The University for Peace Foundation Course in Peace and Conflict Studies is designed to engage students in an examination of the major contemporary challenges to peace, sources of conflict and violence, and several key nonviolent mechanisms for conflict transformation and prevention. The course is designed to provide a common foundation for UPEACE students from all of the different M.A. programs (as its name suggests). During the course, an understanding of the complex and interconnected challenges to peace will be developed, as will an understanding of the need for multi-faceted approaches to meeting these challenges. Students will also engage critically with theories of conflict, and will develop their understanding of the theoretical resources available in the area of conflict studies. During the course of their studies at UPEACE students will engage in increasingly specialized inquiry into various dimensions and issues in their specific MA areas. The foundation course provides an opportunity to explore connections, sympathies, and synergies between the challenges and approaches identified in all of these areas from a “wide-angle” perspective that will encourage students to continue making such interdisciplinary connections and analyses throughout their tenure at UPEACE and after.
Rights of Human Beings forms one of the most important branches of international law in the contemporary world. The experience of the 'scourge of war' during and in the immediate aftermath of World War II brought about a new international recognition and focus to the rights of human beings. Today, there are several international treaties guarenteeing a wide range of rights to human beings, both in times of peace and in conflicts. These instruments also impose obligations upon States to respect, protect and fulfil those rights. Under the aegis of the United Nations and regional organizations, several bodies have been established to monitor violations of rights of human beings. Despite these efforts, we continue to live in a world where these rights are rampantly abused. The events of 9/11 have also seriously exacerbated the challenges faced by rights protection. Today, like never before, there is an amplified need for students and professionals from all spheres of life to not only understand and mainstream rights of human beings into their activities, but also to be prepared to meet the growing challenges posed by current and emerging global issues.
This course introduces participants to the international legal regime for protection of rights of human beings. We will focus on both international human rights law and international humanitarian law. The course is divided into two parts. In part one, we will cover a broad spectrum of issues in human rights protection, beginning with the history and philosophical foundations of human rights and ending with contemporary challenges thereto. We will explore the core human rights instruments, the enforcement mechanisms established under international law and will also give special attention to the rights of vulnerable persons and groups. In Part two, we will focus on international humanitarian law which covers rights of human beings, and obligations of States and organized armed groups, during armed conflicts. In both parts, we will have a strong blend of contemporary challenges to the existing protection regime with insights drawn from case studies.
The course will adopt a dynamic pedagogy including required and optional readings, interaction with fellow participants and instructor, listening to weekly presentations by the Instructor and most importantly, critical self-reflection. The course will be covered in ten weeks and each week's theme will require a minimum of three hours of devotion by participants
Armed conflict has always been the most flagrant form of confrontation between groups of humans. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War there has been a shift away from inter-state wars and civil wars, perhaps more precisely, low intensity armed conflicts, have become the most common forms of organised violence. This shift has important implications on the forms of war fighting but, more importantly, on how armed conflicts are managed, how societies transform during and after war. It also provides a new challenge to the international community that it is only learning to tackle.
While civil wars invariably have various root causes that are unique to them, one common thread is the weakening of the nation state and its subsequent inability to provide its most basic function: security. This lack of security in many cases provides the space and the incentive for non-state actors to challenge the state and begin civil war.
The course aims at reviewing the various sources and explanations of civil wars, their dynamics and the prospects of settlement. It also historicises the phenomenon, along with state formation in various contexts.
The course examines the complex relationships between gender, violence, economic exploitation, scientific abuse, distorted ethics and warfare. The focus of the course is in assessing the possibilities of engendering notions of peace, conflict, justice, and conflict gender arrangements. It is also about challenging discourses and practices which ignore, minimize or justify the domination of women worldwide.
Gender is embedded in every single aspect of society, from sex to war. We will study the debate over the rise of patriarchy and its creation of different, unequal and violent social and cultural structures of power and domination. We will try to answer questions on whether there were any biological or cultural reasons for a division of labor that led women to be subjugated, since prehistoric times. It will study on how this initial division of labor has been maintained throughout most economic revolutions. It will analyze the connections between masculinity, wealth accumulation and violence. Are men more aggressive? Do different historical economic systems depend on the exploitation of women? Is masculinity the problem for obtaining world peace? Can we have enlightened masculinity and achieve more egalitarian families and more peaceful social relations? We will look at the problem of war and the military. Are armies run for, and by, men? Are women better at resolving conflicts? Will their inclusion into armies help create world peace? This course will also study science, economics, medicine and psychology as engendered disciplines that sometimes reproduce, instead of resolve, conflict and exploitation. We will look at how science has been a partner in genocide and how it can be used to oppress women and minorities. Finally, the occurrence of migration and trafficking will be analyzed, as it is considered a modern form of slavery.
Our global demographics are changing rapidly, and few places remain in the world that are highly homogenous. In many of today’s global-oriented organizations and businesses, leaders will often confront culturally challenging situations. It is imperative to understand and be able to work in environments that are fundamentally different from one’s own. The objective of this course is to help build the capacity of the learner to be sensitive and respectful of diversity and to learn how to better maneuver within different cultural contexts.
This course is divided into two related parts. The first half is dedicated to developing the learner’s understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of culture, multiculturalism and diversity. The learner will understand what culture and diversity mean, culture’s relationship to peacebuilding, and some of the debates surrounding cultural relativism. The second half of the course is devoted to developing the skills and capacities of leaders to work in multicultural contexts. The learner will begin by examining her or his own culture and developing skills for understanding and effectively working with other cultures. Various practical skills will be developed, including leadership with diversity and utilizing cultural resources for peacebuilding.
There are nine lessons in total for the course. Each lesson takes at least five hours to complete, including the reading and related the activities and assignments.
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.
The course aims at understanding the impact of climate change on the global environment and on human activity. Climate change increases risks to livelihoods and may endanger the security of individuals and groups. This in turn could increase the propensity for conflict within and between states and generate the displacement of people due to environmental stress and conflict.
Components of the course will include a critical examination of the drivers of climate change, in particular those induced by human activity. In addition, international efforts to limit the magnitude of climate changes—including those concluded in Kyoto and Cancun—will be reviewed. Consequences of climate change for human health, for economic activity, for resource use and resource availability will also be examined, as will be the options for adapting to climate change.
The violence of revolutionary armed conflict was once considered the only way for oppressed peoples to change desperate and severe injustice. Bloodshed was deemed necessary, often justified by the cliché that what was taken by violence can only be retrieved by violence. In recent decades, however, it has become abundantly clear that armed insurrection is not the only choice for aggrieved groups and societies. Nonviolent civil resistance, relying on a variety of forms of nonviolent action, has been coherently used to achieve political and social change for well over a century by varying peoples and societies in differing cultures and political systems, with some impressive results, as well as some failures. This phenomenon has recently gained greater respect as a potentially formidable strategic force by policy makers, political analysts, scholars, peacemakers, and international specialists of many fields.
As early as in 1996, Usama bin Laden declared that his aim was to directly affect the lives of ordinary Americans in terms of human and economic costs, as well as to initiate a global insurgency against infidel regimes. More than 10 years later, and in light of the current global economic recession, this goal seems to be finally in reach. While the number of acts of terrorism has slightly diminished since September 11th 2001, their intensity and scope throughout the world have become unprecedented. Whether through taking a flight or filling their gas tanks, citizens of the United States are being affected daily by the specter of a global insurgency. In the last 10 years, international “terrorism” has mutated from a being a cluster of exclusive organizations to a grass-root dogma that possesses a global reach. How did it come to this and what role did mass communication play in all this? How did al-Qaeda become ‘al-Qaedism’, an ideological franchise that Usama bin Laden himself would have been unable to stop from spreading if he ever had chosen to?
This online course will assess the systemic nature and globalization of insurgencies in terms of the mass communication used by groups to grow, self-sustain, recruit militants, spread their identity and elicit support from their target audience. This will be facilitated by the analysis of five political insurgency networks: the Lebanese Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, the Iraqi insurgency, and several State zionist groups that contributed to the creation of the State of Israel. The course will prepare students to think analytically about terrorism and insurgency, and use various models of mass communication to understand their dynamics and processes. At the end of the course, the students are expected to have a sound knowledge of the field of mass communication applied to terrorism and insurgency.
This course will introduce students to the relations between the environment, natural resources, and peace and conflict.
We will discuss the concepts of Global Environmental Change, Sustainable Development, and Environmental Security. Specific focus will be given to Climate Change and Deforestation, and to the different approaches to development inside the sustainable development discourse. Environmental Security will be analyzed emphasizing the underlying neo-Malthusian ideas that still prevail in much of the literature.
Specifically, we will look at the linkages between natural resources and conflicts focusing not only on environmental scarcities, but also on the resource curse and resource abundance approaches to so-called “environmental conflicts”.
We will take an in depth look at the role of the environment and of natural resources for sustainable peace, and how natural resources can or could be used in initiating a peace process.
The students will examine the Rwanda genocide and the different approaches used to analyze and explain this conflict. This case study will serve to bring all the concepts of this course together and to draw general conclusions.
Worldwide, the vital role of education in transcending conflicts and violence in all its forms, and in building a multi-dimensional culture of peace has been increasingly recognized by a wide range of policy-makers, analysts, advocates, and practitioners. For peace to effectively emerge from conditions of violence and for this peace to be sustained, appropriate strategies of peace education will need to be envisioned and implemented. This course seeks to provide a critical overview of key ideas, concepts and analytical perspectives on peace education that have been manifested in diverse institutional, community, and grassroots initiatives and programs in both North and South contexts. More specifically, through a facilitative process, learners will see how education for various dimensions of a culture of peace, including disarmament and nonviolence, local and global justice, human rights, intercultural understanding, sustainable futures and cultivating inner peace, can be synergized and integrated into the urgent challenge of building a peaceful, just and sustainable world.
The course discusses the complex role and functions played by the media, both traditional and new - and the problems they face in conflict situations, whether before, during or after the actual conflict. It also addresses the clashing relationships that often occur among media and governments, the military, other armed players and NGOs, international agencies and humanitarian organizations in these circumstances. The course provides a broad understanding of the history of media in conflict and war situations, and draws the distinction between information and propaganda, while explaining the ways in which media work and produce information and discusses the different roles and functions they actually play - and the possible ones they could play.
The course is intended as a general introduction to these topics. It draws lessons from contemporary experience, with an emphasis on new media, social networks and the role they have played in revolutions and contentious politics against authoritarian regimes in recent years. How do new media and the concept of Web 2.0 affect the relationships between traditional media, audiences and various State and non-state actors? Do social media reinforce narratives of war, conflict and extremism or are they a force for tolerance and conflict resolution?
Countries coming out of conflict are in atypical need of both financial resources and policy advice.Their societies are often extremely fragile and so it is important that the response of the international development community should be as appropriate as possible in respect of their special context and characteristics.
Post war governments are often characterized by large budget deficits, lack of financial resources and expertise in restoring the economic and political stability.
According to the recent economic theories, during the first stages of war, the state has to play a crucial role in rehabilitate the ‘state’ apparatus, the security and judicial systems and essential public services (i.e. public health and education), restore physical infrastructure, productive assets and implement post-war rehabilitation programmes, reintegrate ex combatants and returnees, clear mines, and repay outstanding loans to international creditors that have been used to finance the war.
Any intervention at this stage should aim at recreating the conditions that will allow the private sector and institutions of civil society to reinvest in commercial and productive activities. To this end the assistance is focused on macroeconomic stabilization measures, rebuilding viable financial institutions and appropriate legal frameworks and on rehabilitation urgent transportation and communication infrastructure.
These actions are justified by the belief that the assistance for economic growth will benefit the poor and victims of war through spillover effects of broadly based growth but also by the needs of the post-conflict countries for external financial resources as the internal resources have been depleted.
However to be sustainable, this process needs to take into account the principles of economic development among which the most relevant are the ones of sustainability and responsibility.This entails to put emphasis not only on financial or environmental issues but to promote a more integrated approach which considers social, economic as well as environmental issues without forgetting to respect rules of law, norms of transparency and accountability and international codes of conducts and standards which more and more evoke for a social responsible behaviour from all societal actors.
The six-week course “Gender mainstreaming in peacekeeping operations and in humanitarian assistance” is designed to provide theoretical as well as field-based knowledge on the gender dimension of peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance. Throughout the six weeks, the students will be exposed to the major trends that have been used for the incorporation of a gender perspective in peacekeeping and humanitarian fields, as well as in post-conflict reconstruction. Policies, programmes and practical case studies will be shared with the students with the aim of getting a thorough understanding of the positive and negative aspects of peacekeeping operations and humanitarian activities in different environments worldwide. At the end of the six-week course, the students shall be able to understand the cost of ignoring gender in peacekeeping operations and the delivery of humanitarian assistance as well as its long-term consequences, and analyze current situations with a gender perspective. The last week will sum up the entire course with a focus on post-conflict reconstruction through a gender perspective.
The course focuses on the development of practical and conceptual tools for the transformation of conflict from the macro- to the micro-level. Taking the perspective that all participants will be involved in both conflict and resolution of different sorts and in different capacities throughout their future professional lives, the aim of this course is to engage with these processes through various simulations, project development activities, and other activities. These situational learning exercises provide an opportunity for the practical development of ‘skills,’ but more importantly, of conceptual tools relating to negotiation, mediation, conflict analysis, program development, and peacebuilding. By creating situations and a classroom environment where students can put these concepts into use, the goal is to move from ideas to practices and back – that is, to close the dialectical loop between theory, research, and practice that is the necessary basis for reflective conflict transformation. The series of readings for the course are of two sorts: 1) guidelines and research on practice; and 2) in-depth essays that develop specific analytical concepts that deepen and enrich the understanding of practice. The course offers a chance to develop, synthesize, and reflect on ideas and skills learned throughout the year. It brings together material from various programs and courses in an active environment, and is a time for people to examine what those ideas mean for them as individuals in their future careers as peacemakers and builders.
This course presents an overview on sensible issues ranging from parents/children’s duties and obligations, including influences related to socioeconomic status and cultural differences. The importance of education, family planning, child birth preparation and care along with personal hygiene, epidemics, sexual education and drug-related influences will constitute a primary learning component. This will include an overview on the world-wide problems related to drug use and related abuses, along with a focus on HIV/AIDS. The course offers students concrete guidance and skills required to work in creating a more sustainable and peaceful world.