IR5702: Case Studies in Conflict and Field Work
Module coordinator: Dr Emily Pia
Module booklet:
This core module provides students with an opportunity to work on case studies in conflict analysis, in which they develop the skills required to analyse the roots, dynamics, key actors and issues-areas in specific conflicts. They will deploy the theoretical frameworks contained within peace and conflict analysis about definitions of conflict, perceptions, historical interpretations, political, social, cultural and economic dynamics, initiation and escalation, and then will be asked to choose and investigate a particular case study according to the different analytical frameworks associated with conflict analysis. Problems associated with researching conflict and violence will also be tackled. This will provide the basis for each student to engage in a detailed case study, chosen from a specific list of key cases. This module incorporates a Field Work Component which allows students to observe and develop - over a 10 day period - the range of skills learned in that module and to see these practiced in the field. On-site teaching will enable students to understand conflict in ways that would otherwise be difficult solely within a classroom context, whilst preparation prior to the visit will provide students with an understanding of the nature of the conflict environment. Students will engage with local academics working on the conflict, as well as with policymakers, practitioners, agency and NGO staff and political leaders. They will also gain access to the cartography of a peacebuilding operation; learn how contacts are made and interviews conducted, and also gain experience of developing research resources on-site. [If for any reason the field trip cannot go ahead, it will be replaced by meetings with DFID, FCO, and Agency/ NGO staff in the UK].
NB This module is completely separate to the dissertation model, although of course it indirectly contributes in terms of research training.
Students will gain the skills necessary to analyse the causes of conflict from a number of different theoretical and conceptual perspectives including mainstream and critical IR and conflict theory perspectives. They will also be introduced to various frameworks used to breakdown conflicts into their constituent parts (drawing in particular on the frameworks proposed by Miall, Ramsbotham and Woodhouse in their recent book International Conflict Resolution). They will acquire sophisticated case study research skills, detailed knowledge of one or more specific cases, an understanding of the problems of researching violent conflicts, and a structured approach to writing up case studies.
In the Fieldwork Component students will develop field experience and make contacts with local and international actors in a conflict environment. They will learn how a peacebuilding operation is organised, and how the different aspects of fieldwork are conducted. This module is designed as a core component of this distinct MLitt. In order to complete this MLitt students must undertake a fieldtrip and their own case study for their dissertation. This course provides the necessary experience/skills for both.
The fieldwork component is crucial to the MLitt in that it provides the students with the key resources that they often lack: a practical understanding of how to work and conduct themselves in the often difficult environments which post-conflict peace-builders find themselves in. If for any reason it cannot be run one year it will be replaced by visits to DFID, FCO, and major NGOs in UK/London to meet with personnel.
Content and Structure
- Introduction: developing case studies, histories, actors, levels of analysis.
- Understanding the roots of conflict: politics, economics, society and culture.
- Issues and dynamics: objective versus subjective, resources versus recognition, local versus regional, leadership versus grass roots.
- Methodology and Fieldwork under fire.
- Cyprus/ Sri Lanka.
- Cambodia/ Kosovo.
- Planning and Conducting Fieldwork in post conflict zones.
- Field Trip.
- Field Trip.
- Student Case Studies.
NB 10 days in the field will include a familiarisation with the conflict terrain, visiting key sites, international organisations such as the UN, the World Bank, UNDP, and NGOs, as well as meeting with local academics and official and unofficial actors from all sides of the dispute. Field trip dates subject to change depending on arrangements, but the aim will be to hold it well before the exam period.
Bibliography
The Human Security Report (www.humansecurityreport.info),
The Peace and Conflict Report (http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/inscr/PC05print.pdf), and the
Carnegie Final Report on Deadly Conflict (http://www.ccpdc.org/pubs/rept97/finfr.htm).
Barash, D, Approaches to Peace, OUP, 2000.
Sumantra Bose, States, Nations, Sovereignty Sri Lanka, India And The Tamil Eelam Movement, Sage Publications, 1994
Brown, M, et al, Theories of Peace and War, MIT, 1998.
Crocker, Chester A. and Fen Osler Hampson with Pamela Aall, (eds.), Managing Global Chaos: Sources of and Responses to International Conflict, Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1996.
Doyle, Michael, Ian Johnston, and Robert Orr (eds.), Keeping the Peace: Multidimensional UN Operations in Cambodia and El Salvador, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Dunn, K, Imagining the Congo, Palgrave 2002.
Gurr, Ted Robert, & Barbara Harff, Ethnic Conflict in World Politics, Oxford: Westview Press, 1994
Hampson, Fen Osler, Nurturing Peace: Why Peace Settlements Succeed or Fail, Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1996.
Holbroke, Richard, To End A War, Random House: New York, 1998.
Ignatieff, M, The Warrior¿s Honour
Jabri, V, Discourses on Violence, MUP, 1996.
Kaplan, Robert D., Balkan Ghosts: A Journey through History, New York, NY: Vintage, 1994.
Mayall, James (ed.), The New Interventionism, 1991-1994 : United Nations experience in Cambodia, former Yugoslavia, and Somalia, Cambridge, New York, Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Princen, T, Intermediaries in International Conflict, Princeton UP, 1992.
Richmond, Oliver P. Mediating in Cyprus: The Cypriot Communities and the UN, London: Frank Cass, 1998.
Shapiro, M, Violent Cartographies, Minnesota, 1997.
Snyder, J, From Voting to Violence, Norton, 2001.
Sriram, From Promise to Practice, 2003 & Exploring Sub Regional Conflict, 2004.
Stossinger, Why Nations go to War, St Martins Press, 2000.
For the role of the UN see The Blue Helmets, and the peacekeeping section of the UN website (www.un.org).
