Core courses

This course introduces students to reading, interpreting, and communicating data relevant to issues in peace, conflict and justice. Students will develop concrete skills such as understanding data sources in conflict and justice, exploring applications of data, and methods of data collection. They will reflect on how social constructs can be operationalized into variables that can be employed for qualitative and quantitative analysis in research and policy, and learn how to use visualizations and descriptive statistics to support arguments and research. Through this course, students will develop a set of essential skills to work on real-world questions related to issues in peace, conflict and justice, while engaging with existing data and their applied research findings to understand their policy relevance. Students must be enrolled in either the PCJ Major or PCJ Specialist program to take this course.

Professor Nina Rathbun

The course reviews theories exploring the causes of conflict, the possibilities for the pursuit of peace, and the role of justice in both. Drawing on a wide range of disciplines and perspectives, it offers an introduction to diverse approaches to conflict resolution and peace-building. Case studies and examples are used to help students apply the conceptual tools they acquire to prominent world conflicts. Students must be enrolled in either the PCJ Major or PCJ Specialist program to take this course.

Professor Isabela Dos Santos

The objective of this course is to give students a theoretical and practical introduction to justice, equity and diversity issues in advancing educational access and outcomes around the world. This course introduces students to issues and challenges in education reform efforts and policy in a global context. In this course, students will have a chance to discuss and analyze various topics with a particular focus on justice, equity, and diversity in the context of learning environments, such as classrooms, schools, colleges, and communities. The students will have a unique opportunity to deepen their understanding of challenges associated with policy development and implementation by participating in small group activity.

Professor Rie Kijima

This course explores how the internet and digital technology affect politics, as well as how politics affect the internet. In this course, students will explore different ways in which the internet affects the relationship between states. The course will focus on a variety of topics, such as the creation of new governance structures to regulate the internet, the usage of the internet for malicious purposes, and how the internet is used to coerce adversaries. Furthermore, the course will explore the changing markets and the challenges faced by governments, businesses, and the labor market. This course explores how states, corporations, and users compete to gain control of technology platforms such as Facebook, Google, and Wikipedia, which play a pivotal role in shaping the global public sphere.

Professor Sverrir Steinsson

This course provides students an opportunity to learn by providing valuable services to local, national, or international organizations. This model of experiential learning is called organization partner experiences, in which students work in teams on a project that is of relevance to the partner organization. The overarching theme in this course is inclusion through access to public services. Access to public services such as education, health, and public provision of services is one of the most important ways in which disadvantaged populations experience upward socioeconomic mobility. Students will gain insights about inequality of access to public service, conduct critical analysis of current issues, and produce deliverables to understand issues of socio-economic inequality in societies around the world.

Professors Moussa Blimpo and Kimberley Tavares

This course examines the role of institutions that respond to crime and violence. We study the role of institutional actors centering on criminal justice: we focus in particular on criminal justice institutions, but also community organizations, government agencies, international organizations, journalists, and others–in identifying, naming, and acting upon crime and violence. We also study the strategies these institutions adopt in responding to crime, violence, and insecurity, along with evidence about how they do so and outcomes of their interventions. Finally, we attend to the relationship between criminal justice and other social outcomes, including health and well-being, collective memory, skepticism, social movements, and civic participation. Throughout the course we rely on a wide range of materials, so that in most weeks students will engage with a combination of perspectives, including social science research, legal materials, testimonies, official documents, and journalistic accounts.

Professor Ron Levi

The course examines the complex links between violent conflict and socio-economic development. Students will explore the macro- and micro-level processes that lead to conflict and how political violence impacts individuals and communities, particularly in terms of education, health, and labor outcomes. The course will also delve into how these micro-level effects relate to broader political, social, and economic issues, including governance and institutional development. To investigate these topics, the course will integrate theoretical frameworks and empirical data, utilizing both country-specific and cross-country evidence to critically analyze the origins of conflict and its far-reaching consequences.

Professor Paola Salardi

It's no secret that populism is resurgent in many parts of the global West, or that this revival often features unabashed demagogues trumpeting a politics of exclusion. But what do these terms mean, precisely, and what cultures and histories inform them? This class will examine the figure of the demagogue and the ideology of populism, in the context of U.S. America. We'll consider how appeals to ‘the people’ mobilize rage and resentment, dig into populism's progressive Black roots and interrogate the techniques which pit the 'average American' against putatively corrupt institutions and privileged elites. Along the way, we'll read a range historical and contemporary populist texts, from Alexander Hamilton's letters railing against demagoguery, to Occupy Wall Street's aspirational post-capitalist tweets, to the National Rifle Association's TV show 'Armed and Fabulous' and contemporary country music's 'pickup truck' populism.

Professor Alexandra Rahr

This course focuses attention on questions of justice in the established liberal democracies of North America. We will pay particular attention to state democratic and legal institutional structures. This class will examine the way state institutions can be seen as sites of both violence and oppression, as well as essential avenues for securing justice. We will explore the virtues and limits of existing democratic structures, and explore the possibility of alternatives. We will also examine several contemporary political movements and conflicts. These may include The Movement for Black Lives, gender activism, Gaza protests, campus free speech, and reactionary right-wing movements, among others. We will use these examples as a way of examining the role state institutions play in either helping to secure justice, or function as a limit on the possibilities for justice. The class will be divided into three main sections. First, we will explore justice and state democratic institutions. This will ground our study in an understanding of the function of legal and democratic institutions, and how we can evaluate them according to political theories of justice. Second, we will examine examples of recent contentious political conflicts and movements and pay special attention to the role state institutions play. Finally, we will consider some big ideas about how to change our democratic and legal institutions in a way that might better address contemporary political conflicts.

Professor Victor Bruzzone

This course guides each student through their own individual research project, embedded in an interactive group learning process, to offer an applied introduction to research methods for peace, conflict and justice studies. Students work through the research in the field of peace, conflict and justice studies, such as: identifying a research question, learning how to write a critical literature review, developing a rigorous research design, and applying quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods to answering research inquires. The final deliverable is a draft of a research proposal or an empirical research-based paper.

Professor Laura García-Montoya

This course introduces students to the theories, concepts, histories, and actors that are fundamental to the field of peace, conflict, and justice. Students will discuss meanings, causes, obstacles, and sustainability of peace and justice through the discussion of historical and contemporary cases from around the world. Stemming from the interdisciplinary aspect of the field, students will learn a wide range of theoretical, empirical, and policy-oriented perspectives on thematic topics such as protection and violation of human rights, social and economic inequalities, and causes of violence and oppression. This course is intended for first year PCJ students and it serves as a gateway for all other courses offered in the PCJ program. This course is a requirement for PCJ majors and specialists.

This course introduces students to key research methods employed in the study of peace, conflict and justice. It considers both qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods research frameworks prominent in PCJ research drawn from a range of disciplines and approaches. Some methods explored in this course might include: descriptive analysis, correlational studies, bivariate or multivariate regression models, surveys, interviews, focus groups, and country case studies. The class teaches students how to read, understand and critique these frameworks and the scholarship they influence/produce. Concepts of internal and external validity, inductive and deductive reasoning, and ethics in research will also be covered. This course is a requirement for PCJ majors and specialists.

Students are given a service learning placement in the GTA in partnership with local, national, or international not-for-profits or governmental organizations. Students work in teams of 2-7 students, and help partner organizations solve important problems. Student teams mostly work independently of the organization, while receiving some mentoring, critique, and advice from the organizations. Students are expected to invest 5-7 hours per week in course projects, in addition to class time. In this non-competitive course, students are asked to engage in deep personal reflection, help teammates, advise other teams, and contribute their skills and talents to their community partners. The course will emphasize how groups work to achieve community goals, how grassroots politics works, the power of social capital, and how these topics link to questions of conflict resolution, brokering peace, and achieving justice. Required for PCJ Majors and Specialists.

This course guides each student through their own individual research project, embedded in an interactive group learning process, to offer an applied introduction to research methods for peace, conflict and justice studies. Students work through the research in the field of peace, conflict and justice studies, such as: identifying a research question, learning how to write a critical literature review, developing a rigorous research design, and applying quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods to answering research inquires. The final deliverable is a draft of a research proposal or an empirical research-based paper. This course is a requirement for PCJ Specialists and open to PCJ Majors with approval from the Director.

Topics vary annually. The objective of the course is to explore emerging issues in Peace and Conflict Studies. The focus of the course will be on a specific topic, rather than a broad survey of the field. Students can take PCJ460H1 in lieu of PCH444H1.

This course explores selected issues in the field of Peace, Conflict and Justice. Topics may vary from year to year. Through a suite of recent readings, students will strive to critically examine implications and challenges of, and solutions to the issues being studied. Please visit the Trudeau Centre for Peace, Conflict and Justice website for current offering information. Students can take PCJ444H1 in lieu of PCH460H1.

The goal of this course is to introduce students to data literacy and applications in the topics of peace, conflict, and justice. The course is broadly divided into two parts. The first part will introduce data in the context of peace, conflict, and justice studies and outline the research process. Students will learn advanced quantitative research designs and will work with fundamental descriptive statistics tools. Students will work with different datasets, learn how to summarize data for different types of variables through graphs and tables, and explore measures of association between variables. In the second part of the course, students will work on data projects related to peace, conflict, and justice. Students will also design their own research relevant in PCJ. This course is a requirement for PCJ Specialists.

This course explores selected issues in the field of Peace, Conflict ands Justice. Topics may vary from year to year. Through a suite of recent readings, students will strive to critically examine implications and challenges of, and solutions to the issues being studied. Please visit the Trudeau Centre for Peace, Conflict and Justice website for current offering information.