IR494 Half Unit
Conflict and Peacebuilding
This information is for the 2025/26 session.
Course Convenor
Professor Milli Lake
Availability
This course is available on the MSc in Gender, Peace and Security, MSc in International Affairs (LSE and Peking University), MSc in International Relations, MSc in International Relations (LSE and Sciences Po), MSc in International Relations (Research), MSc in Political Science (Global Politics) and MSc in Theory and History of International Relations. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit. This course uses controlled access as part of the course selection process.
How to apply: All students must include a brief written statement of no more than 200 words explaining why they wish to take the course and how it will benefit their academic/career goals.
Places on capped courses cannot be guaranteed.
Deadline for application: The deadline for applications is 12:00 noon on Friday 26 September 2025.
You can expect to be informed of the outcome of your application by 12:00 noon on Monday 29 September 2025.
For questions about the academic content of a Department of International Relations course, students should contact the teacher responsible as listed in the hyperlinked course guide.
For questions about your programme regulations, please contact your programme convenor/director or your Academic Mentor.
For questions about the process of applying to a Department of International Relations course, if not already clear from the information provided, please contact ir.msc@lse.ac.uk.
Students are advised to check the MSc Course Availability Spreadsheet.xlsx for information on the remaining availability of EU4, DV4, GV4, IR4, PP4 and SO4 courses after 12:00 noon Monday 29 September.
All students are required to obtain permission from the Teacher Responsible by completing the online application form linked to course selection on LSE for You. Admission is not guaranteed.
This course has a limited number of places (it is controlled access) and demand is typically high.
Requisites
Additional requisites:
A basic background knowledge of the subject would be an advantage.
Course content
This course combines theoretical, empirical, and conceptual work on conflict and peacebuilding with experiences and reflections from particular cases. The course integrates research on political violence, civil war onset, armed group mobilisation, rebel governance, and civilian agency. It further explores international responses to conflict, engaging literatures on statebuilding, transitional justice, and liberal peace. While the course is primarily empirical in focus, it situates experiences of violence, conflict and peace within a broader historical trajectory, considering relationships between global structures of power and the microdynamics of conflict.
Teaching
15 hours of seminars and 10 hours of lectures in the Winter Term.
This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Winter Term.
Formative assessment
Students will produce a summative essay proposal in Week 8 of the WT. The formative assessment provides students with an opportunity to produce an essay plan and receive feedback to support their preparation for the summative essay.
Indicative reading
Kalyvas, Stathis N. 2006. The Logic of Violence in Civil War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
Straus, Scott. 2015. Making and Unmaking Nations: War, Leadership, and Genocide in Modern Africa. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Cohen, Dara Kay. 2016. Rape During Civil War. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Autesserre, Séverine. 2014. Peaceland: Conflict Resolution and the Everyday Politics of International Intervention. Cambridge University Press.
Staniland, Paul. 2014. Networks of Rebellion: Explaining Insurgent Cohesion and Collapse (Ithaca: Cornell University Press),
Arjona, Ana. 2016. “Rebelocracy: A Theory of Social Order in Civil War” (Kellogg Working Paper) & Rebelocracy: Social Order in the Colombian Civil War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
Walter, Barbara F. “The New New Civil Wars. ”Annual Review of Political Science 20, no. 1(2017): 469–86
Weinstein, Jeremy. 2007.Inside Rebellion: The Politics of insurgent Violence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wood, Elisabeth. 2008. "The Social Processes of Civil War: The Wartime Transformation of Social Networks." Annual Rev. Political Science. 11:539-561.
Mamdani Mahmood. 2003. ‘Making Sense Of Political Violence in Post-Colonial Africa.’ Socialist Register (79).
Enloe, Cynthia H. 2007. Globalization and Militarism : Feminists Make the Link. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield
Peterson, Spike. 2007. ‘Thinking Through Intersectionality and War.’ Race, Gender & Class, 10-27.
Tickner, JA. 1992. Gender in International Relations: Feminist Perspectives on Achieving Global Security. Columbia Univ. Press
Wimmer, Andreas. 2012. Waves of War: Nationalism, State Formation, and Ethnic Exclusion in the Modern World. Cambridge University Press
MacGinty, Roger. 2021. Everyday Peace: How So-Called Ordinary People Can Disrupt Violent Conflict. Oxford University Press.
Fujii, LeeAnn. 2010. “Shades of Truth and Lies: Interpreting Testimonies of War and Violence.” Journal of Peace Research 47(2):231–41.
Campbell, Susanna, David Chandler, and Meera Sabaratnam. 2011. A Liberal Peace?: The Problems and Practices of Peacebuilding. Zed Books.
Assessment
Course participation (20%)
Essay (80%, 3500 words) in Winter Term Week 10
Key facts
Department: International Relations
Course Study Period: Winter Term
Unit value: Half unit
FHEQ Level: Level 7
CEFR Level: Null
Total students 2024/25: 58
Average class size 2024/25: 15
Controlled access 2024/25: NoCourse selection videos
Some departments have produced short videos to introduce their courses. Please refer to the course selection videos index page for further information.
Personal development skills
- Leadership
- Self-management
- Team working
- Problem solving
- Application of information skills
- Communication
- Specialist skills