Political Science Graduate Student Association Annual Conference

Based on guidance from the Provincial Health Office, UBC has the following protections in place to minimize the spread of COVID-19:

• Self-monitoring: All students, faculty, staff, and others must complete a self-assessment for COVID-19 symptoms prior to engaging in on-campus, in-person UBC activities.
• Stay home if you are sick: A list of COVID-19 symptoms can be found on the BC Centre for Disease Control and Public Health. If you develop symptoms, please use the Self-Assessment Tool and follow the recommendations provided.

While masking is no longer required by UBC, we highly encourage our guests to wear a mask when they are attending our in-person events.

9:00-9:30 am: Opening Session and Land Acknowledgement

Conference Chair:

• Kael Kropp, UBC

Speakers:

• Dr. Alan Jacobs, Head of Department
• Dr. Arjun Chowdhury, Graduate Director

9:30-10:45 am: Keynote Address

Conference Chair:

• Kael Kropp, UBC

Speaker:

• Dr. Nazmul Sultan, UBC
  • Gandhi and Empire: A Reconsideration

10:45-11:00 am: Break

11:00 am -12:00 pm Panel I: Gaps and Boundaries

Chair:

• Thomas Calvié, UBC

Discussant:

• Joshua Fawcett-Weiner, UBC

Panelists:

• Yongzheng (Parker) Li and Katherine Poole, UBC
  • Balancing Caution and Progress: Addressing the Artificial Intelligence Governance Gap
• Hanne Schäfer, UBC
  • Right-Wing Memory Politics and Anti-Immigration Agendas in Contemporary Germany: The German Volk and its Boundaries

12:00-1:00 pm: Lunch Break

1:00-2:30 pm Panel II: “Chocolate, Aliens, and Football, Oh My!”

Chair:

• Kael Kropp, UBC

Discussant:

• Dr. Lisa Sundstrom, UBC

Panelists:

• Thomas Calvié UBC
  • Beyond FIFA’s Cosmetic Human Rights Agenda: An Analysis of the Federation’s Human Rights Practices
• Philippe Granger UBC
  • When Science Fiction Becomes Reality: Global Political Considerations on Extraterrestrial Discovery
• Katherine Poole UBC
  • From 'Bean to Bar': The Role of Chocolate Manufacturing Companies and Voluntary Sustainability Standards on the Supply Chain of Chocolate

2:30 pm - Closing Remarks

10:45-11:00 am: Opening Session and Land Acknowledgement

Chair:

• Kael Kropp, Conference Chair

11:00 am -12:30 pm:  Panel III: Public Opinion, Perception, and Lobbying

Chair:

• Vaishnavi Panchanadam, UBC

Discussant:

• Dr. Matthew Wright UBC

Panelists:

• Richard Foster, UBC
  • Lobbying for What?: An Experimental Study into U.S. Lobbying Perceptions
• Mo Gasmi, UBC
  • To Satisfice or not to Satisfice: The Effect of Wording on Survey Response
• Michael Lenko, UBC
  • From Perestroika to Putin: Interest Group Influence in Foreign Policy Making in the Russian Federation
• Yongzheng (Parker) Li, UBC
  • Perception of the U.S. in Africa: The Impact of Framing on Public Opinion

12:30-1:30 pm: Lunch Break

1:30-3:00 pm: Panel IV: Contesting Space

Chair:

• Philippe Granger, UBC

Discussant:

• Dr. Bruce Baum, UBC

Panelists:

• Elijah Garber, UBC
  • When the Theoretical Confronted the Practical: Zapatista Territorial Autonomy as Opposition to the Cooperation of State and Capitalism
• Kael Kropp, UBC
  • Beyond the Green: Golf Courses as Social Objects in Settler-Colonial Cities
• Eden Luymes, UBC
  • Redefining the "Public” Park: Bylaws, Tent Cities, and Decolonial Commoning
• Vaishnavi Panchanadam, UBC
  • Cartographic Resistance/Prefigurative World-Building: The Democratic Implications of Indigenous Participatory Mapping

3:00 pm: Closing Remarks

Thomas Calvié is an MA student in the department of Political Science. He holds a Joint Honours B.A in Political Science and International Development Studies from McGill University. Originally from France, Thomas’s field of interest is International Relations but more specifically his work is at the intersection between international human rights and environmental justice. In this sense, he is currently exploring emerging non-state actors in global politics and their role, capacity, and duty in the promotion of international norms. Beyond this, his areas of interest include Latin American politics, international law, transitional justice and quantitative research methods.

Rick is an MA student in the Department of Political Science at UBC. He studied his B.A. in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of York before coming to UBC. He is primarily interested in democratic theory, and in particular, he is currently studying the role which wealth plays within democratic systems. This interest has led him to use his time at UBC to engage with empirical work to develop a deeper understanding of the channels of influence used by socio-economic elites. After completing his thesis, Rick will be starting a D.Phil. in Politics at the University of Oxford to continue his research.

Elijah Garber is an MA student in Political Science at the University of British Columbia. He studies political theory and is interested in theories of power, prefigurative politics, Latin American politics, Latin American political thought, the intersecting theory and practice of social movements, and the political theory of race. Before arriving at UBC, Elijah completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto, where he studied Political Science, History, and Philosophy. He is currently working on his MA thesis.

Mo Gasmi is an MA student in the department of Political Science at the University of British Columbia. Born and raised in Vancouver, he completed his undergraduate degree at UBC. He studies comparative politics and is interested in political institutions and the way they function within authoritarian contexts – specifically, he studies whether deliberative institutions can function as a tool for garnering legitimacy and disseminating information. His research interests extend to formal theoretical models and survey experiments.

Philippe Granger is an MA student, originally from Montréal, Québec. He holds a bachelor's degree in international relations and international law from the Université du Québec à Montréal, where he also obtained a certificate in Indigenous studies. Beyond his studies, Philippe is also a journalist for Radio-Canada, the LGBTQ+ magazine Fugues and the music webzine Sorstu.ca. Torn between art and politics - two fields he often likes to confuse - Philippe dreams to become a writer and was a finalist for the Radio-Canada Short Story Prize in 2021 for his short story Rum & Coke. He is actively involved in lowering the voting age to 16 in Québec and is expected to publish a book on the matter next year.

Kael Kropp is an MA student in Canadian Politics, originally from Edmonton, Alberta. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree with Honors in Political Science from the University of Alberta, where he was the university’s 2021-2022 Killam Fellow (Fulbright Canada). He undertook his Fulbright award at the State University of New York, where his research focused on comparative Canadian-U.S. medical assistance in dying policy. Kael holds a SSHRC Canada Graduate Scholarship to fund his Master's thesis research, which explores the spatial politics of urban golf courses in settler-colonial cities. His research interests intersect urban governance, public administration, and the spatial politics of land development and planning. He is completing his Ph.D. in Political Science at McGill University commencing fall 2023.

Michael is an MA student, focusing on international relations and mixed methods research. He earned his Bachelor of Arts at Simon Fraser University, graduating with an honors degree in Political Science, and holds a minor in international security. His research interests are in Russian foreign policy, separatism in the former Soviet Union, and the use of text analyses methods.

Yongzheng (Parker) Li is a Ph.D. Candidate at the Department of Political Science at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and a current fellow at the Centre for Chinese Research, Institute of Asian Research at UBC. Prior to his graduate studies, Li completed his BSc. in Global China Studies from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Li's research lies at the intersection of comparative politics and international relations, with a regional focus on China and Africa. He follows a mixed-method approach and utilizes survey experiments, panel data analysis, and interviews in his research. Li's dissertation, titled "Three Essays on the Perception of Chinese and American Economic Activities in Africa," examines the influence of individual-level interaction and policy framing on public perception. His research has received different fellowships and scholarships, including the UBC 4-Year Fellowship, Charles CC-Sophia Wong Fellowship, and the President's Academic Excellence Initiative Ph.D. Award at UBC. Apart from his academic pursuits, Li has worked at GLOCAL, a policy think tank based in Ottawa, which strives to empower residents in Canada to become globally aware and locally engaged. Currently, Li is working as the Special Projects Coordinator at the Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies office at UBC.

Eden Luymes is a political science MA student at the University of British Columbia and is passionate about environmental policy and climate justice. She holds undergraduate degrees from the University of British Columbia, with Honours in Political Science with International Relations, and from the Paris Institute of Political Studies (SciencesPo). Her research focuses on climate justice and the influences of neoliberalism and neocolonialism in global climate governance.

Vaishnavi (she/they) is an MA student in political theory from Ottawa, Ontario. She graduated with an honours degree in political science from UBC in May of 2022, and was awarded the political science gold medal, and the Jean Laponce Memorial Prize for best honours thesis upon graduation. Her research interests include the theory and politics of decolonization, borders and migration, and intersectional praxis. Vaishnavi's undergraduate research has appeared in the UBC Journal of Philosophical Inquiries. Vaishnavi's research interests have also led them to pursue non-profit work as a writer and podcast host for Scarlet Udaan – a global youth organization advocating for an intersectional/structural approach to analyzing gender-based violence. Vaishnavi is also a trained classical dancer and continues to train and perform alongside their studies.

Katherine Poole Lehnhoff is an MA student in the Department of Political Science at UBC, where she also completed her BA in International Relations. She is originally from Guatemala. In between her BA and MA, she worked at the European Commission in Luxembourg in the health security unit dealing with COVID related matters. Her areas of interest are varied, including drug trafficking in Latin America, artificial intelligence, international development and more recently, the political economy of chocolate. Her current research interest is the study of the cocoa supply chain, more specifically on voluntary sustainability standards by chocolate manufacturing companies around the world, what is commonly known as “bean to bar.”

Hanne Schäfer studies European politics from different angles and sites. She completed her Honors Bachelor of Arts in European Studies at Maastricht University and is currently an MA student in the UBC Political Science Department. Locating herself in the interspace between political theory and comparative politics, her interests revolve around historical references to contemporary societies, focusing on German and European memory politics. Where do definitions of and national narratives come from? What implications do they have? How do we draw the boundaries of societies? These are the sort of questions she would ask you in a conversation. Looking forward, Hanne is awaiting an employment term at a Vancouver-based immigration law firm and writing her MA thesis on German partisan memory politics and immigration.