Democracy and Foreign Policy in an Era of Uncertainty: Canada Among Nations 2022
by Professor Max Cameron
In an era of significant geopolitical shifts, unrelenting violent confrontation, nationalism and identity politics, the institutions in which Canada and its allies have invested significant capital such as trade, political, and security organisations are being tested and stretched to the limit.
This edition will look back on Canada’s approach to encouraging democracy abroad, it will consider ways to enhance middle power democracy statecraft in an era of growing international and domestic insecurity, backsliding and populism, and discern patterns and recurring themes in Canadian support for rights and democracy, as well as efforts to grapple with novel trends like digital threats to democracy.
2023 Undergraduate Welcome Event RSVP
EVENT DETAILS
Thursday, September 21, 2023
5PM – 7PM PDT
The Place of Many Trees @ The Liu Institute (6476 NW Marine Drive)
UBC Political Science Faculty Conversation Series
Over the month of March, UBC POLI will be hosting lunches in which small groups of students will be invited to join faculty members in discussion on a topic of shared interest. Each lunch will be an informal opportunity for students and faculty to share opinions, questions, and ideas. This isn’t a formal seminar. It’s a casual conversation (with a free lunch) in which students and faculty can get to know, and learn from, one another.
You can see the events in this series at the links below:
John Wood
Dr. John Wood, a long-standing colleague and friend to many in the UBC community died on November 23, 2022. John was a member of the Department of Political Science for 35 years, teaching and researching in the field of Comparative Politics, with specific interest and experience in the politics of India and South Asia.
UBC Political Science offers our condolences to John’s family, son John, and daughters Kate and Hilary, his sisters, and beloved grandchildren.
Biography
Dr. John Wood
JOHN R. WOOD (Ph..D Columbia) taught for thirty-five years in the field of Comparative Non-Western Government, with primary focus on the politics of India and South Asia. As an area specialist his research interests have been multidisciplinary and his theoretical approaches eclectic. His published work on India has included studies of state politics and federalism; extra-parliamentary struggles; nationalism, ethnic conflict and separatism; party recruitment strategies, the reservation problem; and environmental and human rights issues. He has also published articles on Canada-India relations and on the politics of the Indo-Canadian community. In 1996 he chaired a seminar on the India-Canada relationship for Indian external affairs officials, Prime Minister Jean Chretien, nine Premiers and Team Canada members in New Delhi. He is currently Honorary Professor in the Institute of Asian Research at UBC.
He chaired the $1 m. fundraising campaign and was the founding Director of the Centre for India and South Asian Research, one of the area components of the Institute of Asian Research. At the national level he was a member of the executive of the Canadian Asian Studies Association (South Asia Council) from 1992 to 2004 and its President during 2002-2004. For over three decades he has been associated with the work of the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute, which promotes academic exchange between India and Canada.. He served three times as Resident Director of SICI in New Delhi (1973-75, 1989-90 and 2004-06) and was President of its Board of Directors during 1994-1996.
In 2008 he became an Honorary Professor in the Institute of Asian Research at UBC and Project Leader in India of a collaborative multi-institutional research project on Community Natural Resource Management. The project, funded by a Millennial Development Goals grant from the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute, studied the impact on poverty of new community institutions at the village level designed to manage water, forests and fishing in 30 villages of Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh states.
Awards Ceremony 2022
Political Science PhD and MA graduates and Undergraduate Award Winners are invited to a small celebration with faculty members in the Buchanan Penthouse on May 26, 2022 at 3 pm.
Mark Zacher
Mark Zacher was a professor for almost 40 years in the Political Science Department at UBC, 20 years of which he served as the Director of the Institute, International Relations. During this time, Mark made significant contributions to the scholarship of international affairs, however, it was through interactions with his colleagues and students that he made his most meaningful impact. Mark loved fraternizing with his colleagues and above all mentoring (and fraternizing) with his students. He took no greater pride than in the personal and professional successes of his students and it is a testament that many became amongst his closest friends (and often to their chagrin, co-authors). Following his retirement, many of Mark’s friends, colleagues and former students established and endowed a program – the UBC Mark Zacher Distinguished Speaker Series that invites a top International Relations Scholar to UBC – to honour his contribution to the teaching, understanding and scholarship of international affairs. Mark Zacher died October 25, 2014.
Michael Wallace
Michael Wallace was a professor in the Department of Political Science from 1968 until his retirement in 2008. He taught and researched in the subfield of International Relations and was a leading expert on nuclear war and weapons. He was a lifelong advocate for nuclear disarmament. Mike died on March 21, 2011.