The MA in Global Governance offered by 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, sociology and environmental studies. Designed to be completed in sixteen months, the program typically consists of two terms of course work, a third term in which students complete a Major Research Paper (MRP) on a specific research topic of their choosing relating to the study of global governance, followed by a fourth term as an intern working on global governance issues in the public or private sector, a research institute or NGO. Students can also take advantage of a number of exchange opportunities. The world faces increasingly complex problems that have taken on global significance, including conflict and peace-building, humanitarian crises and intervention, international economic inequality and instability, and global environmental change.
The research cluster on Global Justice and Human Rights explores the study of the relationship between global governance, global justice, and human rights. The group brings students, faculty, activists and practitioners to critically engage research on such topics as decolonization, the state and global governance, anti-black and indigenous racism in governance theory and practice, the rights of people with disabilities, south-south relations and the rewriting of rights, expert practices and global justice activism, human rights as discourse and relation, resistance, resilience, and humanitarianism response, redistributive justice, recognition and reconciliation.