Syllabus 

This course offers a close look at the varying forms of misinformation (i.e., wrong information) like fake news, with a special attention given to conspiracy theories (as we will see, there are subtle differences and not all conspiracy theories or rumours, for example, are misinformation). It explores why people accept, hold, and communicate falsehoods, unsupported beliefs, rumours, fake news or conspiracy theories, by examining the psychological and political determinants of misinformation and conspiracy theory beliefs. The course also addresses the consequences associated with holding misinformation and conspiracy theory beliefs, for the self and society at large. The course also asks how unsupported beliefs can be corrected and how to inoculate people against such falsehoods. We end by discussing misinformation and conspiracy theories about climate change and health, two important issues with significant individual and societal consequences. 

Syllabus 

This course introduces students to basic concepts and methods of research in the social sciences and, in particular, in political science. Students will learn about how the scientific method of research can be applied to the study of human behaviour, adopting both qualitative or quantitative methods of analysis. In the first part of the course, students will learn about how to identify research questions and conduct literature reviews. In this same section, we will discuss questions related to research ethics and how such concerns can affect the kinds of questions one can ask and how other questions can be answered empirically. Next, we will discuss questions related to argumentation. These include defining clear concepts of interest and proposing strong arguments for building theories that will subsequently be evaluated with data. The following section covers how researchers go about choosing among methods of analysis and how cases are selected to adequately evaluate their research questions. Finally, the course will cover a series of commonly used qualitative and quantitative methods of analysis, including interviews, focus groups, surveys, and experiments. 

Syllabus 

This course offers a broad introduction to the field of comparative politics. Comparative politics, when taught in Canada, would encompass any study that is country specific but that is not Canada, or any study that compares two or more countries, including Canada or not. Comparativists explore a wide range of topics and adopt a variety of methodological (qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods) and theoretical approaches (e.g., rational choice theory, historical and sociological institutionalisms, cultural and psychological approaches, etc.). They are generally (although not exclusively) concerned with "big questions" shaping the world like democratization, democratic backsliding, group and racial inequalities, interest groups and social movements, electoral and party systems, executive-legislative relations, public policies, and, more broadly, how institutions (rules and norms) affect economic and political actors and outcomes. 

Syllabus 

This course introduces students to basic statistical techniques used to estimating and testing causal relationships. Evaluating causal claims is best done using an experimental design like randomized controlled trials, but most of the data available to political scientists, however, is observational in nature. Drawing causal inferences from observational data is a hard task but not an impossible one, given careful treatment of the data. A series of methodological tools are available to scholars to evaluate causal arguments and hypotheses using observational data and this course introduces the most commonly used ones for cross-sectional data structures—observations of subjects (like individuals, polities or countries) at one point or period of time. At the end of this course, students should be able to interpret most of the empirical analyses reported in political science journals and monographs and produce their own empirical analyses to estimate and test causal relationships of interest. 

Syllabus 

This course introduces students to the study of political behaviour in a comparative perspective. Scholars of political behaviour conduct research on many different topics, including, but not limited to, public opinion, vote choice, participation, communication, tolerance, and many others. This course focuses on two important topics of interest to scholars of political behaviour, namely, civic competence and racial prejudice and stereotyping. 

Civic competence refers to the ability of citizens to meaningfully participate in democratic life. We will focus on one particular aspect of civic competence: political knowledge. What constitutes political knowledge? How to measure political knowledge? And, how does political knowledge affect people’s policy preferences, vote choices, and ability to process new information? In this section, we will also discuss misinformation, that is, false or inaccurate information and explore how people come to hold either accurate or inaccurate political information and beliefs. Finally, special attention will be given to conspiracy beliefs and thinking. 

Racial prejudice and stereotyping concerns the study of how race shapes the way we perceive and interact with others. In particular, it is concerned with how people form images and perceptions about out-group members—members that do not belong to one’s racial group—and how those perceptions affect, in turn, their attitudes and behaviours. 

The first two weeks of the course will brush a broad overview of political behaviour and present the tools commonly used by political behaviour scholars to conduct their research. Next, we will delve into the study of civic competence and racial prejudice and stereotyping.