RSVP: Politics to Watch 2024
POLITICS TO WATCH 2024
Location: The Performance Theatre in the AMS Nest
Date: Saturday, January 27, 2024
Time: 6-8:30 PM PST
If you have a request for accommodation or any questions, please contact poli.communications@ubc.ca.
Another Universalism: Seyla Benhabib and the Future of Critical Theory
Edited by Professor Anna Jurkevics with Stefan Eich, Nishin Nathwani, and Nica Siegel
Seyla Benhabib’s ongoing work has expanded the range and scope of critical theory beyond its origins to address questions of gender, migration, and difference. This book brings together an ensemble of leading theorists and younger voices to explore new dimensions of Benhabib’s thought across critical theory, feminism, and democratic theory, foregrounding the intricate relationship between critique and universality.
Another Universalism provides both a wide-ranging and comprehensive engagement with Benhabib’s path-breaking interventions and a panoramic tour of the cutting edge of critical theory today. Contributors take part in key debates about the field’s past and future, tackling subjects such as the relationship between democracy and cosmopolitanism, the role of law in emancipatory struggles, human domination of nature, the deprovincialization of critical theory concerning questions of race and empire, as well as Hannah Arendt’s continuing significance. Covering a wide range of debates and themes, Another Universalism is united by a core question: How can universal norms of human freedom, equality, and dignity be reconciled with particular contexts, especially ones of exclusion, difference, and adversity? Searching for universalisms that emerge from the concrete struggles of emancipatory movements, this book points toward an expansive, inclusive, and radical democratic vision.
December 2023 Polity: Message from the Head
December 6, 2023
Dear Alumni,
UBC Political Science Head Alan Jacobs
My very best to you for the holiday season!
It has been an exciting year for the department’s alumni engagement efforts. We have made it a priority to forge stronger connections to our alumni through a series of events designed to bring faculty, current students, and our graduates together more frequently and for more direct discussion of political events at home and abroad.
As part of these efforts, we have added two exciting new events to our alumni calendar this year.
In January we launched a new annual event called “Politics to Watch,” which brought current faculty and alumni together in small round-table discussions of pressing local, national, and international issues. Come and join us for Politics to Watch 2024 on January 27 to learn and talk about the challenges likely to shape the next year!
We also launched our new “In Conversation With” series in November, designed to engage guest speakers – prominent local experts and political figures – with our alumni in an informal interview and Q&A setting on issues of the day.
Of course, we held our annual Homecoming Weekend Political Science and International Relations Alumni Mixer and Dinner in September, with over 90 alumni in attendance. We also hosted our popular Mark Zacher Lecture featuring Professor Kathryn E. Stoner of Stanford. Be sure to sign up for our 2024 Mark Zacher Lecture in February 2024, featuring Professor Oona Hathaway of Yale!
We are looking forward to building on these four annual events to offer a regular schedule of engaging and informative community experiences for the alumni of the Political Science Department and International Relations Program. Watch for the launch of our new alumni LinkedIn page this summer, and for more events and opportunities to stay connected with each other. I look forward to seeing you at our events over the coming year!
Best,
Alan Jacobs
Professor and Head, Department of Political Science
Integrated Inferences: Causal Models for Qualitative and Mixed-Method Research
by Professor Alan M. Jacobs with Macartan Humphreys
There is a growing consensus in the social sciences on the virtues of research strategies that combine quantitative with qualitative tools of inference. Integrated Inferences develops a framework for using causal models and Bayesian updating for qualitative and mixed-methods research. By making, updating, and querying causal models, researchers are able to integrate information from different data sources while connecting theory and empirics in a far more systematic and transparent manner than standard qualitative and quantitative approaches allow.
This book provides an introduction to fundamental principles of causal inference and Bayesian updating and shows how these tools can be used to implement and justify inferences using within-case (process tracing) evidence, correlational patterns across many cases, or a mix of the two. The authors also demonstrate how causal models can guide research design, informing choices about which cases, observations, and mixes of methods will be most useful for addressing any given question.