Peacebuilding and Mediation (MLitt – 1-year programme) or (MPhil 2-year programme) 2021 entry

Students choose two optional modules.

Here is a sample of particularly appropriate optional modules that may be offered.

• African Political Thought: examines the main ideas of the great Africanist thinkers e.g. Du Bois, Garvey, Fanon, Nyerere, Nkrumah, Senghor, Cabral, Biko etc and discuss how these intellectuals reacted to the internal and external variables to evolve a body of ideas which together could be viewed as African political thought.
• Agency and Strategy in Non-Western Political Thought: explores different elements of non-Western thought to understand assumptions about the body, political community and the world. 
• Critical Security Studies: examines the challenge to traditional conceptions of security presented by the emergence of critical security studies since the end of the Cold War. 
• Gender and Terrorism: explores gender as a tool for the construction and maintenance of power. 
• Global Constitutionalism: explores global constitutionalism from a political theory perspective focusing on three concepts: law, power, and rights.
• International Relations of the Modern Middle East: looks at the formation of the Middle East regional system, its special characteristics, and the impact on it of the global system.
• Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict: familiarises students with different approaches that seek to explain how ethnicity and nationhood are created and maintained, how different forms of ethnic conflict and ethnic violence come about, and what possible mechanisms to contain nationalism and ethnic conflict are.
• Political Economy of Conflict: provides a political economy perspective on conflict in a developing economy. 
• Religion and International Politics: investigates the so-called 'global resurgence' of politicised religion. 
• Security and Justice Institutions in World Politics: examines the role of different international institutions in governing world politics. 
• Spaces of Securitization: explores how securitization unfolds in theory and in practice by investigating the ‘spatial turn’ in international relations.
• Terrorism and Liberal Democracy: explores the development of contemporary terrorism and the conceptional and definitional issues concerning terrorism. 
• The Changing Face(s) of Diplomacy: Emotions, Power and Persuasion in International Relations:  highlights the role of emotions, persuasion and communication technology into the diplomatic arena. 
• The Global Politics of Everyday Life: explores how everyday life and global politics are co-constitutive by drawing on a range of interdisciplinary theoretical perspectives. 
• The Military in Politics: introduces students to civil-military relations and then analyses how armed forces impact states domestic politics.
• Theories of Friendship and Enmity: addresses a number of classical texts in western political thought on the themes of friendship and enmity.

Optional modules are subject to change each year and require a minimum number of participants to be offered; some may only allow limited numbers of students  (see the University's position on curriculum development).

The final element of the MLitt is a 15,000-word dissertation. The dissertation should focus on an area of peacebuilding and/or mediation in which you are interested. Each student is supported by a relevant supervisor from the School who will advise on the choice of subject and provide guidance throughout the research process. The completed dissertation must be submitted by the end of August.

Students in the two-year MPhil programme will gain additional experience across a range of specialised topics in peace studies through a semester abroad at one of several excellent peace studies programmes in Europe and will develop research practice skills through a compulsory semester placement with a UK-based academic or local or international NGO working at the cutting edge of peacebuilding and mediation practice.

If students choose not to complete the dissertation requirement for the MLitt, there are exit awards available that allow suitably qualified candidates to receive a Postgraduate Diploma. By choosing an exit award, you will finish your degree at the end of the second semester of study and receive a PGDip instead of an MLitt.