ESSAY TOPICS:
Choose one topic!
1. “There is growing academic suspicion that the predictive value of polls influences undecided voters, politicians and governments, encourages or discourages volunteer campaign workers, and positively or negatively affects the fund-raising efforts of political parties. Increasingly, observers are noting that elections are poll-inspired, and election campaigns are poll-driven (James John Guy) Assess this statement in relation to the 2021 Canadian Federal Election and the 2023 Alberta General Election. Specify the long-term determinants of voting behaviour that shaped the outcome of both elections
1. “Democracy is becoming better institutionalized in many of the nations that moved toward it in the last decade; the next step is the further consolidation and strengthening of democracy. Democracy may still falter in some countries, but the vast social, economic, cultural, and political changes that have occurred in most nations in the last thirty years seem to provide a stronger foundation for democracy now than previously.” (Howard Wiarda) Using a case study from the Third World (Choose from the following: Thailand, South Africa, Brazil) account for the difficulty in instituting democratic governance. Are the excesses of capitalism a threat to democracy? (Cite examples from your selected case).
1. . “Since the 1950s, political scientists have noted that political parties may not merely be changing, but as institutions they may have entered an era of decline. Party decline refers to ‘the phenomenon in which political parties are less determinative of the attitudes and behaviour of political actors on both mass and elite levels, less highly regarded and less likely to inspire the electoral act than they once were.” (Doreen Jackson and Robert Jackson) Illustrating your points with case studies of the US Republican Party, and the Canadian Liberal Party, critically assess the role and problems of political parties in a liberal democracy. Offer arguments for and against the idea that parties are in decline inWestern liberal democratic countries.
1. “…there is wide agreement among serious analysts that it is misleading to treat terrorism as the irrational acts of crazed fanatics. To the contrary, terrorism occurs because many of those who use it consider it a necessary, legitimate, and effective tool to rid themselves of what they consider oppression.” (John Rourke) Write a comparative essay on Hamas (Gaza) and the Abu Sayff (Philippines) on the basis of the following: historical background, objectives, strategies, and problems in the face of counterterrorism by their opponents. What are the defining differences between terrorism before and after 1980 oppression?
1. . “The UN has mighty achievements behind it, but some of the slowness of bureaucracy and cumbersome procedures that were necessary to keep everyone on board in the Cold War years should be reformed.” (Clare short) How is the UN reforming itself to deal with the geopolitical changes occurring in contemporary international relations. Which institution, the UN or the BRICS, is well suited to address pertinent challenges of globalization, particularly in the economic gap between developed and developing
countries?