This course offers you the opportunity to move beyond the 'ten second sound byte' impressions of politics and government in Canada and elsewhere. If you are interested and your battery is charged and adaptable to different currents in ideas and issues, this course will help you get a grip on the new wired world. Globalization, interdependence, rapid technological change... all of these and other developments have implications on the political systems of the world.

In every field of knowledge students must cope with at least three kinds of intellectual activity: normative, empirical and practical. The things which we will do in this course, both individually and collaboratively, are intended not only to put you through each one of these intellectual activities but also, to expose you to some of the implications of the three processes for gaining an understanding of the institutions and processes of politics from a Canadian and an international perspective.

Perplexing problems face governments everywhere as we head toward the twenty-first century. The demands on government range from creating jobs, to stimulating economic growth, to protecting the environment, to safeguarding democratic values such as privacy and enforcing human rights codes. Simultaneously, governments are asked to reduce their budgets, lower taxes, and attract investors. What can governments do? What should they do? What influences the allocation of scarce resources in the public sector? How are competing interests reconciled, if at all? By the end of this course, you may not have all the answers, but you will have the ability to approach these and other questions.

With the exciting new initiatives available to you through the Digital Agora and the Political Byte, collaboration with the comparative and peace studies classes will be possible and in some cases required of you. By the way, you don't have to be computer literate to take this course...we're all learning from each other.

What do you really need to succeed in this course? If you bring your laptop, a real desire to learn, and willingness to try out new approaches for making sense out of all this data and information bombarding us...you'll be wired for success!