Recruited to Queen's University in 2002 as Canada Research Chair in Nationalism and Democracy, Dr. John McGarry continues to bring hands-on policy-making experience to the classroom.
McGarry has had many opportunities to bring his research to bear on real life issues during his 15-month tenure as 'Senior Advisor on Power-sharing' to the UN Mediation Support Unit (2008-09), and he continues to advise the UN on a part-time basis today. Recently McGarry attended a gathering in Geneva involving the UN and the leaders of the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities. The meeting was aimed at establishing if there is an agreed basis on which to reunify the divided island. The negotiations were chaired by UN Secretary-General, Ban-Ki-Moon.
McGarry's election in 2010 to the Royal Society of Canada recognized his work as an international authority on conflict resolution, power-sharing and federalism. In Consociational Theory: McGarry and O'Leary and the Northern Ireland conflict (Routledge 2009), edited by Rupert Taylor, McGarry and his University of Pennsylvania colleague Brendan O'Leary are given substantial credit for providing some of the ideas behind the ultra-successful Northern Ireland peace process.
McGarry will have the opportunity to discuss Northern Ireland and recent Cyprus negotiations at an upcoming workshop on "Power-Sharing: Empirical and Normative Critiques" at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto from November 18 - 19, 2011. He is co-organizing the workshop with another leading member of the SSHRC MCRI Ethnicity and Democratic Governance research project, Professor Richard Simeon (University of Toronto) who also works in deeply divided, post-conflict nations such as Sudan. A previous workshop on territorial autonomy in 2008 involved the study of the division of powers among central/federal and regional governments. The 2011 workshop will examine the sharing of power within central (or federal), regional and local government institutions with the intention of subjecting power-sharing theory and practice to empirical and normative analysis and criticism.