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M.A. Program

Interdisciplinary Focus

The MA Program in Global Governance at the University of Waterloo goes beyond the rigidities and formalities of established academic boundaries by drawing on a variety of disciplines, including economics, politics, history, and environmental studies.

It is the only MA Program in Canada with a specific interdisciplinary focus on issues and problems of Global Governance.


Key themes in the program include:

  • Global Political Economy
  • Global Environment
  • Conflict and Security
  • Global Justice and Human Rights
  • Multilateral Institutions and Diplomacy

Global Political Economy

This field is concerned with the governance of the global economy and the relationship between politics and economics in world affairs. Courses in this stream focus on the theoretical and public policy debates relating to the evolution of the world economy, the relationship between states and markets, and contemporary international economic relations. Topics covered include: global trade in goods and services; foreign direct investment and multinational corporations; international financial and monetary affairs; world development, poverty and inequality; global food and agriculture; shifting power in global economic governance; and governing the illicit global economy.  

Global Environment

This field is concerned with the global governance of environmental issues. Courses in this stream examine contemporary dilemmas relating to the ways in which environmental challenges are being addressed and managed by multiple agents through a range of transnational institutions and governance structures, both existing and proposed.  Conceptual issues and debates, set within the context of a variety of internationally significant sustainability challenges, are investigated.  Multilevel governance of these challenges at the international, regional, national and local levels are examined.  Key topics covered include:  global climate change, agriculture and food security, international water resource management and environmental aspects of the global economy.

Conflict and Security

This field is concerned with the referent objects of security and associated threats; the causes and management of conflict; and the global governance challenges of human, state, societal, national, international, ecospheric, and global security. Courses in this stream examine the theory and practice of security at all levels of analysis.

Global Justice and Human Rights

This field is concerned with the study of the relationship between global governance and issues of global justice and human rights. Courses in this stream explore themes such as: the practical and ethical challenges that international human rights and relief organizations encounter when operating in the global south; theoretical approaches to understanding global justice as a contemporary social justice issue, with a particular focus on the cultural constructs relating to conceptions of freedom, obligation, and community; and contemporary debates in the field of human rights, such as those related to cultural relativism and universal human rights, human rights and foreign policy, the place of economic rights, the relationship between gender and human rights, and human rights and retrospective justice.

Multilateral Institutions and Diplomacy

This field is concerned with the formal and informal practices, institutions and organizations which generate global governance. Courses in this stream focus primarily on the theory, practice and machinery of international organization, public policy, and diplomacy. Topics covered include organization theory, multilateral co-operation, foreign policy, diplomatic history, global social and public policy, representation and negotiation.


Research Linkages

The City of Waterloo is home to the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), an emerging world leader in the study of international governance. A number of the faculty members associated with the MA Program in Global Governance are also affiliated with CIGI and students enrolled in the program can benefit enormously from the proximity to and university collaboration with CIGI.


Program of Study

The MA Program in Global Governance is designed to be completed in 4 terms. During the first two terms, students normally take six courses. Students will then spend their third term as an intern working on global governance issues in the public or private sector, at a research institute, or for a non-governmental organization. After the completion of the internship, students will concentrate during their fourth term on the completion of a Major Research Paper (MRP). The MRP provides students an opportunity to pursue a specific research topic of their choosing relating to the study of global governance.

Links to related graduate programs at the University of Waterloo: Political Science, Economics, History, Faculty of Environment

Visit the University of Waterloo-Wilfrid Laurier Joint PhD in Global Governance website.

Page last updated by A. Wettig on 08-Jul-2009