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Political Science Unit Political Violence E 626 Course Description

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Political Science Unit Political Violence E 626 Course Description Political Science Unit Academic Year 2010-2011 PROFESSOR Keith Krause [email protected] +41 22 908 57 33 Political Violence E 626 Winter – 6 ECTS Office Hours: Mondays 10:15 – 12:00 (Rothschild) Rothschild, main floor, Mondays, 10:15-12:00 Course Description Political violence manifests itself at all levels of social organization. “War” is today the least important contemporary manifestation of political violence, which ASSISTANT implicates non-state armed groups, inter-communal conflicts, state violence, large-scale criminal-political Jovana Carapic violence, rebellions, localized struggles, and acts of [email protected] terror. This research seminar will examine the global +41 22 908 59 47 distribution of armed violence, and develop different Office hours: inter-disciplinary approaches to explaining contemporary Wednesdays 12:00-13:30 violence in different cases and contexts. (Rigot 37) Syllabus Introduction The first part of the course will examine issues such as the definition of “violence,” the “new wars” debate, contemporary warlordism, communal conflicts, non-state armed groups, genocidal violence and state violence. This is by no means an exhaustive list, and in each case, a mix of conceptual and empirical material will be introduced, in order to expose students to a wide range of examples (and possible research paper topics). The last part of the course will be devoted to presentations and discussions of student's research papers, which should explore one of the themes of the course in a focused research case study. Full participation is expected of all students in the seminar. This includes having read the required readings, and being prepared to discuss them critically. Final grades will in large part be determined by the level and quality of seminar participation, by presentations that will be scheduled according to the number of students in the seminar, and by the critique each student offers of one other student’s draft research paper. Note: in order to take this seminar you must have either taken “Contemporary Issues in Conflict and Security” or have received my permission to enrol. INSTITUT DE HAUTES ÉTUDES INTERNATIONALES ET DU DÉVELOPPEMENT GRADUATE INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AND DEVELOPMENT STUDIES SWITZERLAND - TEL +41 (0)22 908 57 00 - http://graduateinstitute.ch Assignments The first assignment is a short “literature review” of the readings for the first week. It is due 7 March, at the beginning of the seminar. The main focus of this seminar is on the individual research paper, which will account for 50 percent of your final grade. A draft of the paper must be presented during the scheduled “political violence conference,” which will be scheduled for a full day (or 1.5 days if necessary) during the week of May 23-28. I will provide comments on the paper, but no grade. If you do not present a draft on the scheduled date, you will receive a zero grade on the research paper. In other words, although the draft itself receives no grade, if you do not present one in class you will fail the course. A final grade will be given to the final, revised draft, which is due on Monday, 3 June. Each student will also be responsible for presenting and critiquing one other student’s paper; this will form part of their final grade. The research paper must be an empirically-grounded, theoretically-informed, exploration of a particular case study or set of cases relevant to the theme of this course. It cannot be a mere review of theoretical literature, or simply a narrative account of a particular case. It must have an argument, a conceptual framework, an empirical “field” (case or cases, or data, etc.), and a coherent research strategy or method. Case studies that examine a particular theme in the context of recent or current violence and armed conflict (Afghanistan, Sudan, Somalia, Algeria, Sri Lanka, Iraq, Nigeria, Nepal, Rwanda, Burundi, Liberia, Guatemala, Cambodia, Colombia, Mexico, Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, the Philippines, Thailand, Venezuela, Nicaragua, etc.) are particularly welcome, but the analysis is not restricted to war or post-conflict states. Grades will be distributed as follows: literature review (first week’s readings, 5 pages, due 7 March) 15% seminar participation 25% research paper (approximately 30 pages) 50% paper critique 10 % Students will be free to choose the topic for their research paper, although it must be determined in consultation with me. Readings The course readings are not introductory-level, and presume some familiarity with main approaches to violence and conflict studies. The required readings will be made available in a “kit” or polycopie that must be ordered through the ’imprimerie minute’. Needless to say, you must do the readings every week in order to participate in (or do well in) the course. Other readings may be added as we go along. There are a number of good journals that treat the themes in this course. Among some you might find useful would be: Journal of Conflict Resolution - Page 2 - International Security Terrorism and Political Violence Nationalism and Ethnic Politics Studies in Conflict and Terrorism Contemporary Security Policy Small Wars and Insurgencies International Journal of Conflict and Violence Security Studies Civil Wars Finally, some sessions of the seminar will have to be rescheduled to accommodate some unavoidable commitments on my part. I will provide as much warning as possible for this. Introduction: “Violence” and “The Political” (February 21) Charles Tilly, The Politics of Collective Violence, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 1-54. David Apter, “Political Violence in Analytical Perspective,” in David Apter, ed., The Legitimization of Violence, (New York: new York University Press, 1997), 1-32. Mary R. Jackman, "Violence in Social Life," Annual Review of Sociology, 28 (2002). 387-414. Vittorio Bufacchi, “Two Concepts of Violence,” Political Studies Review, 3 (2005), 193-204. Michael Brzoska, “Appendix C: Collective Violence beyond the Standard Definition of Armed Conflict,” in SIPRI Yearbook 2007, 94-106. Willem de Haan, “Violence as an essentially contested concept,” In Sophie Body-Gendrot and Pieter Spierenburg, eds.,Violence in Europe, (Rotterdam: Erasmus University, 2010), 27-40. No class 28 February (take this week to write a short paper on the first week’s readings. The question is: “Is political violence an essentially contested concept? Why or why not?”) The Ontology of Violence (March 7) Stathis Kalyvas, “The Ontology of ‘Political Violence’: Action and Identity in Civil Wars,” Perspectives on Politics, 1:3 (September 2003), 475-494. Stathis Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 1-15, 146-209, 330-363. Stathis Kalyvas, “Wanton and Senseless? The Logic of Massacres in Algeria,” Rationality and Society 11:3 (1999), 243-285. Elisabeth Jean Wood, “Variation of Sexual Violence during War,” Politics and Society, 34:3 (2006), 307-341. Maria Eriksson Baaz and Maria Stern, “Why Do Soldiers Rape? Masculinity, Violence and Sexuality in the Armed Forces in the Congo (DRC),” International Studies Quarterly, 53:2 (June 2009), 495-518. Susan Brison, “Outliving Oneself,” reprinted in Vittorio Bufacchi, Violence: A Philosophical Anthology, (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 336-364. - Page 3 - Valerie Hudson, “Sex, War, and Peace: Rank, and Winter on Rank,” Political Psychology, 31:1 (2010), 33-39. William Reno, “Explaining Patterns of Violence in Collapsed States,” Contemporary Security Policy, 30:2 (2009), 356-374. No Class 14 March (take this week to develop a short (2 page) outline of your proposed topic, research question or puzzle, and bibliography) The Changing Face of War and the “New Wars” Debate (March 21) Mary Kaldor, New and Old Wars: Organised Violence in a Global Era, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999),13-30, 69-89. Stathis Kalyvas, “‘New’ and ‘Old’ Civil Wars: A Valid Distinction?” World Politics, 54 (October 2001), 99-118. Erik Melander, Magnus Öberg and Jonathan Hall, “Are ‘New Wars’ More Atrocious? Battle Severity, Civilians Killed and Forced Migration Before and After the End of the Cold War,” European Journal of International Relations, 15:3 (2009), 505-536. Sinisa Malesvic, “The Sociology of New Wars? Assessing the Causes and Objectives of Contemporary Violent Conflicts,” International Political Sociology, 2 (2008), 97-112. Monika Heupel and Bernhard Zangl, “On the Transformation of Warfare: A Plausibility Probe of the New War Thesis,’ Journal of International Relations and Development, 13 (2010), 26-58. Identity and Communal Conflicts (March 28) James Fearon and David Laitin, “Ethnicity, Insurgency and Civil War,” American Political Science Review, 97:1 (February 2003), 75-89. Rogers Brubaker and David Laitin, “Ethnic and Nationalist Violence,” Annual Review of Sociology, 24 (1998), 423-452. James Fearon and David Laitin, “Violence and the Social Construction of Identity,” International Organization, 54:4 (Autumn 2000), 845-877. Bruce Gilley, “Against the Concept of Ethnic Conflict,” Third World Quarterly, 25:6 (2004), 1155–1166. Charles King, “The Micropolitics of Social Violence,” World Politics 56:3 (2004), 431-455. Stathis N. Kalyvas, “Ethnic Defection in Civil War, Comparative Political Studies 41:8 (August 2008), 1043-1068. Sinisa Malesevic, “Nationalism, War, and Social Cohesion,” Ethnic and Racial Studies, 34:1 (2011), 142-161. Warlordism (April 4) William Reno, Warlord Politics and African States, (London: Lynne Reiner Publishers, 1998), 1-44. Kimberly Marten, “Warlordism in Comparative Perspective,” International Security, 31:3 (Winter 2006-2007), 41-73. - Page 4 - Daniel Brió, “The (Un)bearable Lightness of Violence: Warlordism as an Alternative Form of Governance in the ‘Westphalian Periphery,” in State Failure Revisited II: Actors of Violence and Alternative Forms of Governance, INEF Report 89/2007, 7-49. Antonio Giustozzi, “The Debate on Warlordism: The Importance of Military Legitimacy,” Crisis States Discussion Papers, London School of Economics, 2005. William Reno, “Illicit Markets, Violence, Warlords, and Governance: West African Cases,” Crime, Law, and Social Change, 52 (2009), 313-322.
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