Dr David Rampton

This course is available on the BSc in International Relations, BSc in International Relations and Chinese, BSc in International Relations and History and BSc in Politics and International Relations. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit and to General Course students.

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

A basic background knowledge of the subject themes or related areas would be an advantage.

This course is intended for those interested in theoretical and practical approaches to the question of peace, the problems of war, conflict and violence, and responses to these issues, particularly in the form of liberal peacebuilding  and statebuilding. The course is divided into three unequal but interconnected parts. The first part examines ideas and debates about the concepts, causes, contexts, dynamics and representations of conflict, violence and war. The second explores and problematises the concept of peace and the nature, meanings and goals of peace and peacebuilding. This leads into the third section which is concerned with a critical engagement with the range of international responses to conflict associated with the discourses and practices of liberal peacebuilding and statebuilding. The classes explore the nexus between theory and practice. Although the course and its readings are mainly theoretical and conceptual rather than empirical, students are encouraged to apply the ideas to actual cases, past and present. The course reading list has been selected in order to explore the contentions between mainstream and critical (e.g. feminist, postcolonial and poststructural) perspectives.

This course is delivered through a combination of classes and lectures totaling a minimum of 40 hours across Michaelmas and Lent Term. This year, some or all of this teaching will be delivered through a combination of online lectures and in-person classes/classes delivered online. Students on this course will have a reading week in Week 6, in line with departmental policy.

The course also features film showings linked to some of the lecture themes, followed by a discussion session. These are normally delivered in-person but may occasionally involve online screening and discussion sessions.

Students will be expected to produce 1 essay in the MT and 1 essay in the LT.

Formative essays 1,500 words. 

Jacob Bercovitch, Victor Kremenyuk and William Zartman (eds.) The Sage Handbook of Conflict Resolution (Sage Publications, 2009)

Mark Duffield Global Governance and the New Wars (Zed Books 2014).

Sinisa Malesevic The Sociology of War and Violence (Cambridge University Press 2010).

Edward Newman and Karl DeRouen (eds.) Routledge Handbook of Civil Wars (Routledge, 2016).

Roland Paris and Timothy Sisk (eds.), The Dilemmas of Statebuilding (Routledge 2008).

Oliver Richmond (ed.) Palgrave Advances in Peacebuilding: Critical Developments and Approaches (Palgrave MacMillan UK 2010).

Hugh Miall, Oliver Ramsbotham, and Tom Woodhouse, Contemporary Conflict Resolution: The Prevention, Management and Transformation of Deadly Conflicts, 3rd ed (Polity, 2011).

Essay (40%, 2000 words) in the LT.
Essay (60%, 3000 words) in the ST.

Some departments have produced short videos to introduce their courses. Please refer to the course selection videos index page for further information.