This course introduces theories of security and peace, with a special attention to the connection between recent debates about changing patterns of peace and conflict, recent conflicts, and the role of new technologies in both scholarship and conflict. The course is divided into two halves, one which focuses on acquiring the necessary theoretical fluency, and one with deploys this to think about contemporary issues around peace and conflict under rapid technological change. Part of the course is taught in collaboration with the peace MA-programme at Tampere Peace Research Institute.

In theory-focused half of the course, we briefly look at classic understandings of war, peace, conflict and security, and follow how they influence theories and practices in the fields of international relations, security and peace research. The course critically reviews contemporary debates around different understandings of security through the Copenhagen, Paris and Welch ‘schools’ of security thinking, providing students with tools to critically understand developments in the use and understanding of violence within contemporary politics, including for assessing questions such as who is the subject of security, who are the agents of security, how does security relate to peace and to everyday politics?

In the case-focused half of the couse we work with how different theories would understand contemporary developments in peace and war differently, with a new case being in focus at each class. In this half we critically examine cases from recent conflicts such as the Syrian civil war, the war in Ukraine, the protracted conflict in Palestine/Israel, and the European migration crisis.

Students are expected to participate actively and will be graded based on active participation. During the course, each student will have to present a theoretical framework of their own choice, a case analysis of their own choice, and produce a blog post combining theory and case analysis, as well as reply to another analysis on the course blog. These exercises will serve as the basis of evaluation, and part of the evaluation will be peer evaluation where we in class discuss and evaluate the work of each other.

Enrollment via email to teacher responsible.

Participation in course work and providing a short written exam.