Faculty & Contact | Bishop's University

Below is a list of faculty that are active in the department, and available to students with course specific questions. If you need administrative support, we encourage you to refer your questions to one of the following;

The Chair of the department can address detailed program questions, including program requirements, planning and selection, research opportunities, graduate studies, and more.
The Academic Advisor, if available, can offer support including course registration and course load, important dates, academic policies and more.
The Academic Deans serve as the academic and administrative anchors to the professors within their Faculties or Schools as well as the students.

Faculty of the Politics and International Studies Department:

Contact Information is found in the BU Directory

Dr. Luis Bejar

Contract Faculty

Dr. Luis J. Béjar has a Doctorate in Law and Masters in Legal Sciences from Universidad Panamericana in Mexico City. His research interests are in public law, judicial politics, government and public administration, corruption and anticorruption, and comparative law. He is a member of several academic associations such as the International Institute of Administrative Law and Foro Iberoamericano de Derecho Administrativo. He has been teaching at the Department of Political and International Studies since 2023. Dr. Béjar has been a professor and visiting professor in Argentina, Spain, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Venezuela, among others, and has also been a Visiting Research Fellow at the Faculty of Law of the University of Montreal.

Dr. Béjar has published dozens of books, book chapters, and refereed papers in Spanish, English, and French. His most recent publications are the 2025 English and Spanish editions of Politics in Latin America: An Introduction (Innovative Ink-Kendall Hunt).

For more information, see:
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ojwFxZ4AAAAJ
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Luis-Bejar-Rivera

Dr. Don Dombowsky

Full Professor

Don Dombowsky completed his graduate study at the University of Ottawa and the New School for Social Research in New York. He has taught a wide range of courses for the Politics and International Studies, Philosophy and Liberal Arts programs on selected topics in the history and theory of politics, philosophy and art.

He was nominated for the William & Nancy Turner Teaching Award in 2011 and received a Teaching Merit Award for his Classical Political Philosophy II course in 2012. In 2019 and in 2022, he was nominated for a Bishop’s Teaching Award.

Professor Dombowsky’s research is concerned primarily with the political thought of Friedrich Nietzsche for which he is internationally recognized. He is the author of Nietzsche’s Machiavellian Politics (2004), co-editor of Political Writings of Friedrich Nietzsche: An Edited Anthology (2008) and author of Nietzsche and Napoleon: The Dionysian Conspiracy (2014). He has also published articles in the Journal of Nietzsche Studies and Nietzsche Studien: Internationales Jahrbuch für die Nietzsche-Forschung as well as in other European, British and Canadian journals. In April of 2011 he was awarded a SSHRC Research Grant for his study of Nietzsche and Napoleon published as Nietzsche and Napoleon: The Dionysian Conspiracy (University of Wales Press, 2014).

Professor Dombowsky’s research is concerned primarily with the political thought of Friedrich Nietzsche for which he is internationally recognized. His work on Nietzsche has been called ‘pathbreaking’. He is the author of Nietzsche’s Machiavellian Politics (2004), co-editor of Political Writings of Friedrich Nietzsche: An Edited Anthology (2008) and author of Nietzsche and Napoleon: The Dionysian Conspiracy (2014). He has also published articles in the Journal of Nietzsche Studies and Nietzsche Studien: Internationales Jahrbuch für die Nietzsche-Forschung as well as in other European, British and Canadian journals. In April of 2011 he was awarded a SSHRC Research Grant for his study of Nietzsche and Napoleon published as Nietzsche and Napoleon: The Dionysian Conspiracy (University of Wales Press, 2014).

A Remark on Dr. Dombowsky’s Research
‘Several studies exist which deny the bifurcation of Nietzsche’s philosophical thinking from his politics, demonstrating an indelible link between the two. Others have also challenged the attempted synthesis between Nietzsche’s thinking and progressive ideas, a synthesis which in the end makes a mockery of both what Nietzsche argued for and those progressive ideas he scorned. We can offer here a brief… list of some of the most interesting approaches to Nietzsche as a highly political… thinker. These include Fredrick Appel’s Nietzsche Contra Democracy; William Altman’s Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche: The Philosopher of the Second Reich; Malcolm Bull’s Anti-Nietzsche; Don Dombowsky’s Nietzsche’s Machiavellian Politics; Ishay Landa’s, The Overman in the Marketplace: Nietzschean Heroism in Popular Culture; the late Stanley Rosen’s Mask of Enlightenment: Nietzsche’s Zarathustra; Geoff Waite’s Nietzsche’s Corps/e: Aesthetics, Politics, and the Spectacular Techno-Culture of Everyday Life. These studies… have been truly transformational for how we read Nietzsche.’ – Harrison Fluss, from the Introduction to Domenico Losurdo, Nietzsche, the Aristocratic Rebel: Intellectual Biography and Critical Balance Sheet (Brill, 2019).

Books

Nietzsche and Napoleon: The Dionysian Conspiracy (University of Wales Press, 2014).

Co-editor, Political Writings of Friedrich Nietzsche: An Edited Anthology (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).

Nietzsche’s Machiavellian Politics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).

Book Chapters

‘Les sources du Napoléon de Nietzsche’. In: Martine Béland (ed.). Lectures nietzschéennes. Sources et réceptions. (Montréal: Les Presses de l’Université de Montréal, coll. “Pensée allemande et européenne”, 2015), 163-199.

‘Aristocratic Radicalism as a Species of Bonapartism’. In: Manuel Knoll and Barry Stocker (eds.). Nietzsche as Political Philosopher (Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2014), 195-209.

‘A Response to Alan D. Schrift’s “Nietzsche For Democracy?”’ (2002). Reprinted in: Tracy Strong (ed.). International Library of Essays in the History of Social and Political Thought – Friedrich Nietzsche. (Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2009), 109-121.

‘Nietzsche as Bonapartist’. In: Herman W. Siemens and V. Roodt (eds.). Nietzsche,Power and Politics: Rethinking Nietzsche’s Legacy for Political Thought. (Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2008), 347-369.

Recent Journal Articles

‘Heidegger on Nietzsche’s Political Ontology and Technoscientific Animalism’, The Cambridge Journal of Law, Politics, and Art 4, January 2026.

‘Nietzsche’s Dionysian Philosophy and the European New Right’. The European Legacy: Toward New Paradigms. Volume 30. Number 4. May-June 2025.

‘Nietzsche’s Colonial Philosophy Readjusted: A Response to Domenico Losurdo’s Assessment in Nietzsche, the Aristocratic Rebel’. Historical Materialism. Volume 32. Issue 4. 2024.

Dr. Gilbert Gagné

Full Professor

Dr. Gilbert Gagné has been Professor in the Department of Politics and International Studies at Bishop’s University since 2001. Since 2003, he has also been the Director of the Research Group on Continental Integration at the Université du Québec à Montréal. In 2007-2008, he received a Canada-U.S. Fulbright Award and held the Visiting Research Chair in Canadian Studies at Duke University. Dr. Gagné holds a Doctorate in International Relations from the University of Oxford and Master’s and Bachelor’s Degrees in Political Science from the University of Ottawa.

Dr. Gagné’s research pertains mainly to international economic regimes and organizations, North American integration, the treatment of cultural products in trade agreements; subsidies and trade dispute settlement, with a particular emphasis on the Canada-U.S. softwood lumber dispute; as well as the protection of foreign investment and investor-state dispute settlement.

Funding Sources

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture
Senate Research Committee, Bishop’s University

Dr. Gagné’s research contributions include:

Gagné, Gilbert and Michèle Rioux (eds), NAFTA 2.0: From the first NAFTA to the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021.

Gagné, Gilbert, “The Evolution of Canada’s Cultural Exemption in Preferential Trade Agreements”, Canadian Foreign Policy Journal, Vol. 26, No. 3, 2020, pp. 298-312.

Gagné, Gilbert and Guy-Philippe Wells, “The Treatment of Cultural Services in Asian Countries’ Preferential Trade Agreements”, Manchester Journal of International Economic Law, Vol. 16, No. 3, December 2019, pp. 359-388.

Gagné, Gilbert, “Trade and Culture: The United States”, International Journal of Cultural Policy, Vol. 25, No. 5, 2019, pp. 615-628.

Gagné, Gilbert, “The Canadian Policy on the Protection of Foreign Investment and the Canada-China Bilateral Investment Treaty”, Beijing Law Review, Vol. 10, No. 3, 2019, pp. 361-377.

Gagné, Gilbert, “L’interface commerce-culture et la question du règlement des différends”, Revue québécoise de droit international, Vol. 30, No. 2, 2017, pp. 75-94.

Gagné, Gilbert, The Trade and Culture Debate: Evidence from US Trade Agreements, Lanham: MD: Lexington Books, 2016, 163 pp.

Gagné, Gilbert, “The World Trading Regime and Dispute Settlement”, in Greg Anderson and Christopher Kukucha (eds), International Political Economy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, pp. 186-206.

Rioux, Michèle, Christian Deblock, Gilbert Gagné, Destiny Tchehouali, Kim Fontaine-Skronski, and Antonios Vlassis, Pour une culture en réseaux diversifiée. Appliquer la convention sur la protection et la promotion de la diversité des expressions culturelles à l’ère du numérique, Report submitted to the ministère des Affaires étrangères et du Développement international and to the ministère de la Culture et de la Communication of France, Montreal, February 2015, 129 pp.

Gagné, Gilbert, “The World Trade Organization and Dispute Settlement: Too Much for Litigation”, University of New Brunswick Law Journal, Vol. 65, 2014, pp. 191-212.

Gagné, Gilbert, “Free Trade, Cultural Policies, and the Digital Revolution: Evidence from the U.S. FTAs with Australia and South Korea”, Asian Journal of WTO & International Health Law and Policy, Vol. 9, No. 1, March 2014, pp. 257-286.

Gagné, Gilbert and Michel Paulin, “The Softwood Lumber Dispute and the US Allegations of Improper NAFTA Panel Review”, American Review of Canadian Studies, Vol. 43, No. 3, Autumn 2013, pp. 413-423.

Gagné, Gilbert, “The U.S. Policy on the Protection of Foreign Investment: From the NAFTA to the U.S.-Korea FTA”, The Journal of World Investment & Trade, Vol. 12, No. 6, December 2011, pp. 807-825.

Gagné, Gilbert, “Free Trade and Cultural Policies: Evidence from Three US Agreements”, Journal of World Trade, Vol. 45, No. 6, December 2011, pp. 1267-1284.

Gagné, Gilbert, “Regional Economic Dynamics”, in Christopher Kirkey, Jarrett Rudy, and Stephan Gervais (eds), Québec Questions: Québec Studies for the 21^st Century, Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 371-382.

Gagné, Gilbert and Laurent Viau, “Le Québec après 20 ans de libre-échange avec les États-Unis”, in Guy Lachapelle (ed.), Le destin américain du Québec: américanité, américanisation et anti-américanisme, Quebec City: Les Presses de l’Université Laval, 2010, pp. 157-182.

Gagné, Gilbert and Éric Jasmin, “Les politiques forestières du Québec et le commerce «loyal»: le différend sur le bois d’oeuvre”, Canadian Public Policy, Vol. 36, No. 1, March 2010, pp. 91-106.

Gagné, Gilbert, “Le rôle du Québec dans la promotion de la diversité culturelle et linguistique au sein des organisations internationales: Obtenir l’appui de la communauté internationale sans en faire partie”, in Robert Laliberté (ed.), À la rencontre d’un Québec qui bouge: Introduction générale au Québec, Paris: Éditions du CTHS, 2009, pp. 265-277.

Gagné, Gilbert and François Roch, “The US-Canada Softwood Lumber Dispute and the WTO Definition of Subsidy”, World Trade Review, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2008, pp. 547-572.

Gagné, Gilbert, “La Convention sur la protection et la promotion de la diversité des expressions culturelles et l’interface culture – commerce”, in Guy Lachapelle (ed.), Diversité culturelle, identités et mondialisation: de la ratification à la mise en oeuvre de la convention sur la diversité culturelle, Quebec City: Les Presses de l’Université Laval, 2008, pp. 77-89.

Gagné, Gilbert, “Policy Diversity, State Autonomy, and the US-Canada Softwood Lumber Dispute: Philosophical and Normative Aspects”, Journal of World Trade, Vol. 41, No. 4, August 2007, pp. 699-730.

Gagné, Gilbert and Jean-Frédéric Morin, “What Can Best Explain the Prevalence of Bilateralism in the Investment Regime?”, International Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 36, No. 1, Spring 2007, pp. 53-74

Gagné, Gilbert and Jean-Frédéric Morin, “The Evolving American Policy on Investment Protection: Evidence From Recent FTAs and the 2004 Model BIT”, Journal of International Economic Law, Vol. 9, No. 2, 2006, pp. 357-382.

Gagné, Gilbert (ed.), La diversité culturelle: vers une convention internationale effective?, Montreal: Fides, 2005, 215 pp.

Gagné, Gilbert, “L’identité québécoise et l’intégration continentale”, Politique et Sociétés, Vol. 23, Nos. 2-3, 2004, pp. 45-68.

Gagné, Gilbert, “Le règlement des différends”, in Dorval Brunelle and Christian Deblock (eds), L’ALENA: le libre-échange en défaut, Montreal: Fides, 2004, pp. 299-323.

Gagné, Gilbert, René Côté, and Christian Deblock, Les récents accords de libre-échange conclus par les États-Unis : une menace à la diversité culturelle, Report submitted to the Agence intergouvernementale de la Francophonie, June 2004, 68pp.

Gagné, Gilbert, “Cultural Sovereignty, Identity, and North American Integration: on the Relevance of the U.S.-Canada-Quebec Border”, Québec Studies, Vol. 36, Fall 2003/Winter 2004, pp. 29-49.

Gagné, Gilbert, “The Canada-US Softwood Lumber Dispute: A Test Case for the Development of International Trade Rules”, International Journal, Vol. 58, No. 3, Summer 2003, pp. 335-368.

Lachapelle, Guy and Gilbert Gagné, “Intégration économique, valeurs et identités: les attitudes matérialistes et postmatérialistes des Québécois”, Politique et Sociétés, Vol. 22, No. 1, 2003, pp. 27-52.

Gagné, Gilbert. 2002. “Canada-US Border and Culture: How to ensure Canadian cultural sovereignty.” Canadian Foreign Policy, 9(2), 159-170.

Gagné, Gilbert, “North American Integration and Canadian Culture”, in George Hoberg (ed.), Capacity For Choice: Canada in a New North America, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002, pp. 159-183.

Gagné, Gilbert, “The Investor-State Provisions in the Aborted MAI and in NAFTA: Issues and Prospects”, The Journal of World Investment, Vol. 2, No. 3, September 2001, pp. 481-505.

Gagné, Gilbert, “Mondialisation, régionalisation et questions identitaires: le Canada, le Québec et l’exception culturelle”, Revue québécoise de droit international, Vol. 13, No. 2, 2000, pp. 277-288.

Gagné, Gilbert, “International Trade Rules and States: Enhanced Authority for the WTO?”, in Richard A. Higgott, Geoffrey R.D. Underhill, and Andreas Bieler (eds), Non-State Actors and Authority in the Global System, London/New York: Routledge, 2000, pp. 226-240.

Gagné, Gilbert, “North American Free Trade, Canada, and US Trade Remedies: An Assessment After Ten Years”, The World Economy, Vol. 23, No. 1, January 2000, pp. 77-91.

Gagné, Gilbert, “Libéralisation et exception culturelle: le différend canado-américain sur les périodiques”, Études internationales, Vol. 30, No. 3, September 1999, pp. 571-588.

Gagné, Gilbert, “Libre-échange, souveraineté et américanité: une nouvelle Trinité pour le Québec?”, Politique et Sociétés, Vol. 18, No. 1, 1999, pp. 99-107.

Gagné, Gilbert, “The Canada-US Softwood Lumber Dispute – An Assessment after 15 Years”, Journal of World Trade, Vol. 33, No. 1, February 1999, pp. 67-86.

Gagné, Gilbert, “Les subventions et les droits compensateurs: de nécessaires améliorations aux dispositions de l’ALÉNA”, Canadian Foreign Policy, Vol. 3, No. 3, Winter 1995, pp. 71-85.

Dr. Sarah-Myriam Martin-Brûlé

Full Professor

Sarah-Myriam Martin-Brûlé is a Full Professor at Bishop’s University, a Non-Resident Fellow at the International Peace Institute, and a consultant for the UN Peacekeeping-Intelligence Coordination Team. 3M 2021 National Teaching fellow, she is research leader for the Réseau d’analyse stratégique-Network on Strategic Analysis, Deputy Director of the Réseau de recherche sur les opérations de paix, and the 2018–2019 Canada Fulbright Research Chair for Peace and War Studies. She is an associate faculty member of the Center for International Peace and Security Studies (CIPSS) and of the Montreal Center for International Studies (CERIUM). Her research focuses on peacekeeping-intelligence.

Her most recent publications include “Competing for Trust: Challenges in UN Peacekeeping-Intelligence“ and “Finding the UN Way on Peacekeeping-Intelligence”. Co-author of the first United Nations Field Handbook on Joint Mission Analysis Centres, she recently conducted fieldwork at the MINUSCA (Central African Republic), MINUSMA (Mali), MONUSCO (Democratic Republic of Congo) and UNMISS (South Sudan). She is co-hosting with Dr. Thomas Juneau the first francophone podcast in Canada addressing defense and security issues, “Conseils de sécurité” a co-production of the Canadian and Defense Security Network and the Network for Strategic Analysis.

Dr. Heather McKeen-Edwards

Full Professor

Heather McKeen-Edwards completed a Ph.D. in Political Science from McMaster University. Her research spans two complementary areas: international political economy and finance, and sport policy and governance. Across both areas, she examines governance, public policy, and institutional responses to complex policy challenges.

Her research in international political economy and public policy primarily focuses on financial services governance and policy. She is the co-author (with Tony Porter) of Transnational Financial Associations and the Governance of Global Finance: Assembling Wealth and Power (Routledge, 2013). More recently, she co-edited Ineffective Policies: Causes and Consequences of Bad Policy Choices (Policy Press, 2025), which examines bad and ineffective policies across several policy fields and considers how policymakers can identify and respond to them.

Her sport research examines policy and governance, with a particular focus on safe sport and the role of referees and officials, and she is a core member of the Sport Hub for Innovation and Futures Thinking (SHIFT), Bishop’s interdisciplinary sport research centre. Her current research is a comparative study of sport integrity governance systems and a project on the integration of sport officials into governance systems. She also teaches and supervises students in sport policy, governance, and the intersection of politics and sport.

View Dr. McKeen-Edwards’s publications on Google Scholar.

Dr. Jacob Robbins-Kanter

Associate Professor

Dr. Robbins-Kanter’s research focuses on elections, political communication, parties, representation, Canadian politics, and public policy. He earned his PhD in Political Studies from Queen’s University, following degrees from Queen’s and McGill University. His PhD research, funded by a SSHRC Canada Graduate Research Scholarship, included field work in three provinces and nearly 100 interviews with Canadian politicians. He is a research fellow at the Groupe de recherche en communication politique (GRCP) and the Centre for the Study of Democracy and Diversity.

Dr. Robbins-Kanter’s research has appeared in leading journals and edited volumes, contributing to debates on party politics, political representation, and democratic governance in Canada. He is author of two recent books published in 2025. Local Campaign Behaviour in Canadian Elections: The Contours of Centralization (University of Toronto Press) examines how local and national political organizations communicate with voters. The Working Class and Politics in Canada (UBC Press) examines how socioeconomic diversity is represented in democratic institutions. Dr. Robbins-Kanter has won three recent teaching prizes, including The William and Nancy Turner Teaching Award, the highest teaching award at Bishop’s.

See Dr. Robbins-Kanter’s recent publications at his webpage: jacobrobbinskanter.com

Dr. Trygve Ugland

Full Professor

Trygve Ugland was educated at the University of Oslo and Queen’s University of Belfast, and received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Oslo. His research and teaching interests are in the fields of Comparative Politics and Comparative Public Policy, with particular emphasis on European and Scandinavian politics as well as transatlantic relations. His most recent books include Jean Monnet and Canada: Early Travels and the Idea of European Unity (University of Toronto Press, 2011) and Policy Learning from Canada: Reforming Scandinavian Immigration and Integration Policies (University of Toronto Press, 2018).

At Bishop’s University, he has served as Secretary General and Vice-Principal of Government Relations and Planning (2017–2022) and has completed three terms as Chair of the Department of Politics and International Studies, where he has been a faculty member since 2003. He has also been a guest researcher at the Université de Montréal and the University of Copenhagen.

See Dr. Ugland’s Publications on Google Scholar.