections such as vote choice, political marketing, party financing, campaign strategy, social media, and electoral regulations.
Weekly hours:
3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 54 credit units at the university level, including 18 credit units POLS and/or IS.
POLS 410.3: The Politics of Security
Examines the ‘critical turn’ in the study of global security by tracing the shift away from a state-centred militaristic conception of security towards a more expansive and deepened conception of security that involves issues spanning economic, social, political and environmental spheres.
Weekly hours:
3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 54 credit units at the university level, including 18 credit units in POLS and/or IS
POLS 422.3: Indigenous Governance and Self Determined Sustainable Development
Examines Indigenous governance strategies in Canada, with particular attention to First Nations in Saskatchewan. Attention is devoted to cultural, economic, and political development among Indigenous peoples that is self-determined and sustainable. It is designed to provide students with an academic basis for analyzing existing governance development strategies among Indigenous nations.
Weekly hours:
3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): POLS 222; or 54 credit units at the university level, including 18 credit units POLS and/or IS.
POLS 431.3: Contemporary Political Theory
An advanced seminar covering a selected topic at the forefront of debates in contemporary political theory. Possible topics include, social justice, political authority and obligation, and human rights.
Weekly hours:
3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 54 credit units at the university level, including 18 credit units POLS and/or IS.
POLS 446.3: Democracy in Africa
An assessment of the prospects for multi-party democracy in Africa. Special attention is given to issues of re-democratization since 1989 and to the setbacks which have resulted from military interventions or from autocratic rulers manipulating their instruments of power to block a successful political transition.
Weekly hours:
3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 54 credit units at the university level, including 18 credit units POLS and/or IS.
POLS 460.3: Ethics and Global Politics
An examination of the ideas and debates, such as cosmopolitanism, that inform international ethical thought, followed by consideration of contemporary international political issues about which difficult ethical choices have been made or about which there is ethical controversy, including international intervention, gender rights protections, reintegration of child soldiers, and participation in slum and volunteer tourism amongst others.
Weekly hours:
3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 54 credit units at the university level, including 18 credit units POLS and/or IS.
POLS 461.3: Topics in Global Politics
Designed as a selected topics seminar in international relations. Each offering will focus on one of the subfields- including Canadian Foreign Policy Processes, Ethical Issues in International Relations, International Development, International Terrorism, International Political Economy, International Trade and Globalization. The undergraduate students will investigate the methodology and applications of the theory and evidence related to that subfield.
Weekly hours:
3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 54 credit units at the university level, including 18 credit units POLS and/or IS.
Note: Students may take this course more than once for credit, provided the topic covered in each offering differs substantially. Students must consult the Department to ensure that the topics covered are different. Students may not receive credit for both POLS 461 and POLS 867.
POLS 463.3: Politics and the International Criminal Court
This course provides an introduction to the International Criminal Court (ICC), a treaty based international organization that prosecutes individuals suspected of committing "the gravest crimes of concern to the international community", and explores the international politics and domestic considerations that affect and are affected by the existence and operations of the ICC in the wake of mass human rights violations.
Weekly hours:
3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 54 credit units at the university level, including 18 credit units in POLS courses.
Note: Students who took this topic as POLS 461.3 may not take POLS 463.3 for credit.
POLS 465.3: Nationalism
Designed to introduce the senior undergraduate student to the phenomenon of nationalism as a historical and modern political force, this course focuses on the theoretical and political aspects of nationalism, highlighting its origins, evolution, contradictions, and implications for both the nation-state and the international system.
Weekly hours:
3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 54 credit units at the university level, including 18 credit units POLS and/or IS.
POLS 471.3: Global Governance in a Contested World
An examination of the impact of globalization on groups such as labour, women, and the poor. As well the course looks at the effects of particular transnational processes to which globalization has contributed, such as environmental degradation, refugee flows and the spread of ethnic conflicts.
Weekly hours:
3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 54 credit units at the university level, including 18 credit units POLS and/or IS.
POLS 498.3: Special Topics
Offered occasionally by visiting faculty and in other special situations to cover, in depth, topics that are not thoroughly covered in regularly offered courses.
Weekly hours:
3 Seminar/Discussion hours
POLS 499.6: Special Topics
Offered occasionally by visiting faculty and in other special situations to cover, in depth, topics that are not thoroughly covered in regularly offered courses.
Weekly hours:
3 Seminar/Discussion hours