What is the format of the ICPH2G-26 conference?

The conference is an in-person event held in Toronto, CAN.

When does the conference take place?

The conference is scheduled for early September.

International Conference on Politics, History, and Global Governance (ICPH2G-26)

Name: International Conference on Politics, History, and Global Governance (ICPH2G-26)
Start: 2026-09-03T00:00:00Z
End: 2026-09-04T00:00:00Z
Location: Toronto

Sep 3–4, 2026Toronto, CanadaIn-person

Starts in 26 daysRegistration open

The International Conference on Politics, History, and Global Governance (ICPH2G-26) offers a platform for scholars, researchers, and practitioners to explore the intricate connections between political science, historical developments, and the evolving landscape of global governance. Hosted in Toronto, CAN, this event facilitates discussions on contemporary challenges and historical precedents shaping international relations and domestic policy. Participants will engage with diverse perspectives on how past events influence current political structures and global decision-making processes. The conference aims to foster interdisciplinary dialogue, encouraging new research methodologies and theoretical frameworks to better understand the complexities of the modern world.

Committees & topics

Topics
Political Institutions and Governance · Historical Perspectives on Global Politics · Democracy and Political Development · Civic Engagement and Social Movements · Globalization and Political Power · International Relations and World Order · Policy Studies in Historical Context · Power Relations in Society

Why it matters

Understanding the interplay between politics, history, and global governance is crucial in an increasingly interconnected world. Historical context provides essential insights into the origins and evolution of political systems, international norms, and diplomatic practices. Without a deep appreciation for history, contemporary political analysis risks being superficial or incomplete.

Global governance, in particular, faces unprecedented challenges, from climate change to economic instability and geopolitical tensions. Effective solutions require not only political will but also an understanding of the historical trajectories that have led to current dilemmas. This conference provides a forum to critically examine these dynamics, helping to inform more robust and sustainable approaches to global cooperation. The discussions can illuminate how different nations and regions have historically approached issues of sovereignty, intervention, and multilateralism, offering valuable lessons for present-day policy formulation.

Furthermore, the event's focus on interdisciplinary approaches underscores the necessity of integrating political science and historical research to develop comprehensive understandings of global phenomena. This holistic perspective is vital for policymakers, academics, and anyone seeking to navigate the complexities of international affairs.

How to prepare

To maximize engagement with the conference themes, attendees should consider reviewing foundational texts in political history and international relations. Familiarity with key theories of global governance, such as institutionalism, liberalism, and realism, will provide a strong framework for understanding the presented research.

Participants interested in specific regional or thematic discussions might benefit from researching the historical political developments of relevant countries or regions. For instance, understanding the historical context of political systems in CAN could enrich discussions held in the host city. Considering frameworks like the 'engagement-strategies' or 'power-interest-grid' can also help in analyzing the dynamics of global governance and political interactions. Furthermore, exploring the concept of 'dynamic-analysis' can aid in understanding how political and historical factors evolve over time, influencing global governance structures. Attendees might also find it useful to consider the 'gender-dynamics-across-cultures' as a lens through which to analyze historical and contemporary political developments.

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 1 countries stand on the core issues in play. Click through for the full country profile.

Canada

As the host nation, CAN often plays a mediating role in international affairs, emphasizing multilateralism and historical reconciliation.

Role in topic

CAN's historical commitment to peacekeeping and its engagement in various international organizations provide a unique perspective on global governance. Discussions held in Toronto, CAN, will likely reflect its diplomatic traditions and its approach to balancing national interests with global responsibilities.

Topics & background

The background behind each topic and the actors that shape it.

Political Institutions and Governance

Modern political institutions — legislatures, executives, judiciaries, bureaucracies, and constitutional courts — emerged from centuries of state-building, beginning with early modern European monarchies, the consolidation of the Westphalian state system in 1648, and the constitutional revolutions of the late 18th century in the United States and France. The 20th century saw a wave of institutional design: the construction of welfare states in Western Europe, the spread of parliamentary and presidential systems through decolonization, and the post-1945 anchoring of domestic institutions to international bodies such as the UN, IMF, and World Bank. Comparative scholarship (North, Acemoglu, Fukuyama) increasingly links 'inclusive' institutions to long-run economic and political performance. Today, institutions face a credibility crisis. Executive aggrandizement in countries from Hungary to Turkey to El Salvador, judicial capture, and the erosion of independent agencies have prompted the V-Dem Institute and Freedom House to track more than fifteen consecutive years of democratic backsliding. At the same time, rising powers contest the assumption that liberal institutional templates are universal, advancing alternative governance models. The committee's task is to examine how institutional design, resilience, and reform shape state capacity and legitimacy in this contested environment.

Key players

Historical Perspectives on Global Politics

The contemporary international system is the product of layered historical orders: the Westphalian sovereignty regime (1648), the Concert of Europe (1815), the failed Versailles settlement (1919), the Bretton Woods and UN order (1944–45), and the post-Cold War 'unipolar moment' after 1991. Each transition redistributed power, redefined legitimate statehood, and embedded particular norms — balance of power, collective security, self-determination, human rights, and free trade. Decolonization between 1945 and 1975 nearly quadrupled UN membership and challenged Eurocentric assumptions about who counts as a global political actor. Historical interpretation itself is politically charged. Debates over the origins of the Cold War, the legacies of empire, the Nakba, the partition of India, and the memory of World War II shape current foreign policies from Berlin to Beijing to Tokyo. Russia's invocation of historical 'spheres of influence' to justify the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and China's appeals to a 'century of humiliation,' demonstrate how historical narratives function as instruments of statecraft. This committee considers how historical analysis can inform — and distort — present-day global politics.

Key players

Democracy and Political Development

Samuel Huntington's 'third wave' of democratization, beginning in Portugal in 1974 and accelerating after the collapse of communism in 1989–91, expanded the share of electoral democracies from roughly 30 to over 60 percent of states by the early 2000s. International institutions — the EU through accession conditionality, the OAS through the Inter-American Democratic Charter, and the African Union through its 2007 Charter on Democracy — embedded democratic norms in regional governance. Development economists increasingly tied aid and trade preferences to democratic performance. Since the mid-2000s, however, V-Dem, Freedom House, and the Economist Intelligence Unit have documented a sustained democratic recession. Military coups have returned to West Africa (Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Gabon), elected leaders have dismantled checks on power in Turkey, India, and Tunisia, and disinformation and foreign interference have eroded electoral integrity in established democracies. Simultaneously, scholars revisit modernization theory: economic development no longer reliably predicts democratization, as China and the Gulf states demonstrate. The committee examines what conditions sustain democratic political development today and what the international community can legitimately do to support it.

Key players

Globalization and Political Power

The contemporary phase of globalization accelerated after 1989 with the integration of formerly communist economies, China's 2001 WTO accession, and the explosion of global value chains, foreign direct investment, and cross-border data flows. Trade as a share of global GDP rose from about 39 percent in 1990 to over 60 percent by 2008. This integration redistributed political power: multinational corporations, ratings agencies, and standard-setting bodies gained leverage relative to states, while emerging economies, especially China, accumulated unprecedented economic weight. The post-2008 era has seen a partial reversal. The financial crisis, Brexit, the Trump-era tariffs, COVID-19 supply shocks, the war in Ukraine, and US–China technology decoupling have produced 'slowbalization,' industrial policy revivals (US CHIPS Act, EU Green Deal Industrial Plan), and weaponized interdependence — sanctions, export controls, and chokepoints in semiconductors, energy, and finance. The committee examines how globalization reshapes the locus of political authority, whether between states and markets, between North and South, or between incumbents and challengers in a multipolar economy.

Key players

International Relations and World Order

The post-1945 international order rested on US primacy, multilateral institutions (UN, IMF, World Bank, GATT/WTO), and a normative architecture combining sovereign equality, human rights, and free trade. The end of the Cold War briefly produced a unipolar configuration, but the 2008 financial crisis, the rise of China, Russia's revisionism, and the relative drift of Western publics from internationalism have eroded that foundation. Scholars now debate whether the system is becoming bipolar (US–China), multipolar (with India, the EU, and middle powers), or fragmenting into competing 'orders' around technology stacks, payment systems, and security blocs. Flashpoints illustrate the contest: Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, tensions across the Taiwan Strait, the Israel–Hamas war and its regional spillovers since October 2023, and paralysis on the UN Security Council. Meanwhile, BRICS+ expansion in 2024, the rise of minilateral forums (Quad, AUKUS, I2U2), and reform debates over the UN Security Council and Bretton Woods institutions point to ongoing renegotiation of who sets the rules. The committee assesses the trajectory of world order amid this strategic competition.

Key players

Policy Studies in Historical Context

Public policy as a distinct field of inquiry crystallized in the mid-20th century, with Harold Lasswell's 'policy sciences' framework, the postwar expansion of welfare states, and the establishment of policy schools in the 1960s–70s. Major policy paradigms have shifted with historical conditions: Keynesian demand management dominated 1945–1973; the stagflation of the 1970s opened the way for neoliberal reforms associated with Thatcher, Reagan, and the Washington Consensus; the 2008 financial crisis and COVID-19 pandemic revived activist fiscal and industrial policy. Historical institutionalism and 'path dependence' scholarship (Pierson, Skocpol) emphasize that policy choices are heavily constrained by earlier decisions. Current policy debates — on climate transition, AI regulation, pandemic preparedness, migration, and industrial strategy — are explicitly framed through historical analogy: the New Deal, the Marshall Plan, the Manhattan Project, the 1970s oil shocks. Yet misused analogies (Munich 1938, Vietnam, 2008) can mislead as often as they illuminate. This committee examines how historical context shapes the framing, adoption, and evaluation of major policies across domains.

Key players

Power Relations in Society

Theorizing power has been central to political thought from Machiavelli and Hobbes through Weber's distinction between coercion, authority, and legitimacy, to 20th-century work by Dahl on pluralism, Bachrach and Baratz on agenda-setting, Lukes on the 'three faces of power,' and Foucault on disciplinary and biopolitical power. Feminist, postcolonial, and critical race theorists have expanded analysis to gendered, racialized, and colonial structures of domination. Empirically, indices from the World Inequality Lab show the top 10 percent now capture about 52 percent of global income, while wealth concentration has reached levels unseen since the early 20th century. In the 21st century, power relations are also being reconfigured by technology: platform companies mediate public discourse, predictive algorithms shape access to credit and welfare, and surveillance capabilities — both state and corporate — penetrate everyday life. Movements around #MeToo, racial justice, Indigenous rights, and economic inequality have politicized previously naturalized hierarchies. The committee considers how power is produced, contested, and legitimated across social, economic, and digital domains, and what role states and international norms should play.

Key players