This course will introduce students to some of the main themes related to environment and development, and natural resources, and how they relate to peace and conflict.
We will discuss the concepts of global environmental change, sustainable development, and environmental security, and natural resource conflicts. Specific focus will be given to Climate Change, and to the different approaches to development inside the sustainable development discourse. We will look at two environment and development discourses, namely Malthusianism and political economy, and how they lead to very different understandings of the supposed root causes, and of the proposed solutions to the environmental crisis we are facing today.
Together, we will examine two case studies that shed light on how world views influence our understanding of complex phenomena. Specifically, we will look at the Rwanda genocide and at the recent Syrian conflict, and how environmental dimensions are used to “explain” these horrible realities of the recent past. These case studies will serve to bring all the concepts of this course together and will hopefully allow us to draw some general conclusions.
The 21st century is described as the age of globalization, a phenomenon which is increasingly affecting human beings in every aspect of their lives. While globalization has undoubtedly resulted in significant economic and social integration at the global level, the pace at which it is occurring has also brought with it several unintended consequences for the respect and promotion of human rights at other levels. The principal institutions facilitating this phenomenon such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization, have often been accused of keeping human rights issues out of their respective domains. The critical challenge, therefore, facing the present world order lies in ensuring that the vehicles of globalization are oriented towards development and promotion of human rights, through appropriate laws and policies. This course will introduce students to the major themes and debates concerning these different linkages between globalization and human rights and explore the new streams of critique that have enabled a confluence as well as a questioning of the globalization-human rights interface.
This course introduces the theory and practice of conflict analysis, the methodical assessment of conflict – its history, causes, structure, actors, and dynamics.
Conflict analysis is the fundamental tool of peace operations, especially peace-building, development work in areas of conflict, and medium to long-term humanitarian assistance. It provides the necessary understanding of the context in which these interventions take place, and point towards possible entry points where conflict dynamics may be affected by them. As such, conflict analysis should – ideally – be the basis of planning, implementation, and monitoring. Furthermore, it complements other types of analysis, such as needs analysis, or functions as precursor to others, like Do No Harm analysis. This course will concentrate on conflict analysis in the context of peace-building but the general principles, skills, and methods are applicable across the wider set of activities conducted in conflict-affected areas indicated earlier.
Capacity building and project implementation may be complex and sometimes difficult. Certain methods that may apply to certain communities may not be applicable to other communities because of cultural, religious, climate conditions, gender, sexual orientation and many other differences among them. It is important to take into consideration such differences and reflect on how they should affect our selecting of methods.
The course will provide tools for recognizing possible complexities and means to diffuse them. We will investigate and analyse case studies, attempt to identify possible intersectional-intercultural challenges and discuss ways to improve our methods. We will also discuss success stories and learn from them how we can better ourselves.
By the end of the course, students will have a broader view of capacity building and projects implementation issues and they will be able to better analyse new situations and improve the results of their work.
The course will provide an overview of the basic concepts and terminology of disarmament and non-proliferation both of weapons of mass destruction as well as conventional weapons, discussing how the various international instruments (treaties, conventions, arrangements, etc.) contribute to promoting international peace and security. Amid the continued escalation of global challenges, it will discuss gaps in arms control and the convergence of emerging technologies.
The role of the international community as a whole will be referred to,including the multilateral organizations, the private sector and non-governmental organizations. It is expected that as a result of the course students will deliberate and reflect upon their own role and responsibility towards making this a safer and more secure world.
The course will first discuss weapons of mass destruction (WMD’s),starting by providing an overview of the international disarmament machinery for WMD’s as well as the role of different institutions in the field. Then a more in-depth discussion will be generated, such as “as treaties collapse, can we still prevent a nuclear arms race?”
We live in a world surrounded by individuals and communities with diverse ways of being. In order to understand the nature of these varieties of lived experiences around us, it is crucial to critically examine the ways in which they are rooted in systems of power. This course focuses on gender and sexuality as categories that are shaped by this power and inform the positions people occupy in a range of social contexts. It aims to equip students with the knowledge and skills required to perform an intersectional analysis of inequalities that those marginalized on the basis of their gender and sexuality face. Students will be facilitated in considering multiple categories like religion, race, ethnicity, class, and ability, in order to contextualize the meanings and manifestations of gender and sexuality. Case studies will be shared to apply the theoretical perspectives discussed throughout the course to analyze practical issues and to understand solutions to some of the complex challenges that gender and sexual marginalization poses.
This course provides historical context and a theoretical foundation for the study of contemporary world politics in Peace and Conflict Studies. The course reviews concepts of globalization, interdependence, sovereignty, and international relations, and engages with key theoretical debates related to development, order, security, diversity, and peace. Offering a focused and critical consideration of the concept of global governance, the course explores international and transnational structures, including regional bodies, the United Nations, and other formal institutions, as well as less formal associations, movements, and other examples of global connectivity. Our final sessions look directly at the international political challenges of war, instability, and environmental crisis. The course assignments provide participants with opportunities to review the theoretical tools they have developed and to apply them to analyses of contemporary topics in world politics.
This course introduces participants to the international law dimensions of peace and conflicts. It explores the international legal standards, both in treaty law and in customary international law, that underpin the prevention, management and resolution of inter-state and intra-state conflicts. The course adopts a diverse range of approaches to examine the rules, procedures, successes and failures of key international organizations, including the United Nations, as well as regional organizations, in responding to peace and conflict situations. Several case studies of actual policy responses, or lack thereof, will be explored in the course. Participants will also learn about the limits that international law places on States and non-state actors in peace and conflict situations, before moving into a critical discussion on the debates surrounding lack of enforcement of those standards in international law. Finally, the course will explore how international law intersects with other areas of inquiry related to peace and conflict studies, in order to promote multi-pronged responses to peace and conflict situations.
Narco-terrorism, narco-jihadism, narco-insurgency, mafia-state, narco-state and even narco-terror state: many labels have been used in the past decades to describe the interlinkages between international phenomena such as the illicit drugs economy, transnational organized crime, conflict and terrorism. Professor Louise Shelly has called these ‘dirty entanglements.’ For example, Mexico’s dire situation has been described as a narco-conflict. Colombia’s FARC and Afghanistan’s Taliban have both been depicted as drug cartels in recent years. In Afghanistan, NATO has recently gone so far to bomb opium processing laboratories to combat what the Atlantic Alliance calls ‘Taliban’s narcotics financing.’
This course explores the linkages between crime, terrorism and conflict as key global governance challenges in the 21st century. It aims to help students develop a nuanced view about the extent to which such interlinkages are real or political fabrications to promote certain policies. Therefore, an important part of the course will relate these issues to the policy positions of states and international institutions. For example, in Afghanistan there has been quite a political push after 2005 by both the United Nations and NATO to increasingly link the Taliban to the illicit opium economy. What has been the effect of such ‘securitization moves’, using the concept of the Copenhagen School of security studies? Are politicians and military leaders able to frame conflicts and insecurity in a way that highlights the need to address certain transnational crimes? Or, vice versa, is the ‘fight’ against transnational crime used as a Trojan Horse to promote other policies?
The course constitutes an advanced course dealing with central structural arrangements conducive towards war, militarism, hegemonic masculinities, Femininities, nationalism, conflict creation and resolution, greed, and competitiveness and its consequent violence, including violence against women. The impediments specifically created by lack of gender equity will be analyzed, an analysis that is seen as pivotal for peacekeeping in times of rapid globalization.
Some of the material assigned for the course offers specific strategies for empowerment and achieving gender equity, while representing the necessity for these strategies to be connected to a structural changes and a drastic shift away from the discourses concerning women with the terms “vulnerabilities” and victimization and about males as innately aggressive. It examines the complex relationships between gender, biology, race, class, ethnicity, nationalism, religion, sexual orientation, militarization, both in the domestic and the public spheres. The former is analyzed as a pillar for the latter. Global gender indicators will complement the above material.
The definitions of what constitutes human security have been shifting, specifically when analyzed from a clear gender perspective, assuming that: a) there is no clear boundary between war and peace for women worldwide; and b) security considerations go beyond that of relationships between States and focus on the human. The course will thus focus on peace building and peace education, as well as Gender analysis to Security and peace building.
Among the diverse conflicts that have led to divisions and violence in historical times and in the contemporary world, some clearly involve peoples who belong to different religions or faiths. Such conflicts have popularly created the assumption and conclusion that religion or faith has been or is a primary "cause” of violence and even wars. However, on careful analysis of the dynamics and complexities of the conflicts, this perspective is now being increasingly challenged. Drawing on exemplars from diverse regions and societies, this course seeks to clarify how religious and faith identities, beliefs and practices can motivate followers to engage in violent conflicts, albeit often in intersections with diverse economic, political and social factors. The potential for exclusivist interpretations of religious or faith "truths” to fuel extremism, intolerances, discrimination and even violence, including "terrorism”, will also be critically analyzed . On the other hand, there is a widening recognition that religion, faith and diverse spirituality traditions can play a positive role in building a culture of peace at local, national and global levels of life. The course hence will highlight the creative nonviolent contributions of faiths and religions in resolving and transforming conflicts and violence . Insights and lessons from strategies such as the expanding movements of interfaith and intra-faith dialogue as well as faith-based initiatives in peacebuilding will also be explored. The course will be especially relevant to peacebuilders working in contexts of cultural and faith or religious complexities and diversities.
In this course we will become familiar with contemporary issues regarding climate change adaptation and critically analyze key debates in the field. Students will learn about relevant theory and how to apply this in practice. We will engage in a shared critical analysis of climate change adaptation, we will examine international successes, and identify challenges in the field. Throughout our course students will examine contemporary issues through a critical review of the published literature and through real world case studies.
The contemporary global order is founded upon the principle of sovereignty of States and non-interference in each other’s domestic affairs. At the same time, there is an ever-increasing push for 'global governance' as the key to resolving issues of common concern to humanity, especially those which are transboundary in nature. But how should global governance work in the absence of a global government? Is global governance a good thing or a bad thing for humanity and the planet anyway? Recent world events have demonstrated that while elements of global governance on issues such as climate change and forced displacement might be necessary, grassroots organizations and civil society have simultaneously pushed back against ‘too much’ global governance in other areas such as trade and finance. Should we then move towards more global governance by identifying the gaps and plugging them? Or should we rather move towards restricting global governance because it is invasive and shrinks ‘governance space’ of States?
This course introduces students to the various dimensions of global governance, debates on its lack of effectiveness in some areas, as well as debates on its over-regulation in some others. The course adopts a multi-disciplinary approach to unpacking this important and emerging area of global policy making. It also adopts a dynamic pedagogy included readings, multi-media content, lectures, and discussion forums.
Environmental degradation, humanitarian crisis, immigration, financial meltdowns or military interventions do not recognize any geographic boundaries and challenge the political borders on which the international politico-legal system is founded. Nevertheless, while the importance of territory and inter-state boundaries is perceived as diminishing in the globalized world of the 21st century, many of the contemporary conflicts are inseparable from their territorial roots. Hence, establishing and managing limits between sovereign states and neighboring countries constitute today an unlimited source of tension around the world. Against the violent background of political borders, this class brings a critical perspective with respect to the role of modern international law in matters of peace and stability.
International law is founded on territorialized concepts such as state, sovereignty, effective control and territorial jurisdiction. Nonetheless, this legal system seems to be inherently paradoxical as it incorporates rules and principles which break through the territorial configuration of the very same system - self-determination, human rights, contingent sovereignty, responsibility to protect and claims of universality are a few examples. The course will raise the following questions: What is the structure of the international legal argument regarding borders? Is the pluralistic legal system chaotic and contradictory, or is there an overarching legal pattern bringing coherence to the legal system related to political borders? What does this system say and what kind of impact does it leave on the globe. Also, the most theoretical questions are combining with the answer that international law presented to some of the issues raised along the course: delimitation, demarcation, territorial control, among many other concepts.
The courses focus the analysis on case studies, from a historical and actual agenda in the international community.
Revolutionary armed conflict was once considered the only way for oppressed peoples to change severe injustice and oppression. Bloodshed was deemed necessary, often justified by the cliché that what was taken by violence can only be retrieved by violence. In the last decades of the 20th century, however, it became clear that armed insurrection is not the only choice for aggrieved groups and societies, and that nonviolent civil resistance, relying on a variety of forms of nonviolent action, could bring some impressive results. Some failures also occurred. Although this phenomenon has been coherently utilized to achieve political and social change for well over a century by groups, peoples, and societies in differing cultures and political systems, only recently has it gained respect as a potentially formidable strategic force by policy makers, political analysts, scholars, peacemakers, and international specialists of many fields.
Contemporary dictatorships and tyrants have collapsed from the pressure exerted by popular mass movements of nonviolent action, in countries such as the former Czechoslovakia, Chile, East Germany, Georgia on the Black Sea, the Philippines, Poland, Serbia, South Africa, or Ukraine, to name a few. In 2010–11, national nonviolent movements in Tunisia and Egypt changed the face of North Africa and the Middle East. Evidence shows that countries that experience bottom-up, grass-roots nonviolent struggle are more likely to sustain human rights and democracy once established than when armed insurrection is used, and that nonviolent movements succeed more often than violent insurrections. Given this record, it is important for would-be peacemakers to explore systematically the theories, methods, dynamics, and strategies of such movements
The central goal of this course is to provide an introduction to a variety of research approaches and methods in the social sciences. The aim of the course is to enable students to develop their own research designs as well as be able to critique the research designs of others. Students will be exposed to different research methodologies (quantitative and qualitative), and data analysis techniques.
The student in this course will be required: to read compulsory readings and optional ones, to interact with fellow participants and instructors, listening to weekly presentations by the Instructors and most importantly, critical self-reflection.
At the end of the Course, the student will have a research design that should be conducted as part of their professional work and is an academic requirement for a course.
In this course, students will critically examine contemporary issues in food security as well as the historical processes that have shaped our current food system. We start by presenting the Food and Agriculture Organization’s framework for food security and use this as a lens for our critical thinking throughout the course. We analyze how sustainable agriculture is central to food security. We unpack how international trade and markets influence individual and national food security. We present food sovereignty as a movement that has emerged in response to trade liberalization and inequality in our food system. To build on principles of equality, we include gender as a lens to better understand the nuances of how food insecurity affects people differently. To close, we examine food waste and its innovative solutions. This class is relevant to students and professionals working in education, research, programming and policy that want to deepen their understanding of food security and to acquire tools and frameworks applicable in this field.
On 25 September, 2015, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a new and ambitious collective global plan of action for transforming our world by 2030 through the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs, which are part and parcel of the 2030 Agenda, replace and build upon the previous Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which ran their course in 2015. The advancement of the SDGs over the MDGs is not only in its scope – there are now 17 Goals as against the previous 8 – but also in some of the known structural shortcomings in the design of targets and indicators of the MDGs.
The global agenda for development, including development aid, financing, and international cooperation, for the next 15 years will likely gravitate around the SDGs. Indeed, the 2030 Agenda calls for a convergence around the SDGs of responses to several contemporary issues of global concern, whether related to climate change, human rights, peace and security, gender equality, migration, safe cities, rule of law, good governance, education, health, multilateral trade, investment, amongst others. However, a successful implementation of the SDGs can only result from learning the lessons from the MDG story where despite admirable progress in some goals, some others unfortunately remained off-track.
All social interactions, from personal relationships to international arena, experience opposing preferences. Hence an introductory course on the theory and practice of negotiation and mediation is essential for understanding topics as diverse as marital disputes, organizational relations, community conflicts, group decision-making and international relations. It will enhance one's ability to critically review situations in order to find and adopt a mutually accepted solution to a given situation. This course is therefore designed to serve as a broad introduction to the nature, scope, theories and practices of negotiation and mediation. The course will examine the complex and yet essential roles of negotiation and mediation as part of the main procedures of dealing with opposing preferences and as models of constructive conflict transformation. The course will set the context with a discussion on the nature, assumptions, emotions and decision-making approaches involved in negotiations, the dynamics revolving around it and the gender perspective to it. It will also examine the various objectives, considerations, essences and processes of mediation. The course utilizes participatory and interactive pedagogies.