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Instructors: Johannes Rothe
Event type:
Seminar
Org-unit: Dept. 02 - Institute of Political Science
Displayed in timetable as:
02-03-0165-se
Subject:
Crediting for:
Hours per week:
2
Language of instruction:
Englisch
Min. | Max. participants:
- | 35
Official Course Description:
Course Description: Civil wars are the most common form of political violence in today’s world, both in frequency and deadliness. This course offers an introduction to some of the main themes in the study of civil wars. We will examine what civil war is, how we can study it and why we might want to do so. We will look at how and why civil wars break out. We will also investigate what keeps civil wars going, from individual and collective drivers of violence, war economies and the politics of civil wars to international factors. Civil wars profoundly affect not only the lives of the armed actors perpetuating them, but also of the individuals, societies and states caught up in them. The seminar will also explore this theme, by studying patterns of violence and how they affect civilian populations, the reconfiguration of governing institutions in civil war and how civil war can affect individual and collective identities, including those of particularly vulnerable populations (women, children, displaced). Finally, the course looks at what can be done to address civil wars, by limiting conflict and violence, how civil wars can come to an end and what kinds of legacies they can leave.
In studying these substantive themes, the course will introduce students to different disciplinary perspectives beyond political science, explore different methodological approaches (quantitative, qualitative, interpretivist) and possible levels of analysis (micro/macro, sub-/cross-national), and examine how these different approaches affect the results of our research.
There may be changes to the syllabus over the course of the term, I would communicate these to students in due time.
Learning Outcomes: This course aims to introduce students to some of the main concepts, theories, and debates in the study of civil war. It also aims to provide them with the basic analytical skills to develop research projects of their own. At the end of the course, students should be able to
- identify and describe some of the main themes in the study of civil war,
- summarize and critically assess the strengths and weaknesses of different disciplinary, theoretical, and methodological approaches to the study of civil war,
- apply the insights gained from the civil war literature to research projects of their own.
Credits – Students from the MA on International Studies/Peace and Conflict Studies: To obtain credits for participation (Beteiligungsnachweis - BN), students are expected to complete the required readings and to actively participate in discussions. They must also provide short response papers (no longer than 1 page) for at least four of the sessions. While response papers are not graded, submission of these response papers is necessary for the obtention of the BN. In their response papers, students are expected to choose and discuss one or two aspects of the readings that they found particularly interesting, challenging, problematic, and to formulate at least one question that they want to be discussed in class. Response papers have to be circulated to both instructor and other participants by Friday, 5pm preceding the seminar via Moodle and may be discussed in class.
To obtain credits for the module (Modulabschlussprüfung - AP), students must -in addition to the above requirements - write a term paper. Term papers should be in English, no longer than 6,000 words and no shorter than 4,500. The paper should address a major question in the study of civil war and include a literature review, theoretical argument, and empirical evaluation of the theory, but alternative formats can be discussed with me. Students are expected to propose potential topics themselves, these proposals will need to be confirmed with me by session 13, in person or via email. Theme papers themselves need to be submitted by September 30th, 2021.
Credits – Students from the MA on Governance and Public Policy: To obtain credits, students are expected to complete the required readings and to actively participate in discussions. They must also provide short response papers (no longer than 1 page) for at least four of the sessions. While response papers are not graded, submission of these response papers is necessary for the obtention of the credits. In their response papers, students are expected to choose and discuss one or two aspects of the readings that they found particularly interesting, challenging, problematic, and to formulate at least one question that they want to be discussed in class. Response papers have to be circulated to both instructor and other participants by Friday, 5pm, preceding the seminar via Moodle and may be discussed in class.
Students from the MA on Governance and Public Policy must -in addition to the above requirements – pass an oral exam of 25 minutes at the end of the term.
Grading: Response papers will not be graded but may be discussed in class. Term papers will be graded in accordance with departmental standards. Usual rules on academic integrity apply. Late submission of papers will lead to grade deductions, except where justified through proper documentation (e.g. medical certification) and agreed with the instructor beforehand, as will excessively long or short papers. Oral exams are similarly graded in accordance with departmental standards.
Requirements: Students need no prior knowledge of civil war studies. General interest in the topic is enough. The course is article-based and students will need to be able to (critically!) engage with both quantitative and qualitative academic papers. In-class discussions will be conducted in English, response and term papers will also have to be submitted in English.
Course structure: The course will be held remotely, via Zoom. It will consist of 14 individual sessions, of 90 minutes each. While I will prepare introductory and context slides, the individual sessions will focus on the assigned readings and the questions and comments students have about them. Students are free to ask questions at any time.
Preliminary course outline:
Block 1: Basic concepts
Session 1 - Introduction
Content/Themes:
Introduction
Organizational and administrative issues for the course
Why study civil wars?
Reading - required:
Pettersson, Therése; Öberg, Magnus (2020): Organized violence, 1989–2019. In: Journal of Peace Research 57 (4), 597–613
Session 2 - Conceptualizing civil war
Content/Themes:
What is civil war? How can we define it?
Is civil war a unique type of conflict? What are the differences and similarities with other forms of political violence?
Should we think of civil war as on a "spectrum of political violence"? If so, where does it fall?
How can we resolve the interaction between civil war and other forms of violence?
Readings - required: (required: 814-831, recommended 832-58)
Charles Tilly (1985): "War Making and State Making as Organized Crime." In Peter Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, and Theda Skocpol, eds. Bringing the State Back In. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 169-191
International Committee of the Red Cross (2008): How is the Term "Armed Conflict" Defined in International Humanitarian Law?, ICRC Opinion Paper at: https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/assets/files/other/opinion-paper-armed-conflict.pdf
Readings - optional:
Session 3 - Studying civil war
Content/Themes:
Kaldor, Mary (2012): New and old wars. 3rd ed., revised. Cambridge: Polity Press, Introduction (1-14) and Afterword (202-221)
Kalyvas, Stathis N. (2001): "New" and "Old" Civil Wars. A Valid Distinction? In: World Politics 54 (1), 99–118
What are key methodological and ethical challenges in the study of civil wars? Are some of them specific to the study of civil wars? How can they be overcome?
How can research choices and methods impact our results?
Readings - required:
Cronin-Furman, Kate, & Lake, Milli (2018): Ethics Abroad: Fieldwork in Fragile and Violent Contexts. In: PS: Political Science & Politics 51(3), 607-614
Landman, Todd; Gohdes, Anita (2013): A Matter of Convenience. Challenges of Non-Random Data in Analyzing Human Rights Violations during Conflicts in Peru and Sierra Leone In: Taylor B. Seybolt (Ed.): Counting civilian casualties. An introduction to recording and estimating nonmilitary deaths in conflict. Oxford: Oxford University Press (Studies in strategic peacebuilding), 77–92
Fazal, Tanisha M. (2014): Dead Wrong?: Battle Deaths, Military Medicine, and Exaggerated Reports of War's Demise. In: International Security 39 (1), 95–125
Readings - optional:
Weidmann, Nils B. (2016): A Closer Look at Reporting Bias in Conflict Event Data. In: American Journal of Political Science 60 (1), 206–218
Gohdes, Anita; Price, Megan (2013): First Things First. In: Journal of Conflict Resolution 57 (6), 1090–1108
Lacina, Bethany; Gleditsch, Nils Petter (2013): The Waning of War is Real. In: Journal of Conflict Resolution 57 (6), 1109–1127
Sukarieh, Mayssoun; Tannock, Stuart (2019): Subcontracting Academia: Alienation, Exploitation and Disillusionment in the UK Overseas Syrian Refugee Research Industry. In: Antipode 51 (2), 664–680
Malejacq, Romain; Mukhopadhyay, Dipali (2016): The ‘Tribal Politics’ of Field Research: A Reflection on Power and Partiality in 21st-Century Warzones. In: Perspecti
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