IR349      One Unit
Conflict and Peacebuilding

This information is for the 2026/27 session.

Course convenor

Professor Milli Lake

Availability

This course is available on the Erasmus Reciprocal Programme of Study and Exchange Programme for Students from University of California, Berkeley. This course is not available as an outside option to students on other programmes. This course is available with permission to General Course students.

This course has a limited number of places (it is capped).

Requisites

A basic background knowledge of the subject themes or related areas 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 state building, transitional justice colonisation, and liberal peace. While the course is primarily empirical in focus, it situates experiences of violence, conflict and peace within broader historical trajectories, considering relationships between global structures of power and the microdynamics of conflict and peace.

Teaching

10 hours of lectures and 15 hours of classes in the Autumn Term.
10 hours of lectures and 15 hours of classes in the Winter Term.

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

A combination of lectures and seminars totalling 50 hours throughout the academic year.

Formative assessment

Mock Exam (AT Week 10)

Essay Proposal (WT Week 9)

 

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

Exam (40%), duration: 120 minutes in the Spring exam period.

Course participation (10%).

Essay (50%, 2500 words).


Key facts

Department: International Relations

Course study period: Autumn and Winter Term

Unit value: One unit

FHEQ level: Level 6

Total students 2025/26: Unavailable

Average class size 2025/26: Unavailable

Capped 2025/26: No
Guidelines for interpreting course guide information

Course 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
  • Application of numeracy skills
  • Specialist skills