This intensive -funded international workshop will take place Thursday, May 26 to Saturday, May 28 in the Research Tower on the Keele campus.

The event is by invitation only and not open to the public. However, detailed information, including the full list of presentations and abstracts can be viewed by visiting the New Constitutionalism and World Order website. Following the events, the website will be used to provide publication and other information.

Right: Stephen Gill

The workshop will be one component of the International Political Economy and Ecology Graduate Summer School, hosted by 91��ɫ graduate programs in political science, geography and environmental studies, that has been taking place since May 16.

Some of the speakers at the workshop will include:

• Richard Falk, the Albert G. Millbank Professor Emeritus of International Law & Politics at Princeton University and a Visiting Distinguished Research Professor in Global & International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara
• 91��ɫ political science Professor , a current Trudeau Fellow
• sociology, social and cultural analysis Professor Neil Brenner of New 91��ɫ
• Tim DiMuzio, a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre of Excellence in Global Governance Research at the University of Helsinki
• current Trudeau Fellow Janine Brodie, Canada Research Chair in Political Economy & Social Governance at the University of Alberta.

Each presentation will be followed by a Q & A where the workshop participants can engage with the presenters.

New constitutionalism refers to the complex of politico-juridical and constitutional frameworks, regulations and rights that have emerged as key mechanisms of global governance to regulate political economy, society and ecology in the era of neo-liberal capitalism.

Some of the questions the participants and students will discuss include: What are the main transformations occurring in governance arrangements for the global political economy? What legitimacy concerns are raised by new constitutionalism in the context of the deepest crisis of global capitalism since the 1930s? Is there evidence of the emergence of, or conceptualization of, alternative forms of constitutionalism and world order?

Substantial evidence, says Gill, suggests that new constitutionalism is a key feature of the present world economic order, exemplified in organizations such as the , and in the emergence of independent central banks, each of which have been largely premised on neo-liberal development models. These developments have coincided with the global expansion of capitalism and the extension of private property rights and a proliferation in private governance mechanisms.

However, the recent deep crisis of accumulation has called into question the legitimacy and sustainability of these arrangements, prompting critical reflection on alternative forms of constitutionalism and global governance and questions concerning the potential shape of the emerging world order.

Republished courtesy of YFile – 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Right: Thomas Klassen

The has asked Klassen to conduct research on new policies for Korea’s labour force and to share his findings with decision-makers. The institute is responsible for contributing to public policy and raising awareness of labour issues through timely and analytical research. As well, Klassen will spend several months studying Korea's retirement policies. Specifically, he will examine how the changing labour market, particularly a rapidly aging population, impacts mandatory retirement practices.

His research in Korea will also provide insights for Canada, which also has a rapid increase in older workers.

An expert on retirement policies, Klassen teaches courses on the politics of aging. He is the co-editor of (2005), the only book on mandatory retirement in Canada. Last year, Klassen co-edited with Jae-jin Yang the book .

This will not be Klassen's first working stint in South Korea. In 2006-2007, he taught at Yonsei University in Seoul and wrote about the lighter side of the experience for 91��ɫU magazine under the title .

Republished courtesy of YFile – 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Considered one of the most vulnerable Liberal incumbents heading into the federal election, Dryden was defeated by Conservative challenger Mark Adler in the north Toronto riding. He becomes the first Tory to win the 91��ɫ Centre seat since Fred C. Stinson occupied it from 1957 to ’62.

. . .

But the Conservative government’s support for Israel was a key factor among Jewish voters in the riding, pundits said.

Adler is an active member of the Bathurst Jewish Community Centre and well known in the riding’s large Jewish community.

“Kaplan held the riding for years and he was a member of the Jewish community and the Liberal party tended to take a kind of centrist position on Israel,” said 91��ɫ political science professor Robert MacDermid. “(Prime Minister Stephen Harper) and the Conservatives have taken a much more pro-Israel stance on many issues and attracted many Jewish voters in that and surrounding ridings.”

Fellow 91��ɫ professor agreed. “Nobody is unsupportive of Israel,” said Drummond. “But I think some voters have found the Harper government rather less critical of Israel than perhaps some of the Liberals have been willing to be and that may have shifted some people’s support.”

Adler founded and is president and CEO of The Economic Club of Canada which has drawn such speakers as Harper, Canadian premiers, former U.S. president Bill Clinton and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

91��ɫ Centre is a diverse riding that includes low-income residents and a fair number of immigrants, said MacDermid.

“They have all been hotly contested by the Conservatives’ attempt to win over new Canadian groupings,” MacDermid said.

MacDermid didn’t think the fact that Toronto voters had elected right-leaning mayor Rob Ford was a major factor in swinging 91��ɫ Centre to the Tories. Ford endorsed Harper last week.

Some voters routinely shift between the Liberals and Conservatives, and they may have been more willing to vote Conservative this time, said Drummond.

“There’s been a bit of a shift towards the Conservatives in the last few elections of voters who may have been willing to go back and forth between the Liberals and Conservatives and decided they’re more supportive of the Conservatives,” he said.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Anyone transmitting the results of a poll has to include the name of the sponsor and the company that did the poll, which will help readers determine if the poll is objective.

Readers should also have access to the date when the poll was conducted and the size of the sample that was consulted to test reliability.

Finally, organizations have to disclose the margin of error, one of the most important pieces of information, according to Robert MacDermid, a political science professor at 91��ɫ.

If a poll says Jack Layton has 20 per cent of Canadians supporting him, but there is a margin of error of +/- 3 per cent, that means the support is actually between 23 and 17 per cent, he explained.

. . .

Polls aren’t the only way to gauge progress, according to MacDermid, who uses Layton’s recent rise in Quebec as an example.

“There are all sorts of evidence that people, especially in Quebec, are considering voting for Jack,” he said. “You’d report these other things; that he is spending all his time there; that 1000 people showed up at a rally; and that other political parties are attacking him.”

And polls aren’t the only way to determine how you want to vote, MacDermid says. Voters should consider the party platforms and what the leaders say about the issues that matter to the individual voter.

MacDermid was also in the media concerning his research on Toronto Mayor Rob Ford's election fundraising drives and the upcoming sale of the City of Toronto's waterfront assets; the :

Mayor Rob Ford’s administration is preparing to hang a huge for-sale sign on the city’s waterfront real estate assets and is now in the process of auctioning off the first parcel – the new Corus Entertainment building, as well as the land it sits on at the foot of Jarvis Street, just south of Queen’s Quay East.

. . .

An influential Vaughan developer, who donated generously to Mayor Rob Ford's pre- and post-election fundraising drives, controls a long-term lease on the Port Lands' Hearn Generating Station, which has been proposed as a site for an NFL stadium by the mayor's brother Doug.

Developer Mario Cortellucci, together with various relatives and individuals who listed his company's premises on their donor forms, contributed $30,000 to the mayor's campaign, about half of which was raised following the election as part of a multi-candidate effort to eliminate campaign deficits. He also secured a private meeting with Rob Ford, according to scheduling documents released under access to information laws.

The figures, based on election contribution filings, were compiled by 91��ɫ political scientist Robert MacDermid [Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies].

"The important point here is that when a councillor or mayor runs a deficit and wins, every person seeking influence crowds into the subsequent fundraising events," [said MacDermid].

While Cortellucci's development companies in the past have pledged hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions to right-of-centre municipal and provincial candidates, MacDermid's analysis shows the 2010 race was his first serious foray into Toronto politics. In 2006, Cortellucci and another relative gave just $2,500 to Jane Pitfield's mayoral campaign. In 2010, he donated $4,000 and $2,000 to George Smitherman and Joe Pantalone respectively.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Left: David Dewitt

Based in Waterloo, Ontario, the  is an independent, nonpartisan think tank on international governance. Led by experienced practitioners and distinguished academics, CIGI supports research, forms networks, advances policy debate and generates ideas for multilateral governance improvements.

“I congratulate David on his new role as vice-president of programs at CIGI,” said Stan Shapson, vice-president research & innovation at 91��ɫ. “David has served the University so well as associate vice-president research, bringing an important blend of academic excellence, strategic thinking and administrative efficiency to this challenging role. His new role draws on his expertise as a first-rate academic administrator and his widely recognized career as a scholar in international affairs. I invite the 91��ɫ community to join with me in wishing him every success in this new adventure.”

Under its , CIGI seeks to identify and address areas of major global governance that will be challenged over the next decade. Its research and work will focus on four program themes: the Global Economy, Energy & Environment, Development, and Global Security.

“In a few short years, CIGI has emerged as a pre-eminent source of innovative thinking about international governance,” Dewitt said. “I am excited about the opportunity to work with CIGI’s staff, fellows and partners in building significant new programs of research and policy development. Our goal is to advance better ideas for promoting global prosperity and security.”

About David Dewitt

Dewitt is a specialist in international affairs with expertise in security and conflict, the Middle East and Asia Pacific, and comparative public diplomacy. He earned a BA at the University of British Columbia and an MA and PhD from Stanford University.

Prior to assuming his current position within the Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation, he served as director of the 91��ɫ Centre for International & Security Studies (YCISS) from 1988 to 2006. He is the author or contributing editor of books, chapters and peer reviewed articles as well as commissioned reports on Canadian foreign, security, and defense policy, international and regional security and conflict management in Asia Pacific and the Middle East, arms control and proliferation, and human security.

In the early 1990s, Dewitt co-directed the North Pacific Cooperative Security Dialogue, a Foreign Affairs sponsored multilateral track-two diplomacy initiative, and has been involved in various track-two initiatives on security in Asia Pacific and the Middle East.

Dewitt has been a visiting scholar at Tel Aviv University and an international research fellow of the Korean Institute for Defense Analysis. He served as founding chair of the Canadian Consortium for Asia Pacific Security and as a co-chair of the Canadian Member Committee of the Council for Security Cooperation in Asia Pacific. He also was a co-director of the Canadian Consortium for Human Security, national chair of the Canadian Professors for Peace in the Middle East, and has served as chair of the Partnerships for International Strategies with Asia now based at the Sigur Center for Asian Studies, Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University.

By Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of CIGI.

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A 91��ɫ political science prof says it's hit or miss. "Populism is an overused term," said . "It means having ordinary people making decisions rather than experts – it's appealing, but I think it's often a type of smokescreen for a set of policies that's not going to satisfy ordinary people, but elites," he said. "To those of us who are involved in academic life, it's frightening. It implies that information and facts can be ignored if you have a 'common sense' approach to things."

In the case of Ignatieff, voters get the sense they don't know him well, Drummond said. "But do they know Stephen Harper or Jack Layton?" he asked. "They come across as more ordinary folk. There are times when Harper does look stiff, but the sweater and the piano playing probably does help him."

Being an intellectual can be problematic in this election, simply because many people make an assumption that Ignatieff may be aloof and "probably doesn't think of himself as ordinary folks."

"That may be unfair to him, that's why...all these photo opportunities of him doing things he doesn't do very often are supposed to give him a common touch, but it doesn't work well if you look stiff and uncomfortable doing it," Drummond said.

Ignatieff is pulling out all the stops to project a more down-to-earth image, but time is against him. "He's visiting a lot of places where people get to see him up close and personal, but I don't think you can do a lot during a campaign to make that sort of dent," he said. "It's not the type of campaign in the 19th century where people appeared in person a lot – a lot of it is televised or online pleas."

Drummond's research explores public policy with a specific focus on provincial politics. He is a frequent media commentator during elections.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin

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This afternoon, from 2 to 4pm at the at the Munk School at the University of Toronto, 91��ɫ political science Professor (right) will be among a select group of panellists addressing these political shifts and the implications of the "Arab spring" from regional perspectives. Themes for discussion include, humanitarian intervention, nuclear weapons, non-violence and democracy. The panellists:

Emanuel Adler will speak on "The Israeli perspective on Transformation in the Middle East". Adler is professor of International Relations in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto, Andrea & Charles Bronfman Chair of Israeli Studies, and editor of International Organization.

Adler's interests include the international politics of identity and peace, rationality and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a constructivist reconsideration of strategic logic, including deterrence in post-Cold War international security, the role of practice in international relations, European security institutions, and international relations theory in particular, constructivism, epistemic communities and security communities.

Ramin Jahanbegloo will talk about "Civil Society and the Transformation in the Middle East". Jahanbegloo is an Iranian-Canadian philosopher. He taught in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto from 1997-2001 and later served as the head of the Department of Contemporary Studies of the Cultural Research Centre in Tehran. In 2006-2007, Jahanbegloo was the Rajni Kothari Professor of Democracy at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in New Delhi, India. In April 2006, he was arrested in Tehran Airport charged with preparing a velvet revolution in Iran. He was placed in solitary confinement for four months and released on bail. He is presently a professor of political science and a research fellow in the Centre for Ethics at University of Toronto and a board member of PEN Canada.

In October 2009, Jahanbegloo became the winner of the Peace Prize from the United Nations Association in Spain for his extensive academic works in promoting dialogue between cultures and his advocacy for non-violence.

Saeed Rahnema will present "The View from Iran towards Transformation in the Middle East". Rahnema is professor of political science at 91��ɫ. He has served as the director of the School of Public Policy & Administration and coordinator of the political science program in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies. Prior to joining 91��ɫ, he was a professor in the School of Policy Studies at Queen’s University. In his homeland of Iran, he taught and worked as a member of the executive of the Industrial Management Institute in Tehran. He is a frequent commentator on Canadian and international media on the issues of the Middle East and Islam, Human Rights, and Left and Labour Movement, and has published several books and numerous articles in English and Farsi (Persian).

He was cited in the �Ѳ������𲹲�’s Guide to Canadian Universities as a "most popular" professor in 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005. He won the 91��ɫ Teaching Excellence Award in 2004. In 2007, he won the Government of Ontario’s Leadership in Faculty Teaching Award.

Janice Stein is the Belzberg Professor of Conflict Management in the Department of Political Science and the director of the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a member of the Order of Canada and the Order of Ontario. Her most recent publications include Networks of Knowledge: Innovation in International Learning (2000); The Cult of Efficiency (2001); and Street Protests and Fantasy Parks (2001). She is a contributor to Canada by Picasso (2006) and the co-author of The Unexpected War: Canada in Kandahar (2007).

Stein was the Massey Lecturer in 2001 and a Trudeau Fellow. She was awarded the Molson Prize by the Canada Council for an outstanding contribution by a social scientist to public debate. She is an Honorary Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Space is limited. Organizers ask that those interested in attending RSVP to rsvp@utapss.ca.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin

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"I'm optimistic about the explosion that's happened in Wisconsin," says Leo Panitch, a political science professor at 91��ɫ [Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies]. "For the first time in a long time, the Canadian left is looking south, rather than the other way."

But he's loath to make too many claims for a new dawn rising: "The craziness and mindlessness of so much of what is going on in the American right may – and I'm very cautious about this – it may lead to the same kind of sensibilities that produced a radical new left in the sixties."

Says Panitch, "It's much more complicated now. It's not easy to organize these days when you don't have masses of workers brought together in a big factory and they aren't living in the same part of the city. A lot of people now who are exploited and poorly paid are working in funky areas like producing software or advertising."

Two years ago, he wrote a piece for Foreign Policy magazine titled “Thoroughly Modern Marx” about how the post-crash world might possibly (though by no means inevitably) see a rebirth in radical thinking. That, of course, has not happened – in fact, the political left has suffered setbacks and since 2008, centre-right parties have gained power in Europe.

Panitch is the Canada Research Chair in Comparative Political Economy and a Distinguished Research Professor of Political Science.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin

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It is by far the best method to ensure food security, especially when women are the producers, said Mukherjee-Reed, who was here recently as part of the research project on farming activity by women's groups. The advantage is access to food in the hands of those who need it (are food insecure), she said.

Mukherjee-Reed, whose works include and series, said there is a lesson in here that the world can take to fight food crisis.

About 2.5 lakh women in the state in about 30,000 groups are engaged in collective farming. Together they cultivate over 27,000 hectares, growing paddy, tapioca, pineapple, plantain, vegetables and other items that are used to ensure that the growers get enough to eat and the surplus is sold in the open market.

“Most of the groups of women, who started with small areas for cultivation, have increased their production by taking up more fallow land, rejuvenating it and cultivating it,” said Mukherjee-Reed.

Her study involved 100 groups spread across the state. Among her major findings, Mukherjee-Reed said that land is the major constraint of the women engaged in collective farming. Women are unsure about retaining the leasing rights of the vacant, fallow land that they rejuvenate and prepare for cultivation.

About 21 per cent of women groups expressed their wish to become landowners. In fact, it is a major aim of some groups, who have managed to buy land.

In spite of the constraints, women are happy, said Prof. Mukherjee. Most of the women who have been able to leave wage labour are very happy. Organic farming is the aim of at least 45 per cent of the 100 groups she has studied. Some groups among them make organic manure for their cultivation. There are women who have had no previous exposure to go out of the house for any activity, now fully engaged in collective farming and also inspiring other women to follow an activity of economic independence, she said.

In Kudumbasree, she found a strong support system that provides a platform for women. The Mission has an elaborate structure and allows functioning as an institute.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile – 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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At the very least, it would be good to have been reassured that the bad old days when the business of garbage was so commonly associated with organized crime in many North American cities – not for nothing was Tony Soprano’s calling card that of a “waste management consultant” – is truly a thing of the past.

But even assuming that is so, just as there are questions properly being raised today, everywhere from Washington to Cairo, about the cozy relationships between businessmen and politicians, I am sure your readers would be grateful for a careful, balanced and objective analysis of just who owns the companies that are already profiting from the taxes people pay to have their garbage collected, and whether they have any personal, financial and political relationships with politicians, here or elsewhere.

We could use some investigation of the ecological implications too. As Heather Rodgers showed in her widely acclaimed important book Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage (New Press) an alignment of manufacturing and marketing forces have used environmental laws to help the US mega-“waste management” corporations make mega-profits, while often using Third World countries, or poorer regions of our own society, as our garbage dump. Will privatizing Toronto’s garbage collection further contribute to this?

Finally, dare I suggest that some interviews with the workers of these companies would be worth doing to see what they have to say about their conditions and whether they consider themselves exploited or fairly treated?

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin

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