Robert Shum teaches courses at the intersections of politics with law and public policy. He applies a broad range of theoretical and methodological approaches to his current research interests in energy and environmental policy, to which he also brings his prior experience of legal and policy processes in practice, as a participant in international trade negotiations with the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, and, before that, as a specialist in international trade and finance policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
Education
PhD, Johns Hopkins University, Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, 2011
M.P.P., Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government, 2001
LL.B., University of British Columbia, 1998
B.A., McGill University, 1995
Courses Taught
PLS 111 Introduction to International Relations
PLS 312 Introduction to Public Administration
PLS 318 State and Local Government
PLS 328 Politics of Energy
PLS 410 International Political Economy
PLS 412 Public Policy
PLS 427 Environmental Policy
PLS 445 International Law and Organizations
Decarbonizing contending industries: policy design and the EU’s CBAM.Climate Policy,2023. https://doi.org/10.1080/14693062.2023.2194275
Heliopolitics: The international political economy of solar supply chains.Energy Strategy Reviews, 2019, 26 (2019). doi: 10.1016/j.esr.2019.100390
The coming solar trade war: obstacles to decarbonization from a political-economy conflict.Electricity Journal,2017, 30(8): 49-53. doi: 10.1016/j.tej.2017.09.003.
A comparison of land-use requirements in solar-based decarbonisation scenarios.Energy Policy,2017, 109: 460-462. doi: 10.1016/j.enpol.2017.07.014.
Where constructivism meets resource constraints: The politics of oil, renewables, and a US energy transition.Environmental Politics,24, 3, (May 2015): 382-400, doi: 10.1080/09644016.20151008236.
China, the United States, bargaining, and climate change.International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics,2014, 14 (1): 83-100, doi: 10.1007/s10784-013-9231-4.
Social construction and physical nihilation of the Keystone XL pipeline: Lessons from International Relations theory.Energy Policy, 2013, 59 (C): 82-85. doi: 10.1016/j.enpol.2013.04.014
“Effects of economic recession and local weather on climate change attitudes,” Climate Policy, 2012, 12 (1): 38-49, doi: 10.1080/14693062.2011.579316.
“Can attitudes predict outcomes? Public opinion, democratic institutions and environmental policy,” Environmental Policy and Governance, 2009, 19 (5): 281-295.
“The Institutional Legitimacy of the International Trade System,” in Okafor and Aginam, eds., Humanizing Our Global Order: Essays in Honour of Ivan Head, University of Toronto Press, 2003.
