This course is available on the MSc in Political Science (Conflict Studies and Comparative Politics). 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. For information on controlled access courses, including eligibility, application processes, deadlines, and departmental contact details, please refer to the Controlled Access Courses webpage.

How to apply: To apply for a place on this course, please submit a short statement of no more than 200 words via LfY. Your statement should outline your reasons for applying and explain how the course will support your academic and/or career goals. If applicable, you should also demonstrate how you meet any pre-requisites listed in the course guide. If the course is compulsory for your programme, no written statement is required.

Priority for places on Government (GV) courses will be given first to students for whom the course is compulsory. Where applicable, priority will then be given to students on the Department of Government programmes listed in the ‘Availability’ section of the course guide, followed by students on other programmes listed in that section. Students on all other programmes will be considered next, where a course is available as an outside option. You should ensure that you meet any pre-requisites listed in the course guide before applying. Places on capped courses cannot be guaranteed. Where a course is oversubscribed, places will be allocated based on programme priority and the written statement.

Deadline for applications: The deadline for applications is 12:00 noon on Friday 25 September 2026. You can expect to be informed of the outcome of your application by 12:00 noon on Monday 28 September 2026. Any places remaining after this date will be allocated based on priority and written statement - up until course selection closes.

For queries contact: gov.msc@lse.ac.uk.

Availability to students outside the MSc in Political Science (Conflict Studies and Comparative Politics stream) is subject to space.

Although political violence is a long-standing social phenomenon, its systematic study has only recently become central within political science and related disciplines. Since the mid-1990s, the field has developed into one of the most dynamic areas of research, bringing together scholars with diverse regional expertise and methodological approaches. This course introduces students to the core debates as well as recent advances in the study of political violence. 

We will address a set of guiding questions: What is political violence? Are different forms of political violence – such as civil war, riots, state repression, or genocide – studied within a common framework? What are the main research questions shaping the field? How do methodological approaches, theoretical perspectives, and empirical findings differ between macro and micro-level analyses? To what extent is political violence a dynamic and endogenous process? And to what extent has the field succeeded in producing cumulative empirical knowledge?

10 hours of lectures and 15 hours of seminars in the Winter Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Winter Term.

Essay (1000 words).

1. Max Bergholz, “Sudden Nationhood: The Microdynamics of Intercommunal Relations in Bosnia-Herzegovina after World War II,” American Historical Review 118:3.
2. Robert Braun, “Religious Minorities and Resistance to Genocide: The Collective Rescue of Jews in the Netherlands during the Holocaust,” American Political Science Review 110:1 (2016).
3. Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (HarperPerennial, 1992).
4. James Fearon, “Rationalist Explanations for War," International Organization 49:3 (1995).
5. Evgeny Finkel, Ordinary Jews: Choice and Survival during the Holocaust (Princeton University Press, 2017).
6. Lee Ann Fujii, Show Time: The Logic and Power of Violent Display (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2021).
7. Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia: The Business of Private Protection (Harvard University Press, 1993).
8. Francisco Gutierrez-Sanin and Elisabeth Wood, “What Should We Mean by ‘Pattern of Political Violence?’ Repertoire, Targeting, Frequency, and Technique," Perspectives on Politics 15:1 (2017).
9. Macartan Humphreys and Jeremy Weinstein, "Who Fights? The Determinants of Participation in Civil War," American Journal of Political Science 52:2 (2008)
10. Stathis Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
11. Stathis Kalyvas, The landscape of political violence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019).
12. Benjamin Lessing. "Conceptualizing criminal governance." Perspectives on politics 19, no. 3 (2021): 854-873.
13. Sarah Parkinson, “Organizing Rebellion: Rethinking High-Risk Mobilization and Social Networks in War," American Political Science Review, 107 (2013).
14. Roger Petersen, Resistance and Rebellion: Lessons from Eastern Europe (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
15. Scott Straus, Making and Unmaking Nations: War, Leadership, and Genocide (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2015).
16. Nina Tannenwald. "The nuclear taboo: The United States and the normative basis of nuclear non-use." International organization 53 (2007).
17. Steven Wilkinson, Votes and Violence: Electoral Competition and Ethnic Riots in India (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004)
18. Elisabeth Jean Wood, “Rape as a Practice of War: Toward a Typology of Political Violence,” Politics and Society 46:4 (2018).

Exam (100%), duration: 120 Minutes in the Spring exam period.